Page 71 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

“So, show me.”

My lips curve. “If I did, you’d be dead.”

“Another convenient excuse.” She arches her brow. “Can anyone else corroborate your claims?”

I hesitate. “No.”

“Not even the Vatican? Your friends?”

A sick feeling churns in my gut. “They know pieces. So does my team. No one has witnessed it. They only know about the dead bodies I leave behind, and that I am the only one left standing.”

Mercy doesn’t speak for a long time. Just sits there, the length of her body vibrating with something I can’t name. There’s pain, I think. Empathy, maybe. Or maybe it’s just the edges of a wound that matches my own. I hope.

Dio, this is a sick thing to hope for. But the more I turn it over in my mind, the more I ache for it. I don’t want to walk through life without ever being seen by another person. Seen and accepted. To belong.

Finally, she closes the long gap and sits close enough for me to feel the heat of her body, yet far enough that a cavern has opened between us.

“Why tell me this?” she murmurs. “Why now?”

I stare at the wall ahead until a breeze touches my cheek, reminding me that the window is still open … and I only hear birds tweeting in the wilderness. No buzzing. I close my eyes and sigh, but it feels like my entire body sighs too.

“Because you know what it’s like. To have a hole inside. To want something that can’t be named. When I’m in the same room as you, it’s—” My throat catches. How can I explain the way I hunger for her, yet the moment we’re together, it’s a different kind? “It’s … peace. Or something close. I don’t remember the last time I felt that, and…” My face twists with the familiar effort to keep it in. But I’m tired, so I look her dead in the eyes and confess, “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

She blinks, shocked. Then a strange softness creeps in, like she’s not sure how to wear it. In that moment, I think my heart bleeds.

Coppery red hair curtains Mercy’s face as she glances down and picks up the blue vibrator from the bed. She rolls the long, veined length between her fingers.

“That first night,” she says, “in the confessional—you said you understood what it’s like to have your body screaming for something you deny. But you weren’t talking about sex, were you?”

I force a laugh. “Dio, I miss sex too. But no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

“The curse is worse than that,” I admit. “It is a gnawing, aching hole in my bones. At least you can take care of sex. This … this is never done.”

Unless I’m with her.

I rest my rosary-wrapped hand between us. She picks at the fabric covering her thigh.

We sit. The quiet is wild. Normally, this is where the curse flares, filling me with hunger, envy, the drive to break her and to be broken. But it’s silent. Completely fucking silent except for the birds.

Mercy is close enough to touch.

Her hand slides across the sheets toward me, then stops a breath away, pinkie finger out.

My rosary-wrapped hand mirrors hers, moving, inching closer, pinkie finger out. The space between us shrinks. There’s a second—maybe forever—where nothing exists except the need to close that gap.

Tawny bursts in, tray in hand. She stops dead. Cupcakes, mugs of cocoa with pink marshmallows, wobble in her grip.

We pull apart so fast that my spine cracks.

“I said don’t worry about the cupcakes,” Mercy snaps, bolting to her feet.

“No, you didn’t.” Tawny presses her lips together. “You said bring the cupcakes. Bring extra.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” She flares her eyes wide. “You said, and I quote, ‘the priest is very hungry.’”