Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Right, so here's the thing about knowin' exactly what you're walkin' into—it doesn't make ya less culpable. If anythin', it makes ya worse, doesn't it? Because you're choosin' the descent with full awareness, eyes wide open, catalogin' every step that takes ya further from redemption.
I know what's at the bottom of these stairs. I know what I'm about to do. And I'm doin' it anyway because apparently years of avoidance and self-discipline collapse the moment a broken girl asks me to fix her with the very thing that broke me, and her dom gave me permission to put her back together by breaking her, and I'm… I'm just a cock with urges. Apparently.
Father Patrick's voice slides into my thoughts like smoke under a door. Lorcan, mah boy, are such pleasures worth yer soul?
I don't answer. Won't engage. Just let him ramble while I guide Emmaleen down the steps, her bare feet silent against the cold surface, my hand steady on hers despite the war ragin' inside my chest.
Ya think ya can control it this time? Ya think one taste won't turn into another, and another, until ya've lost yerself entirely?
He's not wrong. Never is. That's the horrifyin' bit about conscience. It's technically correct even when ya desperately want it to shut the fuck up.
Especially when it comes in the form of a Catholic priest you mistakenly confessed your sins to back when you were twenty-one. Not that secret. That secret goes to the grave. But the others? The choking fetish? The way I get hard watchin' them see stars?
Yeah. I told that old bastard everythin' and now he follows me around like a heroin habit.
The great room opens before us as we reach the bottom of the stairs. The evening light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the fading sun filling the space with golden-hour illumination heaven would envy, which only adds to the conflict exploding inside my head.
Ya swore ya'd never go back. Ya swore—
I know what I swore.
I lead Emmaleen across the open space toward the corner where the high arched doorway waits. The entrance is partially hidden—red velvet curtain layered over black gauzy material that moves slightly in the air current from the heating vents.
My heart's poundin' now. Proper hammerin' against my ribs.
I hate that I love this. Hate that my body's already respondin', already anticipatin', already rememberin' exactly how it feels to cross that threshold and let this side of me come out to play.
We reach the curtain.
I guide Emmaleen in front of me, her body warm and pliant under my touch. One hand flat against her stomach, feelin' her breathe—fast, shallow, nervous. My other hand rises to her breast, findin' her nipple already peaked. I don't twist it. Not yet. Instead I hold it between my thumb and forefinger, rollin' it gently, watchin' goosebumps spread across her skin as her breath catches.
My cock thickens in my jeans.
"Enterin' the chapel is sacred," I murmur, my voice droppin' into that register I haven't used in almost two years—the one that comes from somewhere deep and dark and hungry. "Ya must perform the ritual."
She tenses, nerves rippling through her, and I lean down into her neck, my lips so close to her skin I can feel the heat radiating off her.
"Shh." The sound is gentle, measured, deliberate. My breath raises the fine hairs at her nape, and I feel her shiver against me. "Step through the curtain, a stór."
She hesitates for only a heartbeat before movin' forward, her hand reachin' out to part the gauzy material.
The moment she crosses the threshold, my cock goes fully hard.
I step through after her, and the familiarity of it hits me like a drug.
We stand together just inside the threshold, neither of us movin', and the space opens before us like a confession I can't take back.
Sweet Mother of God.
Father Patrick's voice cuts through my skull, sharp and venomous.
Yave turned the sacred into profane, haven't ya, mah boy? Look at it. Look at what ya've done.
I don't want to. But I do anyway, seein' it through his eyes instead of mine, which is its own special kind of torture.
The kneeler sits in the center—custom-built, padded leather the color of fresh blood, positioned in front of what I've always called the throne. Except it's not really a throne, is it? It's a chair. My chair. Where I sit behind them while they kneel.
That's a prie-dieu, Lorcan. A prayer desk. Meant for supplication before God Almighty, not for some broken girl to worship at yer cock while ya play deity.
I disagree, Father.
And that stone altar behind it—Christ, ya even got the dimensions right. Three feet high, seven feet long, pure marble like somethin' ripped from a cathedral. Except instead of holdin' the Eucharist, ya bend them over it, don't ya? Pressin' their faces to the cold stone while ya—