Page 28 of Priest (Priest 1)
“Anyway,” she continued in a small voice, “I’m sorry for lashing out at you this afternoon. And I’m also sorry for what happened last Monday. I took advantage of you. I have all this shit in my life and I inflicted it upon you because you were here and you were kind.”
I leaned forward, trying to summon the strength to say what needed to be said. “I’m glad that you came here and that you’re sorry—not that you should be sorry, because the blame of what happened after your last confession rests squarely on my shoulders. But I’m glad because it means that you understand why it can’t happen again. I have a vow to uphold, to honor God by honoring his children, his lambs. You came to me for help and instead I—” I stopped, unable to utter the words. But the heat rushed to my groin anyway, as words from that one afternoon shot through my mind like bullets through ballistic gel. Cunt. Clit. Cock. Come. I didn’t need to look to know that my sweatpants were dangerously close to revealing these thoughts.
“—I took advantage of you,” I finished instead.
She pressed her lips together. “You did not take advantage of me. Yes, I’ve got some shit going on in my life right now, but I am my own person, capable of making my own choices. I’m not damaged, I didn’t grow up unloved. I’m not a blank slate for males to exert their agency on. I chose to sleep with Sterling. I chose to let you go down on me. I wanted those things, and you don’t get to tell me that I didn’t. You don’t get to tell me that I was nothing more than an unwilling bystander.”
She stood, the red in her cheeks not just from the fire. “Don’t worry. I won’t bother you with my body again. I’ll respect your vow and your outdated chivalry along with it.”
That stung. That stung like hell, actually, because I had just been trying to summon up all of my postmodern, feminist ally thoughts, trying to squash down the part of my brain that fantasized about making her crawl naked across my floor with a cup of single-malt balanced on her back.
And that’s why—I think—I grabbed her arm and tugged her between my legs. She gasped, but she didn’t pull away. I was at the perfect height to sit up and suck on her nipple through her shirt, which I did. Her hands laced through my hair as she moaned.
“I thought—you just said—” She writhed as I bit gently down and then resumed my sucking.
“You’re right,” I said, pulling back. “I shouldn’t do this.”
Her face fell ever so slightly, but she nodded, pulling away, and then I grabbed her hips and tugged her down so that she straddled my thigh, her pussy immediately starting to grind against me in an adorably needy way.
“I shouldn’t put you over my lap and spank your ass for being a brazen l
ittle slut and coming here without a bra,” I growled in her ear. “I shouldn’t twist ropes around your wrists and ankles until your cunt is exposed and then screw you until you can’t walk anymore. I shouldn’t flip you over and fuck your ass until your eyes water. I shouldn’t drive you down to the strip club and fuck you in the back room, so that you’ll forget all about Sterling and the only name you’ll remember to say is mine.” I lightly bit her nipple again. “Or God’s.”
I tucked two fingers into the waistband of her shorts and pulled down, the elastic stretching and giving me a peek at what I had already suspected. There was the smooth rise of her pubic bone, her clit visible as a tiny, soft bud of flesh, a bud just begging to be touched.
“Why did you come here tonight, Poppy?” I asked as I palmed her breast, quietly groaning at the feeling of its unsupported weight in my hand. I kept my other hand where it was, still staring at her bare cunt. “Did you really come to say sorry? Or did you come here, in the middle of the night, without a bra or panties, to tempt me? That’s a sin, you know. Willfully leading another person into wrongful action or thought. No, don’t pull away now.”
She had started to twist away, and I knew I was sending signals so mixed that they were beyond confusing, they were blended, incomprehensible, but then I murmured, “One more. Give me one more.”
One more what? I wondered even as I spoke. One more orgasm? For her? For me? One more chance? One more glimpse, one more taste, one more minute to pretend that there was nothing in the way of us being together?
And then I blanched. That was a stupid way to phrase it—being together—as if my attraction to Poppy Danforth was more than three years of celibacy encountering the sexiest woman I’d ever met. As if there was some secret part of me that wanted to do more than fuck her, it wanted to take her to dinner and make her breakfast and fall asleep with her in my arms.
She was staring at me the whole time I thought this, staring with hungry hazel eyes and a hungry mouth and those tits so perky and soft under her shirt.
“Tonight,” I told her. “We have this. Then no more.”
She nodded, then swallowed, as if her mouth were dry. I watched her throat move.
“Get on your knees,” I said hoarsely.
She scrambled to obey, kneeling in between my legs and peering up at me through the long, dark lashes that haunted my waking thoughts.
“Take your shirt off.”
She pulled the cotton shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor, and I had to fist my hands in my sweatpants to keep from tackling her and screwing her brains out, because holy fuck, were those breasts perfect. Cream-pale with dark pink nipples, small enough to cover with a fingertip, but large enough that I’d be able to draw them easily into my mouth. I wanted to see my cock slide between those tits, I wanted to jet my climax all over them, I wanted to feel them pressed against my chest while I stretched my body on top of hers.
But there would be no end to the things I wanted to do to this little lamb, no matter how many times or how many ways I had her. She was creating this insatiable pit in me, a yawning chasm of need, and even in my haze, I could see how destructive that would be if I didn’t stop it.
And the stopping would happen soon…just not right now.
I lowered the waistband of my own pants just enough to free my dick, leaving my shirt on as well. I liked being dressed when I fucked, I always had; there was no bigger turn on than having a naked woman climbing all over you, purring at your feet and squealing in your lap, all while you were fully dressed. (And yes, I recognize that’s also fucked up in terms of feminism and all that. I’m sorry.)
Poppy squirmed now, her hand drifting to the thin fabric between her legs, caressing herself.
“You left a wet spot on my leg, lamb,” I said, glancing down to my thigh, where her arousal had soaked through the fabric of her shorts and my pants. “Do you want something?”
“I want to come,” she whispered.
