Page 15 of Sinner (Priest 2)
The smile turns into a laugh. “Then I take temporary vows. If I still want to take permanent vows after three years, then I’ll be a full sister of the order.”
“Jesus Christ.”
She laughs again. “Well, yes. He is kind of the point.”
I give a not-so-discreet glance around the sad waiting room, circling back to the young, interesting woman in the window in front of me. Even in her plain postulant’s jumper, even with the white headband holding her curls away from her face, she’s stunning. In fact, something about the starkness of the setting, the starkness of her clothes, makes her even more beautiful than she was last night. My dick gives an insistent throb, reminding me that I never got a chance to kiss her, reminding me that I never got a chance to sling her leg over my shoulder and taste her.
And you’ll never get to now, Bell. She’s a fucking nun.
“Why?” I ask, trying to understand. Because why would anyone choose this? Old plastic chairs and boring routines and a life without sex? A life without sex, and for what? For the dubious pleasure of getting to wear a gabardine jumper? “You could do anything you wanted. You’re so young, Mary. You’re smart. You’re in school. Why would you throw all that away?”
Her flickering smile is snuffed out like a candle. She looks away. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.”
“Damn right, I don’t understand,” I say, beginning to feel genuinely irritated.
No, not irritated.
Upset.
I’m upset that I met this girl, that I want her, that I want to kiss her and I want to fuck her and I want to dance with her again, and I can’t do any of those things because she wants to offer up her life to a nonexistent deity. I mean, it’s obviously not about me and it’s obviously none of my business, but still.
“I should have known,” she mutters. “You were like this when Tyler became a priest too.”
Tyler.
My brother.
The words drip through my mind with slow, chilling realization.
“How do you…?”
But even as I say the words, even as she tilts her head impatiently, and even as the sun shifts behind the clouds and throws her face into a new relief of light and shadow and I see the echoes of Elijah’s cheekbones and eyes and forehead—even as all this happens, I know.
Fuck me.
“Zenny?” I ask. And then again, because it still doesn’t seem real. “Zenny?”
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to, because I can see it now. Not just her similarity to Elijah, but her similarity to the little girl I used to know. But shit, she’s no little girl now. Fourteen years is apparently a long fucking time, which is something I know intellectually, of course, but seeing the evidence of it like this is disorienting. Unreal.
Zenny is a woman. A woman I wanted to fuck last night.
Little Zenny! And I almost kissed her, I almost—
Oh God. I clap a hand over my mouth as the real impact of it all sifts through my thoughts.
“Elijah is going to kill me,” I mumble through my fingers. “Oh my God. He’s going to kill me.”
I see the tiniest flash of amusement in her gaze before it goes serious again. “It’s fine, Sean. Nothing happened anyway.”
“Nothing happened? Jesus, Zenny, I just about kissed you! I had no idea—” I turn away from the window for a moment and then turn back. “Why didn’t you say anything? You obviously knew who I was—why didn’t you tell me it was you?”
“You didn’t recognize me,” she replies calmly. There’s something challenging in her eyes when she looks up at me. Or maybe it’s not challenging—maybe it’s…hurt? But that’s ridiculous. Why would she be hurt that I didn’t recognize her after fourteen years? “And I didn’t see any reason to tell you. Especially in light of what’s going on with the building.”
“But you still wanted me to kiss you,” I point out (and yes, I say it to be a dick). “Even though I’m the big, bad wolf trying to take your building away.”
Her eyes flash again, but this time not with amusement. She walks away from the window, and next to me, I hear a door open. She stands in the threshold, looking more sweetly glamorous than any girl has any right to be, and she’s gesturing me inside. “Shall we get started?”
“No! Zenny, you owe me more than that, for fuck’s sake.”
