Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance Read Online Free PDF

splashed cold water on my face. It was the best I could do
in the church bathroom. But it worked well enough, especially as I only had ten
minutes to prepare for the one evening Mass we held each a week.
    Usually Mass
comforted me, put me at peace. It didn’t matter if I celebrated it with the
full congregation on Sunday, the fifteen or so people who attended during the
evening’s mass, or the few lonely times when it was just me and the Lord.
    Tonight, I didn’t
enjoy the Mass.
    I felt it. I
believed in it. I concentrated on the words, read out the prayers, and
delivered my homily as a dire warning.
    The most important
prayer and speech I’d ever given, and the congregation wasn’t in attendance to
hear it.
    But I could. And
I’d learn from every word of it.
    “ No temptation
has overtaken you that is not common to man - 1 Corinthians 10:13 ,” I
recited to the church, the altar, the world, myself.
    And to the woman hidden
in the back of the sanctuary.
    She waited.
Watched. Honor threaded her rosary through her fingers as she stared at me, too
torn to step foot within the sanctuary to take the gift of the Host that I
offered to all penitent souls.
    I caught her gaze.
We both stilled, silent.
    And she turned,
leaving the church. Honor ran before the Mass had concluded and I could follow
and find her, bless her as I blessed the others.
    She left before
she accepted forgiveness for the mistake last night.
    I wouldn’t allow
that. Not when she’d returned to me and sought that promised absolution.
    It was mine to
give, and she would receive it.
    Honor Thomas was
my greatest temptation, but I was her darkest sin.
    Together we would
heal.
    Or together we
would be damned.

Chapter Three – Honor
     
    How many chocolate
chip cookies did it take to redeem a sinner’s soul?
    Probably more than
the two dozen I baked for the weekly women’s group meeting. Good thing I also
brought a carafe of coffee.
    But was it really
penance if I made the cookies and coffee because I knew the women’s group had a
loose definition of medium roast and dessert? I had only attended one meeting
so far, but once was enough to know I should serve my community with a plate of
freshly baked guilt.
    I probably
couldn’t bribe my Lord and savior with any form of chocolatey cookie—even if
they were made from scratch. I didn’t even use the egg beaters. I did
everything by hand, and I doubted it made the least bit of difference to my soul.
But at least I felt somewhat prepared to face St. Cecilia’s parish if I came
bearing treats.
    Besides, it gave
me something to hold so the women didn’t see me shake. My hands hadn’t stopped
trembling since I pulled into the church’s lot. Every hallowed step echoed in
the stone halls and chiseled that fracturing courage in my soul.
    I was scared, and
that wasn’t what the church taught. I shouldn’t have been nervous in the hall,
shouldn’t have twisted when I cast a side-long look at the confessional.
    And yesterday I
shouldn’t have run from the evening Mass.
    Mass was supposed
to be a gift to the faithful, a way to commune and meditate on matters beyond
ourselves. I’d even corrupted that. I’d attended to try and understand why I
acted the way I did in the confessional, but Father Raphael’s sermon, his
prayers, his soothing baritone had stirred too many feelings in me.
    The feelings
weren’t holy. They weren’t pure. Those shivers delighted me and nearly made me
squirm in the back pew. When I closed my eyes in prayer, I imagined him there,
with me, beside me.
    Over me.
    Even now, I fantasized
about it. I took a breath. It didn’t soothe me nearly as much as that last
touch, that secret sin within the shadows of the confessional. In that moment,
everything had calmed, quieted, and blessed me in a simple peace.
    If only I could
feel that way again. Was wanting that peace a sin?
    Was anything I wanted not a sin? Even self-doubt and insecurity was dangerous. I was
supposed to be filled with