Free Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance by Sosie Frost

To help . But had no idea it had gotten this bad for her. Then
again, once I was accepted to college, I ran. I’d rarely visited, even for
holidays.
    And after Dad had
died, I never thought I’d come home again.
    I rooted through
my second bag—a change of clothes, bottle of water, and my packed lunch. My
stomach rumbled, but I regretted packing an apple to eat.
    Of all the stupid
fruit to bring into the church.
    I grabbed the pack
of crackers instead and nibbled through to get to the peanut butter. The
vestibule doors opened, and Alyssa and Samantha strolled inside, arm in arm. They
greeted me with wide smiles.
    That meant
trouble.
    “This is so great,”
Alyssa said. Today, her hair bound high in a ponytail, so perky she should have
sat on top of a cheerleading pyramid. “It’s like the whole gang is back
together.”
    Samantha twirled
in a skirt that might’ve doubled for a priest’s stole. “I knew we’d have some
fun this summer. It’s been hell getting through Saint Francis’s programs. Can
you believe a college has a dress code?”
    I started to see
the appeal. I offered them a cracker, and Alyssa took it with a wicked arch of
her eyebrow.
    “Is Daddy El here
yet?”
    My mouth dried,
and the cracker turned to ash. I grabbed my water bottle and chugged. Even that
tasted of sulfur.
    “Don’t know,” I
said. “He probably won’t be here. The Choir is Deacon Smith’s project.”
    Alyssa shook her
head. “But the festival and the Battle of the Choirs was all Daddy El’s idea.
He bet the other parishes in the area a fully painted rec room to the winner.
This just got serious.”
    I smirked. “I
thought gambling was a sin.”
    “That man is sin.” Samantha fanned her face. “I hope I get stage fright just so I can
imagine him in his underwear.”
    And that was the image that I couldn’t get out of my head.
    What was more
dangerous—imagining Father Raphael naked…or picturing him in the cassock? Flesh
was one perilous temptation, but I never imagined I’d fall for the robes? They
were strict, commanding, and possessing every righteous power afforded to him
by his Holy Orders.
    Both thoughts made
me tremble from the inside out. At least my song’s vibrato would sound
authentic.
    As if he could
tell when my thoughts drifted from the pious to the wicked, the solid, solemn
click of his shoes against the stone echoed through the hall. Alyssa and
Samantha silently squealed. The crackers crumbled in my hand.
    Father Raphael
checked his text messages and tucked an iPhone into his cassock. He greeted us
with a smile that seemed so genuine, so wholesome , it was as if I’d imagined
the desires that stoked between us.
    “Good afternoon,
ladies.”
    His gaze lingered
politely as Alyssa and Samantha twisted under the briefest of his stares. He
reserved the worst and best for me. I sat, paralyzed, meeting his dark eyes
with darker intentions.
    Thank God for the
white-collar that separated us from complete and utter devastation.
    “You can go in,”
he said. “Deacon Smith is on his way.”
    Alyssa bit her
lip. “But Father…aren’t you coming ?”
    Oh Christ, save
us. I hid my face in my hands.
    “I’ll be in
shortly.” His words rumbled, heavy but innocent. “Tell him not to start without
me.”
    Father Raphael
continued down the hall to his office. My breath returned only once his
footsteps faded. Samantha giggled.
    “One day, he’s
going to flirt back.”
    Alyssa snorted. “I
doubt it. Denying us is his game. A man like that isn’t naïve. He’s in complete
control.”
    Control .
    Right.
    Father Raphael had
yet to succumb to any of the desires that had so humiliated me. Was he leading
me from temptation?
    Or did he drag me
down the dangerous path?
    This was a
slippery slope made slicker by his touch, words, stare.
    The vestibule
doors clattered open, and Deacon Smith shuffled inside, immediately dropping
his papers and music. He was a blessed teapot of a man—short, stout, and
constantly