Priest (5 page)

“Well,” she said, shifting in her chair. “I did a lot. The thing was that I was able to find tons of work on my own, work using my MBA, but how could I be sure that it wasn’t my scores of fancy internships and my expensive degree they wanted and not to have a Danforth working in their office? After six months in a New York office, feeling like DANFORTH was tattooed across my forehead, I left, as abruptly as I’d left New Hampshire, and I drove until I didn’t want to drive any more. Which was how I ended up in Kansas City.”

She took a breath. I waited.

“I never meant to end up at the club,” she finally said, her voice going low. “I thought maybe I’d find a small nonprofit to work at or maybe I’d do something prosaic, like waiting tables. But I heard from a bartender that there was a club hidden somewhere in this city—private, exclusive, discreet. And they were looking for girls. Girls who looked expensive.”

“Girls like you?”

Poppy wasn’t offended. She laughed that throaty laugh again, the laugh that kindled a low heat in my belly every time I heard it. “Yes, girls like me. WASP-y girls. The kind that rich people like. And you know what? It was perfect. I got to dance—I hadn’t danced anywhere other than a gala for so long. It was, all told, a fairly classy place. A mandatory $500 coat check. $750 for a table, $1000 for a private dance. No patron-initiated touching. A two-drink maximum. It catered to a very specific clientele, and so I found myself stripping for the same men who would have employed me, married me, donated to my pet charities, in another life. I loved it.”

“You loved it?”

Filthy girl.

The thought came out of nowhere, unbidden but refusing to leave, whispering itself over and over again in my mind.
Dirty, filthy girl.

She turned those hazel eyes back to me. “Is that wrong? Is that a sin? No, don’t answer, I don’t really want to know.”

“Why did you like it?” I was asking merely out of a counselor’s curiosity, of course. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Why would I mind? I offered to tell you, after all.” She adjusted herself, the shorts exposing more of those firm legs. Dancer’s legs, I now knew. “I liked how it felt. Having men watch me with hooded eyes, wanting me and only me—not my education or my pedigree or my family’s connections. But even more than that, on this raw, primal level, I loved the way the men responded to my body. I loved that I made them hard.”

I loved that I made them hard.

I nearly choked, my mind fracturing into twin minds—one determined to see this meeting through with grace and compassion and the other determined to let her know how hard she made
me
.

She was oblivious to my internal struggle. “I loved that they would become almost wild with the need to touch me, so wild that they would offer me astounding sums of money to come home with them, to leave the club and become their mistress. But I never accepted. Even though many of them were handsome, even though I wasn’t in a place where I could pretend money was no object. But something about it was antithetical to my very nature, and I couldn’t imagine accepting any of those offers. Isn’t that a ridiculous notion? A stripper insisting on preserving her virtue?”

She didn’t seem to expect an answer and kept going. “The sad thing was that I was actually starved for sex while I was turning down all these offers. I’m sure you know the feeling, Father, like the slightest breeze is enough to send you over the edge, like your skin itself is combustible.”

God, did I know that feeling. I was feeling it right now. I offered her a weak smile, which she returned.

“I was so combustible, Father Bell. I would get wet watching the men stroking themselves through their custom-tailored trousers. In the private rooms, I’d pull my thong to the side and let them watch as I brought myself off. They liked that, they liked it when I teased myself and rubbed myself and rode my hand until I shuddered and sighed.”

I realized my hands were gripping the arms of the chair very hard now, and I tried to flush out all the images her words were conjuring, but I couldn’t and she continued on, oblivious to my sudden discomfort, innocently secure in the mistaken notion that I was simply an input for information, an output for advice, and not a twenty-nine-year-old man.

“But it wasn’t the same, getting myself off,” she said. “I wanted to be
fucked
, fucked and used. I wanted to be filled with someone’s dick, I wanted to have fingers in my mouth and in my cunt. In my ass.” She took a breath.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t breathe.

“What’s that sin called? I know it has to be one. Is it just lust…or is it something worse? What kind of prayer should I pray for that one? And what if I don’t feel bad about what I’ve done, the things I wanted to do? Even now, even after what happened last month, I still want it. I still feel lonely, I still want to be fucked. Which is confusing as hell because I have no idea about anything else I want out of my life.”

Despite everything, I still wanted to respond to her last sentence, the ultimate motivation for her being here in this office. I wanted to take her hand and give her soft intimations of wisdom, but fuck, nothing about me was soft right now.

Her words.

Her fucking words.

