Saving Sins (Forbidden Erotic Romance) (4 page)

And the dreams had come again.

Now she was wide awake and shaking, slimy with sweat and
grime. On trembling legs, she stood and stumbled through the dark room. Was it
night? Evening? Morning? She couldn’t tell. Time was all messed up, and it
didn’t matter anyway. She had nowhere to be.

She found the bathroom and switched on the light.
Couldn’t meet her eye in the mirror. Turned on the water. Splashed her face,
her hands. Lifted up her sweatshirt and tried her best to clean her armpits.
She reeked. Felt like death.

Something poked her in the soft swell of her breast, and
she hissed. Reaching into her bra—so ratty now that it barely held together—her
fingers found something.

Small, white, smooth, cardstock. The priest’s card.

She pulled it out.

His name was Michael. Michael, Michael. Father Michael.
Father, father, father. She had enough of fathers for one life.

Staring at the white rectangle in her hand, she willed
herself to tear it up and throw it away. Instead, it lay placidly in her palm.
She tucked it into her pocket, turned off the light, and staggered back to the
couch.

Lowering herself to the filthy fabric, Tara tried to
close her eyes, but she was afraid to sleep. The dreams were always lurking
under the surface, just waiting for her to drift by.

The little card burned in her pocket against her hip.

Father Michael.

His name floated across her brain. If only she’d been
able to go through with her streetwalking attempt. If only he was one of those
wayward priests, who gave into women and wine. She might have a place to stay
now, and food in her stomach.

She closed her eyes. His face floated in the darkness.

She might have actually enjoyed servicing him. She could
have done it. He would have been delicious.

What did forbidden lips taste like? What was the scent of
soiled virtue?

That tight stuffy collar. She bet it smelled of wine and
incense. And the body under the black shirt... hard. Toned from years of
ascetic self-denial. Thick hair, full lips. She wished she could have kissed
them. A man married to the church, in the arms of a woman not his wife. She
could have been the other woman for him. She would have slid her hands over his
body, nipped at his skin, devoured his flesh. Could have teased his nipples
between her lips, dipped her tongue into his navel. His cock, untouched, would
have lain full to bursting in her palm.

She could imagine the taste of it—dark, sour. His hot
breath in the confines of his car, coming fast as she sucked his member. His
fingers tangling in her hair as he sampled earthly pleasure for the first time.
And when he came, she would suck every last drop from him. It would be a sin to
spill it.

Her hands were in her pants. Too many drugs had her
underweight, and it was nothing at all to slip her fingers through the tuft of
her pubic hair and down into her slit.

She was slick, wet, hot. Her index finger stroked and
circled her clit as, in her head, she defrocked him, climbed into his lap,
straddled his hips, stole his kisses, muffled his prayers, destroyed all his
do-gooder faith with a thrust of her hips. Him inside her. She wanted that.

Her orgasm came on her quick and painful, and she choked
on a cry, bucking against the couch. She stroked her pussy, fast, hard. Her
hands were his hands.

In the dark of her head, pierced by green eyes in the
gloom of her mind, a father’s hands weren’t so bad.

Three corners later and they were out of food and needles
and condoms, but still had plenty of blankets. Tara surveyed the back of the
van and the devastation wrought by sixty street walkers. It was amazing.

"I can't believe how much those girls can eat,"
she said at last, closing the door. "They are like black holes."

"I've heard the same said of college students,"
Michael said.

She gave him a smile. Her nerves had calmed with each corner
and each successful encounter. She was starting to feel like herself again. Her
new self. Not her old self.

Michael smiled back at her, and her heart flopped over in
her chest.

Or
was
she feeling like her old self again?

Turning away from him, Tara lifted her face to the sky and
inhaled. High above the city, the clouds reflected the lights, and, as she
watched, one small, lone snowflake fluttered down, tumbling through the air.

"You were a college student once, right?" she
said. "Don't you remember how hungry you were?"

He laughed. "I do remember," he said. "Hungry
for the worst things. If there had been a free salad bar on campus I would
never have touched it."

"I'm a sucker for the fluffernutters the hall RA serves
on Thursday nights," Tara said. “It's definitely better than dumpster
diving.”

He made a noise in his throat. “Have you told anyone about
your teenage years?” he asked. “Any of your friends?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said simply. “I don't want to
depress anyone.” She peeked at him from the corner of her eye.

He stood, wrapped in black, staring at her. She knew the
sort of picture she must present to him: the girl who he saved. The one he
lifted up and rescued. Standing in the cold of the Baltimore night as the snow
began to fall.

What must it feel like to rescue someone that way? She
wanted to know. She wanted him to show her.

She wanted many impossible things.

Blowing out a stream of vapor into the cold air, she turned
back to him. "Well, what now?"

He shrugged. "We can take the rest of what we have back
to the church and call it a night," he said, but at the end of his
sentence she felt some phantom words hanging, speaking without actually saying
anything.

Tara chewed her lip. "Do you... do you want to go get
something to eat?"

"Do you know a free salad bar?"

She laughed. "No. But I can pay for myself." I
think. She had a ten in her wallet. If she didn't get anything to drink but
water and stuck to the cheapest stuff on the menu, they could go to an
all-night diner. Maybe she could just have a piece of pie or something...

"I'll pay," Michael said. "It's the least I
can do."

Tara blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

He shook his head. In the cold, his lips had turned pink and
kissable. "I mean that I feel like this was a little out of your league
tonight," he said. "Usually my assistants come once or twice and bail
on me, or I ask them to leave."

She raised her eyebrows. "Ask them to leave?"

"You know the kind of older woman who wants to help in
the church?" he asked. "I shouldn't say this, but they are not the
best for ministry on the streets."

