He only hoped that he could give that back to her. But neither of them had words in that moment, so he kissed her again. She worked the buttons free on his shirt, obviously feeling the same urgency that he was.
Once she’d pushed the shirt off his shoulders, he helped her by pulling off the sleeves so she could go for his belt, as though what was inside his pants was a Christmas present. He needed her to hurry up and wanted to slow things down at the same time.
“I don’t want to fuck you on the living room rug,” he said, putting a hand over her wrist to stop her from pulling him out of his trousers and boxers.
“You can be on the bottom if you’re worried about giving me rug burn.” It felt so weird to be talking about fucking her, to hear these words coming out of his own mouth.
It was weird, but also good.
They could do this.
He belonged to her.
This was real.
He kissed the base of her neck, causing a whole-body shiver. “You can have anything you want.”
He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t trust that she could have him. He knew that it would take a lot of time to believe that what they had wouldn’t be ripped away from either of them. But Patrick lay down on her living room rug and tugged off his pants.
“I get to keep you.” The best present she’d ever had.
“And I get to keep you.” He smiled at her. “But you might not get to keep me for long if you don’t get over here.”
He was still wearing boxer briefs, so she climbed on top of him and pulled off his underwear. She fisted him in her hand and bent down to kiss him. His whole body shuddered. He put his hands in her hair, and she stilled for a moment, remembering the way that he used to look at her long hair and reliving the moment that she cut it off so that she would stop kissing him.
“Do you miss my hair?”
“No.” He shook his head, and the tip of his nose brushed hers. “Do you miss it?”
She pressed her lips together for a moment. He wanted to open his mouth to reassure her that he would find her sexy and desirable no matter what, but that wasn’t important. How she felt about herself was.
“I don’t.”
He kissed her again. “I’ve missed you.”
“We weren’t apart that long,” she teased.
“Every day without you feels like an eternity in the dark.”
Her heart felt as though it was going to burst out of her chest. “You can’t say things like that.”
“I finally can, and I plan to as much as possible. Get used to it.” He had a stupid grin on his face, so she kissed him again until he nudged her entrance with his cock.
“I have an IUD and had an STI test after my last friend-with-benefits ghosted me.” She wanted just Patrick. “Do I need to find a condom?”
He shook his head. “If you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
It felt as though he’d been waiting to be inside her forever. He didn’t feel more connected with her now; he’d always felt connected with her. Being inside her, moving with her in the common pursuit of pleasure was life-changing, though. Every thrust changed his cells and drove home the fact that the woman above him was his home.
Sex with Sasha was a religious experience. Patrick didn’t admit that to himself lightly, but he understood why sex was part of rituals in ancient religions. He realized why the Church wanted to keep its priests from experiencing it and tightly control how laypeople expressed it. Turning sweaty, writhing flesh into something new. This would never be anything less than procreative with Sasha. They weren’t making another human, but they were making their love manifest.
Despite the fact that he’d have a rug burn on his back and scratch marks from her fingernails, the memory of her moving over him, taking him inside her, looking at him with a curious mélange of lust and love on her face would never leave him. It might be the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes for the last time.
If he met his Maker and found out that he’d condemned himself by choosing her, he wouldn’t change it. He would meet his fate with this memory of her at the front of his mind.
He found her clit and tried to mimic the way she’d touched herself in the bar that night. She moaned and started moving faster. And then he wasn’t thinking. He was feeling, and then he was coming.
Her body collapsed on his, and his motivation to move from the rug vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PATRICK WOKE UP DISORIENTED—as though he’d been dreaming that he’d been laicized and told his whole parish that he was in love with Sasha. And then had another dream that she’d brought him into her home and they’d had sex all night. It was real, but he didn’t feel like he deserved to feel like he hadn’t missed a beat, like this was where he’d always been and always belonged.
Sasha stirred next to him, and he lost his breath when she smiled at him. “Good morning.”
He couldn’t help but smile back. “Good morning to you.”
“What should we do—”
Her statement was cut off when her mother—sober this time but with a slightly constipated expression on her face—and a tall man who looked like he dove into piles of money as a pastime walked into her room.
Sasha pulled up the covers so as not to flash her parents. “What are you doing here?”
“The last time I checked, we owned this house, where you are currently in bed—naked—with a priest.”
Her mother looked like she had murder on her mind, but he was more concerned about his physical safety with respect to her father. He hadn’t said anything, but he’d perked up when Moira had mentioned that he was a priest. A naked priest, who by all accounts had defiled his daughter.
“He’s not a priest anymore,” Sasha said. “And you only have a key for emergencies.”
“Well, I’m not a frocked priest.” Patrick was going to have to go into a lot of canon law to clear this up, but accuracy was important here.
“I’ll say he’s not a frocked priest.” Her father rolled his eyes and walked out of the room.
Moira didn’t budge. She crossed her arms. “You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady.”
It was never a good scene when “young lady” started getting thrown around. He’d counseled enough families dealing with misanthropic teen behavior to know that “young lady” was a harbinger of doom. Not to even get into the fact that Sasha was an adult.
But he didn’t know what to do because he didn’t know what he should do. Should he say something to her mother, who was totally out of line and crossing all boundaries, or let Sasha handle it herself?