Page 87 of Beneath His Robes

The church came into view, the stone building dark and looming in the night, its tall spires stretching up like silent sentinels. Elias’s church, where he had spent so many years in service, was the place where he had always been my steady anchor. My refuge, even when we pushed each other away.

He pulled into the small parking lot, the engine cutting off with a quiet sputter. There was a pause before either of us moved as if we were both trying to figure out what came next.

Elias turned to me, his gaze soft, but his eyes still had an edge of uncertainty. He looked satiated, if not a little tired and somewhat boyish. His strawberry blond hair was tussled, the perfect edges sticking out in a messy bedhead look. His lips were swollen from my kisses, and his eyes were unsteady, seeming to avoid the church altogether.

“You…you want to clean up? I can get you some clothes if you need them.”

I nodded, suddenly feeling self-conscious in a way I hadn’t before. Did he want to wash me away? Something about being in his church after what had just happened, after the intimacy we’d shared, felt almost sacred. But also too exposed. I wasn’t sure where my body ended, and his fucking began anymore.

“Yeah. I’ll clean up, Elias. I don’t know what to say to you right now. But I’m here. I will help you wash up If you allow me to, or I can give you space.”

He gave me a small, understanding smile, opened his door, and stepped out into the cool air. I followed his lead, pushing the door open and stepping into the night. The silence wrapped around us like a thick fog as we walked toward the church’s entrance.

The wooden doors creaked open, revealing the dim, peaceful sanctuary inside. The smell of incense and old wood filled the air as the candles’ flames danced around the massive wooden rood tree in the center.

Inside, Elias led me to a small room in the back of the church, a private area he’d always used when he needed to be alone. The small bathroom inside was simple—just a shower, a sink, and a towel rack.

He paused in the doorway, his eyes lingering on me for a moment longer than necessary, and I caught the flicker of something in his gaze. Something tender, almost fragile. But before I could dwell on it, he nodded toward the shower.

“Why don’t we just take turns for now?” he said quietly, his voice laced with something deeper. Something I couldn’t quite understand. “Take your time.”

I nodded, accepting that he needed some space to process our sins, especially when he was forced to stare at the weight of that heavy cross in the sanctuary. I stepped inside the bathroom, closing the door softly behind me.

The shower was cool, and I let the water run over my skin, the warmth slowly sinking into my muscles, calming the tension. I couldn’t stop thinking about Elias, about everything we’d just shared. His cock, his come, his ass. Everything about the fact that we had crossed a line that felt impossible to uncross. And knowing I didn’t want to.

I just hoped that being back here inside these walls wouldn’t make him realize he made a mistake. If he left me now, I would truly shatter.

ChapterThirty

Elias

The church felt emptier than it ever had before.

I sat in the silence of the small room, my hands gripping the edge of the pew in front of me like a lifeline as if I could hold myself together alone by sheer will. The wooden walls seemed to press in, the dim light casting long shadows that stretched like ghosts, reminding me of all the moments I’d tried to bury. All the moments I’d tried to pretend didn’t happen.

But they did happen.

I could still feel the weight of Ronan’s body pressed against mine, the heat of his skin, the way he’d kissed me as if he had been waiting for it, as if I had been waiting for it, too. There was no denying that it had been real, no denying the closeness, the vulnerability we’d shared. But now, with the distance between us, now that he was showering in the next room, I felt the weight of the choices I’d made.

What have I done?

I was supposed to be a priest. A servant of God. A man of faith. But here I was, torn between the sacred and the profane, caught up in a sin that felt like it was eating me from the inside out.

I could feel the guilt curling in my stomach, a sickening knot that tightened every time I thought about it. Every time I thought about him. I didn’t want to feel this way. I made a choice. I chose to give myself to Ronan.

I had known from the moment Ronan stepped into my life that I shouldn’t have let myself get close. But I had. I had let myself love him in all the ways that mattered, in all the ways that a man of God should never love someone.

The guilt was suffocating. It was a constant hum in the back of my mind, always there, always reminding me that I had crossed a line I couldn’t uncross—a line I didn’t want to step back behind. I had taken something pure, something sacred, and turned it into something dangerous, something flawed. Something wrong.

So why did everything feel so absolutely right for the first time in my life?

I closed my eyes, pressing my hands to my face, my fingers brushing against the stubble I hadn’t shaved in days. The weight of it all…of being the priest and the man who had kissed him, who had touched him, who had allowed him to touch me…was crushing.

How could I have let this happen? How could I have allowed myself to be weak enough to give in to this temptation, to this desire I’d buried for so long? I damned him in the same breath I damned myself.

Ronan deserved better than this. He deserved someone who could be with him without the guilt, without the constant reminder of sin weighing on their shoulders.

But I hadn’t been able to stop myself.

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