She moaned and opened her lips for him. He took advantage, raising one of his hands to the back of her head so that it wouldn’t hurt her when he pressed her whole body with his. He couldn’t get enough contact with her. He wanted to disappear inside her for days or months at a time. And yet, he knew that wouldn’t be enough.
He dipped his knees and pressed her body higher, so that her breasts were pressed against his chest and her hips lined up with his. He couldn’t stop the guttural sound he made. After spending all this time trying to avoid falling into her, the relief of being able to touch her if they both wanted, however they both wanted, was drugging.
He probably would have fucked her against the door if her downstairs neighbor hadn’t come in. They might not have noticed that if said neighbor hadn’t cleared their throat. But he wasn’t embarrassed anymore. He didn’t have to be. Sasha appeared to be shell-shocked by their kiss, so he bent down to grab her keys and let them both inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
IF SASHA HAD ANY doubts about whether she and Patrick would have chemistry now that their love was no longer forbidden, Patrick’s last kiss had extinguished them. The pure longing in every line of his body made her center ache. It made her feel like she’d walked out of one of those shampoo commercials where the women always sounded like the shampoo was giving them an orgasm.
Hell, she was surprised that she hadn’t combusted against her front door, burning a hole in it instead of opening it like a civilized person. But nothing about how she felt about Patrick was civilized. And from the wild look on his face and the way his hair stood up in odd ways, indicating the path her fingers had taken, he didn’t feel entirely civilized about her either.
As soon as he shut the door and stalked toward her, she put up a hand to stop him. He halted his approach immediately, and that warmed her. He was so in tune with her that she probably hadn’t even needed to put the hand up. He would have done it as soon as he saw the concern on her face.
“Are we really doing this?” Sasha couldn’t quite believe it. She’d just resigned herself to never having him—to never even seeing him again. And now he was all hers. He loved her, and he wanted to be with her.
He’d left God for her.
She felt powerful, like some ancient temptress. But all of those ancient temptresses had been punished for their wickedness.
“Only if you want to.” He put his hands in his pockets, and he turned instantly from her lover to her friend again. “What’s wrong?”
She wasn’t sure she could sugarcoat it, even though her MO was sugarcoating things. “Are we going to be punished?” She took a step toward him; they were close enough to touch. “Is our being together wrong?”
Those were two questions that she really should have thought to ask herself before riding off into the sunset with him. Even if he wanted to go back, he couldn’t. She’d permanently altered his life, and only now was she worrying about her soul.
Every insidious voice that had ever told her that her most natural impulses were bad and wrong and needed to be tamed rioted inside her.
Until he touched her face with his hand. It wasn’t an explicitly sexual touch. But everything between them was imbued with that. She leaned into his palm, just quelling the urge to turn her face so that she could kiss his rough palm.
“Does it feel wrong to you?”
No, everything about being this close to him, having him in her home, loving him, felt right. “It feels too good. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I’m afraid, too.”
“You are?”
He let out a short laugh. “Yeah, I’m terrified.”
“Of what?” Even though he’d never said anything that had made him seem arrogant to her, she’d always put him on a pedestal—even though she was no longer religious, so many authority figures in her life had been priests that she’d elevated him in her head. The idea that he was scared right now brought him somewhat down to earth.
“I’m afraid of disappointing you.” He would definitely do that if this worked out. But he’d chosen her. No one she’d ever been with had chosen her. They’d always left her. She’d never felt good enough. But Patrick did not expect her to be perfect. He’d witnessed her most sinful, wanton behavior. She’d let him see her most craven thoughts. But he was standing in front of her, giving her a tender look that told her he wanted nothing more than to be kissing her again right now. Instead, he continued talking, reassuring her. “I’m afraid that this won’t last, and I’ll be just as lost as I was the last time a woman I loved left me.”
“I won’t leave you.” She knew that about herself, knew that it would rip her apart to leave Patrick because she’d felt hollow and empty when she did. “It almost killed me the last time.”
His other hand joined the one on her face, cupping her chin and bringing her close. “I know that. I think I knew how you felt about me when you walked away, but I was too much of a dope to actually see it.”
“You’re not a dope—”
“No, I’m definitely a dope.” He kissed her nose and sighed with satisfaction. “I’ve loved you for a long time. Maybe it was that night at the bake sale, when I almost kissed you.”
“That was so hot—so wrong—but so hot.”
“Shhh.” Him making that sound sent a shiver down her spine and made her center heat even more. “It wasn’t wrong. Not even then.”
“You are—were—a priest.” Even though Catholicism wasn’t for her, part of her still believed that there was something out there keeping track of all the wrong things everyone did and meting out punishment at the end.
“True story.” He pulled her close, and she let him. Even if her soul was forever marred by how much she loved him, she wasn’t strong enough to fight it anymore. “But I’m still a human being. We’re consenting adults, and we fell in love. The only time I’ve felt like I was doing anything right in the past few months was when I was with you.”
“Me too.” She bit her lip, and the only reason she could say the next thing was that she wasn’t looking him dead in the face. “But I’ve always wanted what I couldn’t have. Always.”
“So, you think that everything you want is bad?”
When he said it, it sounded ridiculous. “I’m so weird. Why do you love me?”
He pulled back and looked at her. “I love you because you’re just the kind of weird that I need. I never had any problem sticking with my vow of chastity before because none of the women I met were you.”
“Really?” Hearing him say the thing she almost never said out loud made her residual doubts disappear. After all this time lusting after Patrick, surely any god that actually existed would have struck her down if it was really wrong—or at least given her a bad bout of acne?