Page 45 of Audacity

‘Yes.’ Yesterday, when he showed me the thehorae, he explained to me how he washes his hands before praying, a practice harking back to his former Lavabo ritual.

‘Thank you,’ he says softly, dropping the other cufflink so it clinks against the wood of the tabletop, just next to the trioof condom packets I’ve laid out. ‘It’s always important to wash one’s hands before touching anything this exquisite, isn’t it?’

I stare up at him wordlessly as he stands beside me and rolls up his cuffs. Their snowy whiteness is the perfect frame for the architecture of his body: that olive skin and soft, dark hair; the pleasing substance of his wrist bones and the taut flex of muscle in his forearms. I haven’t seen him naked for over a month, which is probably why his little performance feels as erotic as a Victorian damsel unbuttoning her glove so that her suitor can kiss her wrist and a damn sight more ominous.

Perhaps he’s not prepared to admit verbally that he’s on board with fucking me here in his sacred space. Maybe he’ll just show me instead. Besides, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a definitive bulge growing beneath that flat stomach and shiny belt buckle.

I watch as he pours the water in a steady arc, as it sluices cleanly into the metal bowl, as he sets down the jug and proceeds to wash his hands. Slowly. Methodically. He’s not ignoring me so much as silently accepting my presence, it seems. There’s something pleasingly austere about the juxtaposition of his beautiful hands and this cold, clean water. No soap. No bubbles. This isn’t an indulgence—it’s an act of service.

I observe the whole thing like an adoring puppy who’s hypervigilant of her master’s needs. It’s only after he’s reached for the pressed linen cloth and dried his hands with efficient strokes that he glances up at the clock before looking me in the eye again.

‘Time to pray, I think.’

I suspect other women may have grown increasingly uncomfortable during this encounter. I, on the other hand, am perfectly content. Gabriel hasn’t kicked me out, which means he’s happy with—if taken aback by—my presence. My nakedness. I have visual proof that I’m affecting him. Ifanything, the past few minutes have felt like foreplay, if foreplay was a game of chess.

I’ve made my move.

He’s had his deliberation time.

Now it’s time for him to makehismove.

CHAPTER 20

Gabe

‘Legs apart,’ I tell her as I come to stand behind her. ‘Lean forward for me.’

If I thought she was dangerous on her knees for me yesterday in the middle of my office, in here she’s downright lethal. I take in the sight of her: burnished waves and creamy skin and the violin-shaped silhouette of her body that’s surely as hardwired into our beauty-seeking parts as the Fibonacci sequence. Her bottom is pale and pert and so inviting as to feel like home for my angry, pulsing dick.

She obliges as if she’s a good girl and not the intoxicating little sacrileger that she is, and I sink slowly to my knees. The kneeler on this thing is generously proportioned, but it’s a tall order to get two adults stacked one behind each other on it, and when I kneel, my wool-clad legs straddling her bare ones, it has the effect of pressing her front up against the wood and every perfect inch of her back up againstme.

I take a moment to drink her in. Usually when I’m in here, my mind is on the beautifully inscribed words in front of me and on the grace I seek, but today my senses are spilling over with the blessings of this beautiful woman. Instinctively, she tips her head to the left so I can lay my cheek against hers as I peer overher shoulder to the prayer book. I inhale luxuriously, her heady floral scent enveloping me. I already equate it with the most decadent kind of sex.

My fingertips trail up the sides of her body with the lightest of touches, moving up over the goosebumps on her thighs, her hips, and lingering at the dip of her waist before I bring my arms up. An ill-advised glance over her shoulder shows me her breasts smushed together and two hard, pink little nipples on full display.

I set my elbows on the cap rail so my arms are framing hers, and then I join my hands in prayer around hers. Her steepled fingertips are freezing. I cage her in more firmly with the sensitive skin of my bare inner forearms against her outer forearms. She shivers in the cradle of my body, leaning back as much as she can against my chest.

She feels tiny and fragile like this, and her shiver serves as a timely reminder that she isn’t just the fierce warrior queen whose role she plays so convincingly but a young woman who must have her own demons, her own insecurities, no matter how skilfully they’re buried. Her taking this step, waiting in here for me like this, touches me in a way I can’t quite articulate.

The realisation has me speaking more gently than I may otherwise have done when I begin to intone the opening to all the Hours.

‘Deus, in adiutorium meum intende.

Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina.’

O God, come to my assistance.

O Lord, make haste to help me.

How fucking ironic that I should be praying these words while my body is wrapped around that of a young, shivering, perfectly naked woman for whose very presence, nakedness, I am paying through the nose. I recall our jokey conversation about St Augustine yesterday at lunch.

Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.

I’m self-aware enough to know it’s highly improbable that I’ll want any divine intervention against the very venal sins Athena and I are hurtling towards in my private and previously sacrosanct space.

I pray the Hymn of Terce aloud, pausing before I launch into the Psalms to whisper into Athena’s ear. With my head turned a little, my lips brush the delicate shell of her ear.

‘Did you know that Terce is essentially a prayer to the Holy Spirit to ask for moderation and control of one’s earthly passions?’

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