Page 79 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

I cup his jaw between my hands and look deeply into his eyes so he knows I speak the hard truth.

“Your mother feared you, Cisco. Your family managed you. Rome collared you. They all found a different word for ownership, but it was ownership all the same. No one has ever loved you without also trying to survive you.”

His fingers dig deeper into my flesh. He tries to move away again, but I don’t let him.

“I am right here,” I declare, my voice vibrating with frustration. “I am telling you I am going nowhere, and you keep pulling away from me.”

“I am keeping you safe,” he grits out.

The phantom, suffocating memory of my father’s study door closing hits me. The sound of rope creaking . . .

“My dad abandoned me while standing right there in the room,” I whisper. “So don’t you dare think I can’t recognize the look of a man trying to leave before he’s gone.”

I give up.

I scramble off his lap but keep my eyes downcast so I don’t lose the courage to say what’s next—my Hail Mary.

“Save your fucks for a woman who knows exactly what they are worth, Cisco. Choose someone who refuses to flinch from the shadows. Let her revel in your worst.”

“And if it breaks her?” he asks quietly.

“Then she loves him anyway,” I whisper fiercely.

No sound. Not even his breath. I lift my gaze, and he’s right there, staring at me as if I’m not real.

“I love you anyway,” I say. Tears threaten to blur my vision, but I refuse to let them fall. “I know your heart, my love. I see the angel trying to protect us from the devil.”

“Mercy . . .”

“The world can keep its fear, but I claim your joy. I want your fucks. All of them, no matter how bad you think they are.” I get close again and press my palm against his hammering heart. “I will never walk away. I promise.”

His iron control shatters with a guttural, unholy growl. He twists out from beneath me and throws me onto my front. I drop so fast that I feel dizzy. Air punches from my lungs as my cheekbone slams the pillow.

For a moment, I just lay there stunned. Emotion welling, throat tightening, thinking . . . maybe I failed.

Then the wood under our thin mattress groans, and I have half a second to brace before oil pours over my bottom, drenching me and spilling onto the sheets. Cisco lies flat on top of me, fits himself to my ass, and then rams his cock in.

“Fuck!” I cry out. It’s cold at first, then hot, then . . . holy fuck. He thrusts, and the glide is obscene. Lurid. So deep I see stars. Again and again he plunges, hard and fast. “God, yes. Give it to me.”

“Dio—Mercy—” Hot breath just above my spine, ragged and raw.

His palm lands on the back of my head, pushing my face into the pillow as he rears back and ruts, all resistance shredded. Again and again, he pounds me into the mattress, sweat raining down and mixing with mine. I whimper at the burn, but it’s so good beneath it. I have to dig my nails into the pillow just to ride it out. But I’m not trying to escape. Couldn’t if I tried. His massive hand pins my head down.

If anything, I want more.

It’s been forever since someone fucked me like they mean it, with this kind of feral hunger, the kind of desperate passion that soothes my soul.

And I want him to know it. I want him to hear that I love it.

I push back into him and make some kind of sound I never knew I could make. Half sob, half whimper, half shriek. He falls against me, fist tangling in my hair. His laugh shudders against my spine.

“Piccola, you sound like you’re dying.”

“Kill me,” I rasp, “or fuck me back to life.”

He bites down on my neck and then thrusts in so hard the bed frame slams against the wall.

I am gone. Every cell of me is gone.