Page 54 of Saint
“It’s back at the guesthouse,” I say, dropping my lips to his jaw.
“Aiden,” he groans. “You’re supposed to have it on you all the time.” He pulls back a little and gives me an eyebrow which I think he thinks is stern, even though his lips are swollen and his eyes are still half-hooded.
“Are you giving me a lecture about safe chastity practice right now?” I laugh as I press my face into his neck.
“Yes! As your former key holder—”
“For thatonemonth, and even then I barely had it on because you were too horny—”
“I am duty bound to remind you to be safe! What if we fell off the hill and they had to helicopter you into a Belgian hospital and then they had to call in firefighters to saw that thing off your dick?”
I’m laughing too hard to keep kissing his neck, and I pull back to grin at him. “Firefighters? That sounds hot.”
“Oh my God, it doesnot.”
“You know it does.”
“Someone has to be responsible for you, Aiden,” Elijah says, exasperated. “Fuck knows you never are.”
And just like that, I feel the cold gel of reality sliding over my skin.
Yes.
Yes, I am irresponsible, aren’t I? Sucking off my ex-boyfriend in my habit and scapular, right in the middle of an open space where anyone could see.
“We should go so we don’t miss dinner,” I say, stepping back and fixing my robes. There are some stains on my knees, but there’s also enough dirt everywhere else that I can claim it was all from the hike.
“Aiden,” Elijah says softly. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“No, no, you’re right.” I force a smile. “Probably the last thirty minutes proves exactly how right you are. Are you ready?”
He looks at me like he wants to say no, like he wants to say something else. But after a minute, he just nods, his jaw tight.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Let’s go back.”
31
Elijahand I don’t speak until it’s bedtime, and even then, it’s only to exchange polite words of good night as we meet in the hallway and take turns with the shower. He looks like he wants to say more, but then a burst of impassioned Walloon makes its way from the common room, and we are reminded we are not alone.
I nod at him and go to my room.
I pray on my knees for a few minutes, my usual nightly prayers, my brain skirting around what I did that day in the clearing. The garish break from celibacy. And when I try to think of something to say to God, some apology I can genuinely speak, my tongue stays still. I feel miserable with what I did, but I know I would do it again. And again. As many times as there are chances.
And I don’t know what the right prayer is for that.
My mind keeps drifting from prayer anyway. To Elijah. To Jamie. Curiosity burns at me, and I want to knowso badlyif they’ve broken up, but both the curiosity and excitement I feel at that idea make me feel mean and mean-hearted, and I should only want happiness for Elijah, and I shouldn’t care anyway!
Disgusted with myself, I get off my knees. Given that I’ve already made a joke of the idea of chastity, I decide to sleep with my cage off tonight. I flick off the light and crawl into bed. Tomorrow will be an early drive to Luxembourg and then an epic journey via train to Carcassonne, where we’ll be met by a monk from the next stop on our trip, Abbaye Notre Dame des Fontaines. Or Our Lady of the Fountains for the French-ly challenged, like me.
I’m packed and ready, but I already miss Semois. Or rather, I miss what happened here between Elijah and me, because surely after today, we’ll behave. We know we fucked up—well, me more than him—and of course I won’t actually do it again. Even if my guilt is threaded through with so much desire that it doesn’t feel like guilt at all, but like something else entirely.
Like a net of heavy gold draped over my shoulders; a wine so dark and biting that even a communion wafer can’t blunt the taste.
My newly freed cock is unused to so much sensation, and I have trouble finding a position in bed that doesn’t stimulate it, that doesn’t pull my mind to memories of pressing my body to someone else’s. Memories of fucking, fast and slow and all the ways in between.
I’m nowhere near sleep when I hear the catch of my doorknob, but maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe I’ve finally deprived myself of too much, broken something essential between reality and my horny brain, and now I’m having a waking dream where Elijah is opening my door at midnight. Where he’s stepping inside my room and quietly closing the door behind him.
Where he’s coming to my bed on bare feet, wearing nothing but loose linen pants which hang low on his hips.
