“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.
But the trade-off for my self-respect was a cold bed and an over-used vibrator, and it was starting to wear thin. Not to mention all the things I just talked about—the husband and the kids and all that. I began to miss my old life. Not the monotony or the hypocrisy, but the guarantee at least. If I had stayed, I would’ve never been alone. I would have been married by now, possibly pregnant. And what if I’d made the wrong decision? What if I’d ruined my chances at a happy life, because let’s face it, what man is going to marry a stripper—no matter where she came from or who she is?
And that was when Sterling came to the club.
Sterling Haverford III. Yes, I know it’s a ridiculous name, but where we came from, it was par for the course (especially if your estate had its own golf course.)
I was doodling Mrs. Sterling Haverford in my flimsily locked diaries ever since I could remember. He was my first kiss, my first cigarette, my first orgasm. Of course, I know now that I wasn’t his first anything, and that even while he was dating me, he was fucking other girls. But at the time, I was convinced we were getting married. That he loved me.
I was convinced of it right up until my parents got the invitation to his wedding. To Penelope Fucking Middleton.
We’d been off and on, for sure, but I thought it was the distance and how dedicated I was to school and charity, and fuck, I’m crying now, I’m so sorry. I’m not even sad about it, I’m just pissed still, that I’d given so much time to this asshole, and then when I was feeling so low about everything, he had the nerve to show up at the club.
I assumed he was in town for a business meeting and that maybe a potential client had brought him to the club for a little extra wooing—not an uncommon scenario where I worked, especially when it came to the private rooms in the back. And of all the girls that could have been working that particular room that night, it was me.
It was fucking me.
I had on six-inch heels and a bright blue wig and he still knew me the moment I entered, just as I’d known from one glimpse of his profile that it was him.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, his words carrying like a poisonous melody over the throbbing music. “Is it really you?”
I stood in the door, having no idea what the fuck to do. I knew I could go find Mark, explain to him that I knew the client and couldn’t dance for him—Mark would understand. But even three years after he’d dumped me via wedding invitation to another girl, I still couldn’t force myself to walk away. Or stop listening when he started talking.
He said he couldn’t believe it—everyone had thought I’d absconded off to Europe or someplace exotic and all the while, I had been here. He gestured to me, to indicate the skimpy outfit I wore, to indicate all the things that came along with here, the dancing and the alleged disgrace, but I saw the moment he was done making his point, the moment his pupils dilated and he took in my nearly naked body.
He’d married Fucking Penelope but he was here and he was here for me, and fuck it all, I wanted that. That moment where he chose me over her. No matter how wrong it was.
“Come inside,” he said, and I did.
Will God forgive me for that? Because I could have left. Without any consequences. I could have found another girl and left the club without another moment spent with Sterling Haverford III. But deep down, I wanted to stay. Deep down, I wanted what I knew would happen if I stayed.
I closed the door behind me and crossed my arms, and then told him exactly how much of an asshole he was. To his credit, he didn’t deny it.
He asked me to come closer. It was a command, and Lord help me, I’ve always responded to commands. I walked over to him, and he ran a hand up my flank to where my skirt hung just below my ass. His wedding ring glinted in the low neon light of the room. His fucking wedding ring from his fucking marriage to Penelope Fucking Middleton.
I tried to pull back, but he reached up and grabbed my arm.
And then he said, “You know why I didn’t marry you, Poppy?” He was caressing the inside of my thigh now and I couldn’t help it, I took a tiny step to the side, just to widen my legs the smallest bit.
He smiled and went on. “It’s not because I didn’t want to be married to a Danforth. God knows that with your family and your money and your brains, on paper you would have been the perfect wife. But we both know better, don’t we, Poppy?”
His fingers finally found what they were looking for, my lace thong, and he curled his fingers around the fabric and ripped, the flimsy material tearing easily, granting him access to my cunt.
“Deep down,” he said, continuing his earlier train of thought, touching me, touching me so much now, “deep down, we both know that you’re a little slut. Yes, with a perfect background and a perfect education, but you were made for being a whore, Poppy, not a wife.”
I told him to fuck off, and then he said, “Do you think I just showed up here accidentally? I’ve been looking for you for three years. You’re mine or have you forgotten?”
How could I be his when he had a fucking wife? I asked him that.
And he responded that he didn’t give a shit about her—which is probably the truth. But he told me he married her because he needed someone proper, someone he wouldn’t worry about his clients wanting to fuck.
And then he said that wasn’t me. Said I screamed sex with my tits and my mouth, and not only did I always want it, but I always looked like I wanted it. And he couldn’t have that in the precious Haverford family portrait.
The worst thing was, I knew he wasn’t saying it like an insult. Those were just the facts. People like us weren’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to be reserved and cold. Thin and bloodless. Sex was either a necessity or a calculated affair. And now Sterling wanted me to be his calculated affair. I had loved him and he wanted to keep me as his pet mistress, in a box that had no place for real love or a real future.
But while I was thinking all of this, he was unzipping himself, and he was so hard, so mouthwateringly hard, and I couldn’t help it—I knew he was married, I knew he was an asshole, but it had been so long, too long, and I had loved him once…
Are you judging me right now, Father Bell? Are you thinking about what a dumb bitch I am? I know you aren’t, you aren’t like Sterling and me. The words “dumb” and “bitch” have probably never even come out of your mouth in the same sentence. But I was thinking it then, just like I’m thinking it now. I was stupid. But I was also lonely and heartbroken and so fucking wet it was dripping down my thighs.
Then I let him fuck me. Because he was right, I do like it, I do always want it. And as he slammed into me over and over again, I told him to tell me the fantasy, this life he was offering me. And he did, goddamn him, and it all sounded so perfect coming from his lying businessman’s mouth. He told me about the lazy afternoons we’d spend together, the expensive restaurants he’d take me to, the orgasms he’d give me on top of smooth Egyptian cotton sheets. He told me about the flowers and jewelry and vacations in Bora Bora and expensive cars and everything else that would fill up our illicit life together, all while I ground myself on his cock, ground myself towards the best orgasm I’d had since college.
He was cursing by this point, folding me over the bench and driving into me from behind while he pressed my face against the leather and I felt the cold metal of his wedding ring against my hip. It was degrading and terrible and I came almost immediately.
And then I came again.
