Page 84 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

A thousand wings beat against my eardrums. The swarm engulfs me, choking the air from my lungs. I stumble toward the shoreline, swatting mindlessly. Through the shifting gaps in the black seething mass, two small hands windmill above the churning foam.

A sharp, piercing sting bites into the side of my neck. I slap the flesh, and wet, oily sludge smears across my palm, but the sting shatters the haze.

I can see clearly now. The sea roars, loud and absolute. Those flailing hands refuse to wave. The dark water drags her down.

Maria is drowning.

Heart leaping into my throat, I plunge into the churning water. Salt burns my eyes, making it hard to see, but I kick like a madman, clawing through the violent swell to reach her.

When I get there, it’s all wrong. This is the same dream I’ve always had, but this time it’s mixed in with the memory of that day at the beach. All my life, the memory of her drowning haunts me, and she always wears her Sunday white dress. She thrashes about in a damp swimsuit. There’s no pink silk ribbon in her brown hair. But she is blond . . . isn’t she? What’s even stranger is that no rosary beads are hanging around her neck.

I am dreaming, but I reach for her nonetheless. I always reach for her. My fingers only graze her hand, and the ocean rips her away.

The next thing I know, I’m back on the burning sand, hacking salt water from my lungs. A crowd gathers around me. Their faces are all warped masks of pity and horror.

“A rip current,” a stranger says. “We watched her go under . . . she didn’t come up.”

Twenty-Eight

Cisco

Something brushes my face, and I jolt awake, sucking air into my lungs in ragged, desperate gasps.

My bedroom window frames the pre-dawn Roman sky, clear of clouds. White sheer curtains billow, snapping like sails in the balmy wind. That must have been what brushed against my face. A solitary fly buzzes near my ear, and I swat it away with a shudder, remembering my nightmare. It zooms outside through the window.

In one quick stride, I’m there pulling the hinged windows closed and locking the latch.

I collapse onto the bed and bury my face in my trembling hands. The phantom swarm still vibrates against my eardrums.

Mercy.

Pulse spiking, I twist around and frantically sweep the sheet with my hand. My fingers collide instantly with a soft, warm body. She lies on her side, facing away, completely safe. I look up at my reflection behind her in the closet’s mirrored door and hate the fear in my eyes.

I feel like a different man than I was before last night. And then Mercy happened, and now she is everything. If I lost her—the shadows pulse in my veins, eager to deploy. They’re hungry, but not for the woman sleeping beside me. Even though she has the standard amount of sin I sense in most everyday people, the curse doesn’t want her. It’s almost . . . repelled by her.

I ease down behind her and gingerly trace my knuckles over the swell of her hip, down the dip of her small waist, and then up her arm until I settle on her freckled shoulder. When I lower my lips there, the frantic buzzing in my head fades to a dull drone, and my hunger for her grows, still unsated after everything we did last night.

We woke an hour after falling asleep, both needy for more. We fucked in the shower. The memory of it is fresh in my mind, slippery and sudsy, stirring my cock.

Unable to stop myself, I tuck myself flush against her spine, grind my erection between her buttocks, then stop with a frown. She needs food, water, and time to recuperate.

She stirs, a soft murmur vibrating in her throat.

“Go to sleep, piccola,” I whisper, pressing my lips to the warm pulse point beneath her ear. “It is just me.”

Her breathing evens out.

I should pull away. I should leave her in peace. But I need her heat. It’s so hard to resist. I need to bury myself so deep inside her that the ghosts can never find me.

God help me, I want to invade her so completely, and her peace is all around me.

But dawn is almost here. Paolo could arrive today, and we don’t have enough information about his whereabouts or who remains loyal to him. I must also update my team . . . and call the Pope.

With a heavy sigh, I pull away from Mercy and dress into the only clothes I brought with me—my clericals. I am technically still a priest until the Church officially laicizes me. Or maybe the police will come to take me back to Blackfriar.

Still, since I’ve heard nothing about what I did at the Vatican, I won’t know.

I dress in my black shirt and trousers, but leave the white Roman collar on the dressing table. Even if Mercy hadn’t ruined it with her teeth last night, even if I’m devoted to her now, I still can’t bring myself to throw it away.