One
Salvatore
When the bell rings,I step forward and play my part. Men packing heat fill the pews, but I don’t flinch. I’m a worse sinner than most of my troubled flock. The Church claims my slate is clean, but I know I’m going to hell. Not only for the sins of my past life, but because ofher.
Bianca Mancini.
She’s everything I desire and nothing I deserve. She watches me now from the first pew. Only her innocence prevents her from seeing the truth.
Her innocence draws me toward her.
Her innocence is why I’m damned.
She’s intoxicating and I’m drunk. I yearn for her, burn for her, can’t get her out of my head. Awake or asleep, she’s always on my mind.
Bianca on her knees, face glowing as she takes not the body of Christ but my cock into her mouth. My hand fisted in her thick, dark hair as she swallows every last drop.
Bianca bent over the altar, flushed cheek pressed against cold stone. Her moans echoing off the rafters as I pound into her again and again, my seed filling her.
Bianca round with my child, her luscious breasts even fuller. The dawn light kissing her face, lashes dark against creamy skin while she dreams beside me.
Bianca lying on sunbaked sand. Her thighs parting as I devour her cunt like it’s my last supper. Her sweet juices coating my face the baptism I long for, the last sacrament I’d ever need.
She’s the greatest temptation I’ve ever faced. The sway of her hips as she approaches the altar. The slow parting of her lips as she sticks out her tongue, so eager to receive the body of Christ. She’s nineteen, yet as superstitious as the old women, refusing to hold the host in her delicate hands. And when I finally do place the wafer in her mouth, she always rewards me with an expression of pure bliss, angelic rapture in the form of a teenage girl.
Before taking the cloth, I fucked plenty of women. But sex was a satiation of animalistic urges, another cheap thrill—on my good days. In my darker moments, it was a fucked-up attempt to feel a connection to anyone at all. Leaving that behind was easy. Celibacy seemed worth redemption. And before Bianca, it was.
Now I question my vows every goddamn day.
Not only because I’m tempted, but because someone needs to take her in hand. Take that blouse… All it would take is undoingone more fucking buttonand her tits would be fully on display. She’s obviously testing her grandfather. Seated beside her, helookslucid enough, but that he even allowed her out of the house dressed like that suggests he’s slipping.
Doesn’t she know she’s surrounded by sharks? Despite her sheltered upbringing, she must know how men respond to her. And while I may be a priest, I am still very much a man. Yet no woman has ever gotten under my skin like this. The layers of love, lust, and obsession weave a web too fucked-up to untangle.
I’m tangled up in her now. Her gaze pins me in place, demanding I pray to a god who won’t intervene. I became a priest to atone, but this isn’t penance—it’s torture. Standing on this altar rock-hard for a teenage virgin is sadism only Satan could devise.
Yet somehow, I deliver the homily without declaring to the entire congregation that she’smine. Somehow, I place the wafer on her tongue without pushing her down onto her knees and making her swallow my seed instead of watered-down wine.
I give the final blessing, telling my flock togo in peacedespite knowing they won’t. The scent of sweetness and cinnamon taunts me as I pass her pew, following me out of the sanctuary.
I evict the altar servers from the vestry once they’ve changed into street clothes. Oscar Wilde claimed the way to defeat temptation is to yield to it, but Bianca is a temptation I can’t indulge—and not just because of the promises I made to the Church. Yet as I remove my vestments, I fear shewillbreak me.
Aching for her, I palm the hard ridge of my cock through my pants. I’m desperate for relief, but I won’t find it here. Because God help me, I still have to shake the parishioners’ hands.
Yes, even hers.
* * *
Bianca
Polished beads slide through my fingers, but my head is filled with sin. As the rows empty behind me, I long to run outside, but the men in my pew can’t know that.
It isn’t just my family’s guards who are watching me. They’re all watching. I felt their eyes on me throughout Mass. I wish I could turn around and tell them to go to hell. I wish I could simply leave, like a normal girl. Except I’m not normal and I never have been.
I’m the don’s granddaughter.
Nonno’s love is suffocating. It’s why the car doors won’t open from the inside and why guards are posted outside my bedroom. It’s why I can’t even attend confession without my bodyguard first scanning the church for threats. And it’s why Nonno changed my surname after my parents died, insisting I washislittle girl. I was too young to object, and I don’t dare defy him now. Isn’t that why I’m sitting here, pretending to pray, a pawn in his pathetic game?
Never show weakness. That’s Nonno’s motto. It’s why we arrive early every Sunday and why we’re the last to leave. He’s so stubborn, so proud. He can’t fool them forever, and yet he’ll never step down.