Lust Is the Thorn Read Online Free PDF

loved
happy,
no matter how much it might hurt me in the end.
    “Got it.”

Chapter 3
    Thorn
    After spending the night in the hospital, we pulled in the driveway of Father John’s lake house in my old BMW, which looked really out of place next to the mansion. The home had been in his family since he was a kid, and he rarely used it. I couldn’t imagine why not. The white wood exterior was old, but it was elegant in all its faded glory. Frozen brown rosebushes lined the walkway and went all around the house, and the lawn was well cared for, even though the house was empty most of the time. The home itself was huge, at least three thousand square feet, and it exuded charm and wealth.
    Something neither of us had, or ever would.
    “Wow,” Rose said, whistling through her teeth and peering through the windshield. “Are you sure you got the address right?”
    “Yeah. Father John comes from money.” I shut off the ignition. “Lots of it.”
    “Then why the hell did he become a priest, of all things?” she muttered. “If I were him, I’d be sleeping on my piles of money and binge watching Netflix while drinking champagne and eating caviar, not working at some old, drafty church.”
    “He’s never content to sit and do nothing. That type of life wouldn’t work for him.” I let out a small chuckle. “I think he became a priest because he couldn’t stand having all that money and nothing to do. He gave most of his money to charity, and he has summer camps at this house for troubled teens. They go boating and fishing, and escape their lives for a little while. He says he’ll retire here once he’s too old to come up with funny homilies.”
    She studied the house, and I studied
her
. Her cheeks were a little less pale, holding the tiniest hint of a flush. Her hair was still a mess, and in desperate need of a good washing and brushing. Her soft features were delicate. Feminine. Breathtaking. “How about you? What makes a boy who used to fuck more often than breathe want to become a priest?”
    Watching Mikey die on that icy road, and knowing it was my fault, had pretty much been the kicker—but there was more to it than that. If I hadn’t changed myself, I would have become just like my mother. A drug addict chasing after his next high, with no future, and not an ounce of humanity left in him.
    So I’d done the opposite. I’d chased after something worth chasing after: forgiveness.
    I had yet to find it.
    Something told me I never would.
    At my silence, she patted my knee. “Sorry.”
    “For what?” I asked quickly.
    She wasn’t the one who had anything to be sorry for.
I
was.
    “For bringing up the past.” She let me go and tugged on her hair with her good hand, still staring at the house. The bruising on her face and throat was more pronounced now, in deep yellows and purples. There were actual fingermarks on her throat that made me want to kill someone with my bare hands. “It seems to upset you when I remind you of who you used to be.”
    Yes, it does
. “It doesn’t upset me.” I rested a hand on her thigh reassuringly. “I’m not ashamed of where I came from. It’s what made me
me
.” I didn’t
like
me very much, though.
    She gave me the side-eye, silently calling me out on my lie, and shifted her attention toward the door. “How much longer till I have to call you Father Thorn?”
    “You’ll never call me that,” I said gently, watching her closely as she inched away from my fingers. Every time I touched her, she acted skittish. That wasn’t like my Rose. “I’ll always be Thorn to you, just like you’ll always be Rose.”
    She tapped her fingers on the door and turned to me, finally looking me in the eye, and what I saw punched me in the chest. It reminded me of a kitten I had found trapped in a fence the other day. It had meowed up at me with resigned, sad eyes, as if it had accepted its future, and knew it wasn’t pretty. That’s how Rose watched me now.
    “If you say so,” she