Beautiful Sinner: a standalone forbidden romance (Beautiful Series)
Beautiful Sinner: Chapter 8

IT DOESN’T NORMALLY TAKE me this long to write a homily, but I’ve been distracted all week. Tonight we have Mass, and this thing is half-written. Before I toss my laptop out the window, I sneak out the back entrance for a much needed vice break. When the smoke hits my lungs, my shoulders relax.

I used to do my writing at the house, but now she is there all the time, and I can’t seem to get anything down on paper when she’s around.

We get a lot of girls like Cadence at the B&B. Young, enthusiastic, strong-willed. They don’t stick around for long, and they don’t normally have this effect on me.

I’ve never second-guessed my decision to take my vows. I wanted to devote myself to something bigger than me, something that would be around after I was gone, and I never considered myself a romantic guy anyway. I dated and even fell in love in my twenties—when I was her age, and it always left me feeling empty and unfulfilled.

This…speaking to my congregation, living in divinity and sacrament, feeling the presence of God in everything I do…this fulfills me.

Do these things by any means make me a good person…I wish. That’s what I thought when I took my vows. I was doing right. I was being righteous. Moral compass be damned, I needed straight and narrow rules, and the holy orders give me that.

Sure, I have my vices, but I’m upstanding where it counts.

But fuck. Passing by that girl every morning and every night, watching her hoist a shovel in those short shorts, sweat glistening on her sun-kissed skin, knowing she’s sleeping so close to me and just within my reach, it’s doing things to me.

Maybe that’s why I called her a slut when I was drunk. Not that that’s by any means an excuse. I know how fucked up that was, but maybe if she had better self-restraint in the first place, she wouldn’t have landed in my B&B without a penny to her name.

Living under my roof. Sleeping next door.

I would never break my vow. I wouldn’t. I’m not that kind of man, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. No matter how sinful those thoughts are.

It’s a temptation. I know that. Just a test of my faith and commitment, and thinking about sinning is the same as sinning. A better priest wouldn’t do even that, but I’m not a great priest. I’m not a terrible one, and I follow the rules for the most part. My sermons bring in more followers. We’ve turned the church around in the community, and our volunteer contributions have quadrupled since I took the position.

How bad is it if I spend my nights thinking about the way Cadence might sound when she comes? Or what her favorite position is. Or what those full lips would feel like around my cock.

I’ll say another Hail Mary for that last one. That was too much.

It’s like she’s found her way inside my mind without my permission.

As I head back inside, I make a quick stop in the bathroom to wash my hands and spray on a little cologne to cover the smoke. The ladies who usually help set up for Mass will be here in an hour, and I don’t want to smell like an ashtray.

Sitting back down to my desk, I exhale.

Focus. Write this homily.

Or recycle one from a few years ago…

Just as I open my laptop to dig into some of my old stuff, I hear a knock on my office door.

“It’s open,” I call.

As she pushes open the door, I see her out of my periphery and I know those long legs before I can even glance up. She insists on wearing shorts with the long work boots coming up to her mid-shins. The bottoms of her pockets peek out of her cut-offs, and I feel the need to mentally apologize to the statue of Mary, poised behind me like she can see the thoughts in my head.

I would only have to shift the inseam of those shorts a little to the side…

Stop it.

Cadence steps in and looks around my office, and I see that she’s a little tense, maybe a tad uncomfortable. “So you really are a priest.”

She pinches her lips between her fingers as she stares at me at my desk. I see her trying to soften me up, make conversation the way she does with Bridget and Daisy and everyone else who comes through our doors. I keep the wall between, standing a good distance away where I belong.

“How can I help you?”

“Bridget sent me. There’s a leak at the house in the second floor bathroom.”

I let out a groan. “It does that every once in a while. You’ll need to replace the seal…”

As I glance up at her, I see that familiar deer-in-headlights expression, and I realize that the possibility of her figuring out how to replace the seal in the tank is about as likely as Misty being able to do it. There are only three hours until service tonight, and if I don’t get this thing done, it’ll be a mess. I can’t improvise. I’ve learned that before.

“I’m coming,” I groan.

“You probably should have hired someone who could fix a toilet.”

I give her an impatient glare as she bites back her joke.

“Let’s go.”

She climbs into the van’s driver side and breaks out in laughter. “It’s a habit,” she says as she stares at the steering wheel. “I keep getting in the passenger side and then remember these dumb cars are backwards.”

“Looks like you’re driving.” I watch as she puts the stick shift in gear after we painstakingly went over it for hours just a few days ago. It gives me a touch of pride. Not to mention it’s strangely sexy.

Back at the house, Bridget is on the phone while folding towels as we go up the stairs together.

“Get my toolbelt from the closet.” I roll up my sleeves as Cadence jogs down the hall. My eyes won’t move from the way her long dark hair hangs across her shoulders while I roll up my sleeves. As she returns with my toolbelt, I nod my head toward her. “Go ahead, put it on.”

She answers with a look of annoyance. But she does it anyway. God, I just want to make her mad. I love seeing those feathers ruffled.

With the belt wrapped around her waist, pulling her short shorts even farther down on her hips, I have to ask myself how the fuck I got here. How did this girl land in my lap, learning how to fix a toilet and drive a stick shift, and I tell myself that if I didn’t really want her here, I would have found a way to get rid of her by now. I could have told her no, but I didn’t. I could have put up more walls between us, but I haven’t yet.

“Alright. You need to take the top off the tank and get in there.” She gives me another one of those disgusted scowls, but she does it. “Now, flush the water out without letting it fill back up. Then, you’re going to have to reach in and remove the worn out valve seal.”

She silently gags, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I’m sitting on the edge of the tub as she bends over the tank, putting us in very close quarters and that denim-clad rear end of hers on full display. When she gets the broken seal out, she screams and tosses it into the bin.

She may hate every second and make one hell of a mess, but after about an hour, the job is done. Cadence clearly isn’t afraid of getting her hands a little dirty, like she’s on a mission to prove me wrong. Aside from Misty, I haven’t found anything Cadence is actually afraid of.

I replace myself wanting to push her boundaries a little more and more just to see how far I can take it. But even I know how dangerous a game like that is. I hear the warnings in my head. I just choose to ignore them.