It had been bad enough listening to her talk about working at that club, but then when she’d described touching herself, coaxing her pussy into orgasm, and I had imagined myself as one of those hungry businessman watching it, offering everything in my wallet just to see that glistening cunt pulse with pleasure. I bet I could see it now if I wanted. I could stand her against the wall and yank down those shorts, kick her legs open so that she would be exposed to me…

There was no earthly way I could last another minute in this meeting.

God must have heard my unspoken prayer because her phone chimed then, a businesslike little tone, and she fished it out of her bag. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed as she answered the call.

I indicated that it was okay, trying to solve the bigger problem of how to stand up without revealing what her words had done to me.

She ended the call quickly. “I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “Some work stuff has come up and—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I have a parish meeting coming up soon anyway.” That was a lie. The only meeting that was about to happen was between my hand and my dick. But probably not good form to tell a hopeful convert that. (I made a mental note to ask forgiveness for that lie as well as what I was about to do.)

“I, ah, I hope to see you soon though.”

She gave me a gorgeous smile as she stood and grabbed her bag. “Me too. Bye, Father.”

I couldn’t even wait until I was sure she was out of the church. As soon as Poppy left, I got up and locked the door, taking the time only to move over to my desk so I could brace one hand on the surface as I fumbled with my belt.

There wasn’t time to feel guilty or question my motives or for anything remotely resembling thought. I didn’t even pull my slacks down any farther than it took to free my dick, and then I was jacking myself hard and fast, nothing in my mind but release.

I tried to think of someone else—anyone else—other than the woman who had come to me seeking God’s forgiveness and reassurance. But my mind kept wandering back to her, imagining her at the club, but moving for me and only for me, pulling her thong aside to show me the thing I most wanted.

Christ help me.

I felt it building, taut electricity in my pelvis, and I was thrusting into my hand now, wishing I was fucking Poppy Danforth—her mouth or her cunt or her ass, I didn’t care—and then I shot all over my desk, pulsing and spurting and imagining that each and every drop of myself was being spilled onto her white skin.

My hand stilled and my breathing slowed and reality came crashing back down. Here I was, dick in hand, cum all over my liturgical desk calendar, and a picture of St. Augustine looking at me reproachfully from the wall.

Shit.

Shit.

Numb, I zipped up my jeans and tore off the top sheet of the calendar and threw it away, the crinkling of the thick paper loud and almost accusatory, and fuck, what the hell had I done?

I sat in the chair and stared at St. Augustine.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what it’s like,” I mumbled. I braced my elbows on the desk and ground the heels of my palms into my eyes.

Poppy Danforth was not going to go away. She lived here. She was going to come back, and I had no doubt that we’d only scratched the surface of her “carnal” confessions. And I would have to listen to it without getting aroused like a teenage boy. More than listen, I would have to respond with grace and empathy and compassion when all I would be able to think about was that mouth with those slightly imperfect teeth.

Stars were now dancing behind my eyelids but I didn’t move my hands. I didn’t want to see this office right now or St. Augustine. I didn’t want to see the newly ragged edges of my calendar or my newly filled wastebasket.

I wanted to pray in complete darkness. I wanted nothing in between my thoughts and God, in between this woman and my vocation. I wanted everything but my sin and these starbursts in my eyes stripped away.

I’m sorry
, I prayed.
I’m so sorry.

I was sorry that I’d betrayed the trust of one of God’s flock. I was sorry that I’d betrayed the holiness of this place and this vocation by lusting after someone seeking solace and guidance. I was sorry that I hadn’t even controlled my desire long enough to step into a cold shower or go for a run or any of the other tricks I’d learned over the past three years to stifle my urges.

Mostly…

Mostly, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry.

Dammit, I wasn’t sorry at all.

“And here I thought priests only drank communion wine.”

My head snapped up to see Poppy standing in front of my table. I was at the little coffee shop across the street from the church, trying to make sense of the renovation budget and failing, basically accomplishing nothing except for checking
The Walking Dead
forums and putting a major dent in the shop’s coffee supply.

I wanted to think of a witty reply to Poppy’s greeting, but she was wearing another dress—a cream vintage affair with three-quarter sleeves and a skirt that brushed the middle of her thighs—and while it wasn’t revealing or especially clingy, it did nothing to hide the perfect nip of her waist or the soft swells of her breasts. She was close enough that I could reach out and take her hips in my hands and pull her to me; close enough that I could grab her and ruck up her skirt and then bury my face in the heaven she kept under there.

(Plus there was the distracting fact that the last time I saw her, I’d ended up jizzing all over my desk.)

