Page 17 of For I Have Sinned
Over the following weeks, no matter how many times I try to tell him why I can’t keep doing this, the words don’t come. Because it feels too good. Not just sex; though sex with Zaiden is the only thing I’ve ever experienced in my life that makes me believe that there might be a heaven. But all the quiet moments too.
Our conversations. His laughter. The way he looks at me. How vulnerable he is, opening himself up and giving me everything. Everything about Zaiden Nyles threatens to undo me. To my very core, I’m tangling around him a little more every minute.
The only thing I made him promise was that he not come back to the cathedral at night. He can’t be there. Not like that. I can’t risk it.
He doesn’t. Instead, I quickly finish up whatever menial task I have to perform, say my mind washing prayer, and run away. Then I disappear inside Zaiden’s house, into his body, for days at a time, only returning when the moon is out. That way, I don’t see the disapproving faces. I don’t have to hear the voices in my head admonish me. I’m too tired to feel the dull throb in my chest and the way my stomach churns, knowing I’m fucking up everything. That I’m breaking the last promise that I ever made to the only person I loved with my entire being.
Eight
ELLSWORTH
When I’m not with Zaiden, I’m numb. Empty. I welcome it because it means I can keep losing myself in everything Zaiden. I let that easiness, the feeling of him and the way he wraps around me make me feel again.
Not a lot. I can’t afford to feel too much. But just enough. Just enough to remember that I’m alive. But when I look in the mirror, I don’t see myself. I don’t see anyone I recognize. The man’s eyes are tired with no vitality in them. His shoulders are slack. And his face is a mess of unshaven growth.
I turn away because I can’t bring myself to focus on the face that stares back at me.
If only you could see what I’ve turned into. I don’t think you’d be proud.
Blinking away the thoughts that make my chest tight, I open the bathroom door just as Zaiden steps back into the bedroom. He’s carrying a tray and warmth bleeds into me as he grins.
So happy. So full of energy and love to give. And he’s chosen me to give all that to.
Guilt rushes through me, and I have to swallow it away.
“Sit,” he tells me.
I do as he says and sit on the bed, my back against the headboard. He looks at me for a minute before changing his mind. “Scoot forward, El.”
Watching as he sets the tray on the bed beside my legs, he climbs in behind me and then pulls my back to his chest. He sighs as he wraps around me, peppering kisses all over the side of my head.
I let his touch, his affection, his clear desire for me wash away everything that I feel when I’m alone. Even when we’re only separated by a bathroom door. That’s all the time in my head without him I can stand. It’s enough to send me spiraling.
“You smell so good,” he whispers.
Grinning, I let my hands fall over the one he’s got resting on my chest. Over my heart. “It’s your body wash and shampoo,” I tell him.
“You make it smell different. I could get lost in you. Just like this.”
Sighing, I close my eyes, relaxing completely into his embrace. For a while longer, he continues to rub his nose against me, breathing me in deeply, hugging me to him as he kisses every bit of me he can reach in this position.
“Open your mouth,” he whispers.
I do, without bothering to open my eyes. A fork lands on my tongue and I close around it, taking the food he’s offering me and tasting the sweet, fluffy pancake overtake my tastebuds. I hum in appreciation for how good it is.
“Carter taught me the secret to five-star pancakes,” he says. Over the last several weeks, he’s told me more and more about his friends. I know them all by name, their occupations, where they live, how they met. All things I hadn’t learned when we hung out because that was just for fun. Not an opportunity to get to know each other.
These details were important to Zaiden, though. How he knew his friends. How important they were to him. And he wanted me to be a part of that.
Since we started sleeping together, I haven’t seen his friends. It’s just been the two of us sneaking around. Mostly, I come here. But in a few weak moments over the last week, I’ve had Zaiden in my room.
There’s something about having him in my bed. Forcing him to be quiet as I stuff him full of my cock.
I shouldn’t feel this way. Or do this at all, never mind in the fucking cathedral. I don’t know why I do. But I can already anticipate when I’m in that mood because I ask him to come. Once, I kept him well into the morning where I fucked him mindless and numb on my bed while mass was happening in the sanctuary. If it wasn’t for the volume of the organ and the fact that every priest and other member of the Church was in mass, we’d have been caught. Zaiden wasn’t quiet, and I didn’t try to muffle him.
It was self-destructive. I snuck him out shortly after. After cleaning him (which consisted of me licking his cum off of him) and making sure he didn’t leave a trail of my cum on his way out, I let the numbness settle inside me.
Numbing away the guilt. The fear. The pain.
