Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
“I could say the same to you,” he says, reaching out to cup my face, the coolness of the rosary beads pressing to my jawline, cheek, and I can’t help leaning into his hold. Absorbing his touch like a flower soaking up the rain. “You are a decade younger than me, sweetheart. Eighteen. You will not blame yourself when I’m the one who should know better. Be better.”
“But, I…”
His thumb slips into the corner of my mouth, sending a shock wave of shivers down my calves to my toes. “You what?”
“I liked being corrupted. I didn’t want it to end.” I turn my face slightly, looking him in the eye while razing the pad of his thumb with my teeth. “I’m a whore, Father.”
“No, you are not,” he says choppily, obviously trying to focus, but distracted by my lips. How they kiss his thumb, allowing it to dip into my mouth and fish around. “You are magnificent. I will hear no contradictions.”
“But I like being that to you,” I whisper, pressing my knees together. “A little whore. Only for you.”
His green eyes are eclipsed by black.
He surges close and we moan against one another’s mouth. “Farrah…”
“What?” When he hesitates, I lift my hand and stroke the morning stubble of his face. “You can tell me anything.”
“I…the way I am with you…controlled by hunger. It’s everything I swore I would never be. I crave this…intoxicated feeling of being your lover and letting the lust run rampant, but I can’t help but be ashamed of it, too.”
In other words, I’m his ruin.
His downfall.
In my absence, he’d be strong. The man he needs to be.
“We shouldn’t be seen like this,” I whisper, pulling away.
Just as quickly, he draws my face back, mashing our foreheads together, and I want to crawl into his lap so badly and hear the word “lover” again in his deep, deep voice, that my chest throbs like an open wound. “I will not have you thinking badly about yourself because you are my one and only temptation, Farrah. You can’t control it. You can’t control how I respond to you.”
I stay silent, because he’s wrong and I don’t want to argue.
I want him to soothe me. I’ve been raw since last night. Restless. And it’s hard to put my finger on why. I’m caged and irritable and sad.
“I can see you disagree.” Of course, this man reads me like a book and yet, I can’t have him. Must live without him and his astuteness where I’m concerned. “Walk with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I gasp, tasting his breath.
Pushing him away, when I really, really want to get closer.
“There’s a disquiet in you this morning,” he observes—and I go still, wanting him to assess me. “It’s more than your fears and self-doubt making you this way.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t…I can’t explain. I just know I need to bring you somewhere and hold you for a while.” Before I can guess his intentions, he’s scooping me off the bench into his arms and carrying me into the woods that border the church grounds.
I have no explanation for my eyes welling with tears twice in one morning. I’m not a crier. But he must have peeled back a layer of emotion I can’t define, because the imminence of being held is making me almost light and lethargic at the same time. I press my face into his shoulder and pout with no explanation, except that I’m happy with him and mad at him. Concurrently. What is happening to me?
We stop beneath a canopy of trees and Rune settles me on my feet, pulling me into the warm circle of his arms, rubbing circles onto my lower back. It feels divine and I want to stand there all day, but when he lifts me off the ground and rubs his mouth back and forth against my temple, I begin my lesson on the meaning of contentment.
Oh. I see.
It’s praise. For me…it’s praise.
“You deserved to be held last night after taking all that come for me,” he breathes. “I’ve never had my cock sucked before, Farrah, so how do I know your mouth is the sweetest one this side of heaven? I just know. I felt every pull of your mouth in my balls. I’ve never emptied so much at once. Your lips are like fucking elastic, sweetheart, and that throat?” His hand closes around the part of my body in questions. Squeezing. Massaging. Staring at it, mesmerized. “If I was a man of the world, instead of a man of God, I would find a way to wrap it in diamonds. Feel the shape of them when you allow me deep, you sweet little thing.” He chants so sweet, so sweet into my hair and I’ve melted.
He cradles me, rocks me, but he’s far from done.