Luckily, she took the chair opposite me before I lost all control and broke my vows in front of everyone in the coffee shop.

“What are you working on?” she asked, nodding at the laptop.

I breathed a silent
thank you
to God that she hadn’t noticed—or at least was willing to overlook—my lack of reply, and then another
thank you
for the very safe topic of budget spreadsheets.

“We are working to raise money to renovate the church,” I told her. “And we’ve already had a few bids put in for the job, it’s just a matter of allocating the funds in the right places, after we meet our initial goal.”

“May I take a look?” she asked, canting her head toward the screen.

Before I’d even nodded, she’d already slid the laptop over to her side of the table and was scrolling through my sheets. A small smile creased the corners of her red mouth, making her look sexy and knowing and mischievous all at the same time.

“What did you go to school for, Father Bell?” she asked, still scrolling, pausing to click every few seconds.

“Before my mDiv? Classical languages.
Si vis amari, ama.
”

“I’m guessing they didn’t teach you a lot about spreadsheet formulas in Latin class.”

“I was usually busy in the other kind of sheets.” I’d meant it as a lighthearted quip, but it came out lower than I’d intended, more intense. It came out like a warning.

No. It came out like a
promise
.

Her hazel eyes flashed up to mine, and she drew in a breath when she saw my face.

Fuck, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I keep any interaction with her normal and well away from implications of sex? “You were saying about the formulas?”

“Um, right.” Her eyes flicked back to the screen, and she swallowed. Her smooth throat moved with the motion, and I wanted that throat arched up in offering to me.

I wanted that whole body arched up in offering to me.

“Doesn’t the church have real book-keeping software?” she asked, stopping to fix a row of data that I’d accidentally cloned.

“Yes, our office manager does, but I don’t know how to use it.”

“So you can quote Seneca but you can’t use Quicken.”

“You knew that was Seneca?” I smiled despite myself. I didn’t meet very many people who even knew who Seneca was, much less who were able to recognize a quote from one of his letters.

“My parents paid a lot of money when I was a girl to make sure I knew all sorts of useless things.”

“You think it’s useless?
Non scholae sed vitae.
‘We learn not for school, but for life.’”

“But
si vis amari, ama
? ‘If you wish to be loved, love?’ I tried that once. It didn’t work out so well.” Her voice was bitter.

I put my hand on her wrist. It was pure instinct, to comfort someone who was hurting, but I hadn’t counted on the heat rippling up from her hand, on the way that my touch would send goose bumps crawling up her arm. I hadn’t counted on how perfect her delicate wrist would feel with my fingers wrapped around it, as if God had made it for the sole purpose of me holding.

I should let go. I should apologize.

But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Maybe you loved the wrong person.”

Because who wouldn’t love this gorgeous creature? This over-educated, over-sexed woman who oozed intelligence and sensuality? This woman of white skin and red lips and a brain built for running financial empires?

She met my gaze again. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered.

We stayed like that a moment, our eyes locked, my hand gripping her wrist, and then—
may I be forgiven
—I slowly ran a thumb along the underside of her wrist, a motion that nobody could see, but that she definitely felt because she took in a shuddering breath.

Fuck, she was so smooth, her skin so silky. I wanted to kiss that part of her wrist, press my lips against her pulse point, right before I tied a rope around it. In fact, I got as far as lifting her wrist off the table before the hissing of the espresso machine brought me back to my senses.

What the fuck was I doing?

I let go of her hand and shut the laptop closed, standing abruptly. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“You’re a spiritual advisor,” she said, peering up at me. “Isn’t everything your business?”

I was too busy pushing my stuff into my laptop bag to answer, desperate to leave, trying to convince myself that it was okay, it was
fine
, I had just comforted her, I had basically done nothing more than hold her hand, which I wouldn’t think twice about doing with any other parishioner.

It was
fine
.

But when I turned around, Poppy was standing next to me with her own bag all packed up. “Can I walk with you back to the church?” she asked. “My house is on the same block.”

Of course it was.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded normal and not like a priest trying to fight an erection in public. “No problem.”

We stepped out into the heavy May heat, crossing the street. The silence between us felt odd, laden with whatever strange moment had just happened, and so I spoke, trying to stave off the fantasies that continued to crowd at the edge of my mind.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Not long,” she said. “I just closed on the house two weeks ago, actually. Once the owner of the club I worked at found out I had an MBA and a lot of experience, he asked me to come on board as a marketing and financial consultant, which I could do remotely and which pays—well, it pays a lot. And then last month, when
he
found me…”

Her voice broke and she squinted at the sidewalk, as if examining something. I wasn’t sure exactly what had upset her, but I gave her a moment to collect herself.