Tara nodded in understanding. "Yeah," she said
slowly. "They'd probably scare off every girl in a three mile
radius."

"Not only that, but they always try to gossip to
me," he replied. "There's confession for a reason, and it's not so
that I can spread secrets, and if someone chooses not to confess to me that is
between them and the Lord."

The Lord. The words made her itch, but Tara suppressed her
instinctive shudder. She didn't want to disrespect Michael. His faith had been
strong enough to pull her up. She needed to let him have it.

"Let's go get something to eat," she said.

Michael nodded. Together they piled into the van and set off
down the street as the snow began to fall.

The middle of October. Or was it the end? Time on the
streets had no meaning to her. It was Wednesday or Saturday or Fuckday. It
didn't matter. The priest—Father Michael MacEnroe, what a cliche—had picked her
up again. He did it more and more often now, and each time he did she expected
him to make a pass at her. She wouldn't have minded. He was beautiful. But he
never did.

They sat in a diner at one of the nicer ends of town, an
all-night place that served shit like skillets full of ham and cheese and
ridiculous slices of pie that no person in their right mind would eat, their
crusts so oily they gleamed in the dim light of the hanging lamps.

Well, she never claimed to be in her right mind.

"What's up, Father?" she said, shoveling her
second piece of pie into her mouth and chewing loudly. She always hoped to make
him disapprove of her in some way. She didn't know why. Maybe it would make her
feel better. He seemed so perfect, so accepting and kind. She wanted him to
slip up in some way.

No one was perfect. Everyone hid something.

"I've been worried about you," he said without
preamble, and she nearly choked on her blueberry pie. Forcing herself to
swallow, she took another bite and made sure to show him the contents of her
mouth as she chewed.

"Yeah? Why?"

"You haven't been around your usual places," he
said.

That stopped her. "You keeping tabs on me,
Father?" She put extra emphasis on the last word, letting him know she
didn't need a father. She had one. Once. And then she didn't.

"Of course," he said. "I worry about
you."

She didn't know what to do with that information, so she
rolled her eyes and tried to play it off, but he was unflappable. Simply stared
at her with those glittering green eyes. The clerical collar shone white against
his throat. A flash. A target. She wanted to work her fingers under it and
loosen it for him. It couldn't be comfortable.

What did he hide under that sober priestly garb?

"I don't need anyone to worry about me," she
said. "You'd be better off worrying about Kairi or Ladonna or
Mychelle."

"I do worry about them," he said, "but I
worry about you the most."

She made a noise with her mouth, a dismissive noise,
letting him know just what she thought about his concern. "You're wasting
your time, Father. I don't need a dad."

"Oh?" His voice was soft, inviting, and almost
without thinking about it she told him.

"Yeah, had one of those. He left. So no thanks.
Don't need that again."

"I see."

His deep, soft voice. She could have wrapped herself up
in it. Could have rubbed it over her skin, if it were a real thing. She wanted
to luxuriate in his voice. She wished he would talk more. He made her feel
something when he did.

"Whatever," she said. "Tell me about you.
We're always talking about me, but it's just same shit, different day
here."

To her surprise, he smiled. "Is it?" he said.
"You're eating better."

"Of course I am, you won't stop stuffing food down
my throat."

"Oh? You hate pie that much?"

She put her arms out and dragged her pie closer.
"Don't touch my pie," she said. "It's the only thing I like
other than smack."

She shouldn't have tried to shock him. He didn't shock
easily. "I won't touch your pie," he said, and in her head it turned
into something salacious. Sexual.

She watched his mouth as he took a sip of his coffee.
"So really," she said. "What's going on?"

"One of the girls I minister to overdosed last
night," he said.

The statement clattered to the table between them.

Tara swallowed. "Who? Is she okay?"

"Her name was Misti. And she died."

Though there were other people in the diner, silence
descended, almost smothering them. The pie in her mouth was suddenly like
cardboard and ashes. Slowly, Tara forced herself to chew it and swallow it
down.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I am, too," he replied.

They finished in silence. Tara choked the next few bites
of her pie down, but it felt like glue in her throat. If she ate too much of
it, she felt like it would fill her up, suffocate her. Death by pie. It was
even worse than death by dope. At least death by dope would feel good. Wouldn't
it? She'd never seen anyone die of an overdose, but she'd heard it was pretty
peaceful. Too much, you slip away.

"Was she..." she searched for the words.
"Did she go peacefully?" she asked at last.

To her despair, Father Michael shook his head.
"No," he said. "She choked to death on her own vomit."

Tara nodded. "Well," she said. "Thanks,
Father. I'll remember not to eat anything the next time I shoot up."

Without warning, his hand shot across the table, and her
wrist was suddenly held in a crushing grip.

Pinned, on her stomach, the stink of the sheets around
her face. Weight on her back. Burning between her thighs.

Panic. She pulled on her arm.

Immediately he let go, and she snatched her hand back.

She trembled, rubbing her wrist, staring at him.

His face was pale, and he suddenly looked older, more
haggard. "I am so sorry," he said. "I am so sorry."

She'd wanted him to break, to mess up. But she didn't
like it. She didn't like it at all.

"No,
I'm
sorry," she said, surprising
herself. "I'm sorry. Father, I'm so sorry." A lump rose in her
throat, too big, too much. She hated crying.

Pushing her pie away, she swung out of the booth, not
daring to look at him. She wished she'd kept her hair long, able to sweep it
over her eyes, but it was too much with the street, so she just looked at the
pattern of the carpet on the floor, an ugly green thing, criss-crossed with
beige lines and red flowers. Horrible. Vomit inducing. If she'd been high, it
would have given her a headache. "I have to go," she said. "I'm
sorry about your..." Friend? Girl? Sheep? "I'm sorry about Misti.
I'll see you around."