We walked several feet before she continued. “So now I make good money, working for a nice guy, and I have the freedom of starting over in a sweet little town. It’s what I had wanted before Sterling came to the club.”

Sterling. I recognized that name from our conversation about her past, and damn it all if it didn’t trigger a ridiculous spike of jealousy, as if there were any universe in which I’d be allowed to feel possessive of Poppy Danforth.

We reached the church.

“It was nice to run into you, Father,” she said with another one of those small smiles, making as if to keep walking.

“Which one is your house?” I was stalling. I knew I was, but I couldn’t help it. I needed just one more glimpse of those red lips, one more word in that breathy voice.

“That one.” She pointed to a house across the park, a snug bungalow with a large tree in the front yard and an overgrown garden in back. I would be able to see it from the rectory. I would be able to see if her lights were on, if her car was in the driveway, if she was moving through her kitchen early in the morning making her coffee.

That didn’t seem like it would be a very healthy opportunity for me to have.

“Well, if you need any help moving furniture around or anything…”

Shit. Why did I offer that? As if being alone with her, in her house, was a great thing for me to do.

But then her face lit up and my stomach constricted at the sight. Because she was beautiful all the time, but happy? Happy, she was fucking
radiant
.

“That would be amazing,” she said. “I don’t know anybody here and my friends in the city are all so far away…yes, I will definitely let you know if I need help.”

“Okay,” I said, still captivated by her smile and her suddenly lively eyes. “Any time.”

She leaned forward, pushing up on her toes, and I had no idea what she was doing until I felt her soft lips press against my cheek. I froze, every detail, every sensation etching itself into my soul, imprinting itself while she imprinted my skin with her crimson lipstick.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her words and her breath near my ear, and then she bit her lip and turned away, walking towards her house.

And I went inside the rectory for another twenty-minute cold shower.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t both dreading and looking forward to Monday’s confession hours with equal measure. I’d spent Mass on Sunday searching the pews for Poppy, and when I didn’t see her, a brief balloon of hope and despair had risen in my mind. Maybe she was gone, maybe her brief flirtation with religion had flamed out, and maybe this un-winnable test of my self-control was over.

Maybe she was done with me, I would think, and the balloon would fill with relief.

Maybe she was done with me, I would think again, and this time the balloon held only pain.

And so when Rowan finally left the booth that Monday and someone else slipped inside, the balloon burst with a vengeance, and my pulse began to race (with trepidation or arousal, I didn’t know.)

“Father Bell?” a low voice asked.

“Hello, Poppy,” I said, trying to pretend that her voice didn’t go straight to my dick.

She let out a laugh, small and relieved, and the sound conjured up her smile from Friday, the way she’d beamed at me when I’d offered to help her settle into her house.

“I don’t know what I expected. It’s just—it feels too good to be true sometimes. I left Kansas City looking for a new start, some meaning in my pointless life, and then here’s this unbelievably handsome priest, practically in my backyard, willing to listen to all of my problems.”

“It’s my job,” I said gruffly, trying to ignore the boyish jolt of happiness that came when she called me handsome. “I’m here for everyone.”

“Yes, I know. But right now, ‘everyone’ includes me and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

Tell her you can’t do it
, my conscience demanded, thinking of the other day in my office.
Help her find someone else—anyone else—to confess to.

Yes. I should do that. Because she was making it clear that she trusted me, all while I was betraying that trust over and over again in my mind. (In lots of different positions. On every surface in my house.)

But just as I’d resolved to bite the proverbial bullet and tell her how it had to be, she said, “Are you ready?” and then no other words came to mind except:

“Yes.”

Poppy

Things went on like that for about a year and half. Between helping Mark with the business end of things and the dancing, I was making almost as much money as I would have at one of those offices in New York. I loved that I got to dance,
loved
it. Even if it wasn’t ballet or jazz, it was still my body and rhythm and music. And I loved how much sex there was in the job—even if no one was
having
sex there, it still hung everywhere, this fog of desire, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

But I was lonely. The men at the club kept begging to take me home, offering way more than one night stands, offering penthouses and yachts and stipends, but I refused to be a mistress. I may love sex, but I also have a mind and a soul. I want to have a husband one day and kids and grandkids and the whole thing…I couldn’t bear to have any substitute for it, no matter how good it might make me feel temporarily.