INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR

One

Cassia

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My body hums as electrical currents vibrate under the skin. I exhale, but my chest doesn’t feel any lighter.
I’m a good Catholic girl.
I swallow hard, causing a small bead of sweat to roll between my breasts.
I’m a good Catholic girl.
I repeat the words, over and over, desperately wanting them to be true. His long, thick fingers twitch against the knee of his black slacks and I shiver, clenching my thighs together in response. Oh, fuck. This is not happening. Not in church on Sunday. I fan my face with the simple service program we were given when we entered the church and I close my eyes. My nerves are frazzled. I can barely contain them as flashes hot enough to burn Satan himself tear down my spine, making me ache all over.
Swallowing again, I open my eyes. My stare zeros in on his large hands and the crimson rosary beads he drapes between his fingers. With every painful thrum of my heart, he strokes the beads with his thumb, fueling the flames that threaten to consume me. To have me so
captivated by his fingers alone is testament to the rest of his physique. I flick my stare a little higher and—oh, my God. He has a beautiful face…

Father Andrews speaks, but he’s background noise to my naughty, naughty thoughts. I’m surprised I can hear the deep tenor of his voice over the rapid pulse of my heart. I shake my head, forcing myself to focus on the service. Father Andrews talks about sin and
forgiveness. He talks about not falling into the clutches of temptation and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Beside me, my mother whispers a quiet “amen” and behind me, Mrs. Clay, my Puerto Rican neighbor, mutters her thanks to Jesus.
I sink a little lower on my section of the hard, wooden bench, careful not to let my black and white pleated skirt rise too far. They’re good Catholic women. They’re what I should try to be, but I can’t. Not when all I can think about is the Father’s son, the one with the rosary
beads, fucking me six ways from Sunday. 
On the altar.
Bent over the pew.
In the confession box.
Against the gold statue of Our Lord and Savior who grips his own set of rosary beads. 
My lips part as I let out a shaky breath. What decent human being even has thoughts like this? I’m going straight to hell.
I lift my gaze from his strong hands to his thick forearms. A light covering of blond hair spreads from his wrist to his elbows where it disappears underneath the cloth of his gray button up shirt. My stare traces the crinkles and folds of fabric as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. God…he has left the top button of his shirt open…what I wouldn’t give to run my lips over the smooth flesh there.
My throat runs dry as he swallows and his Adam’s apple bobs. I hold my breath, until my lungs begin to burn, before finally flicking my stare to his face. A shiver shoots down my spine as I helplessly drink him in. He’s mesmerizingly perfect in a boyish way with smooth skin, pink, kissable lips and dark, beautiful, clear green eyes. His hair, blond and unkempt, brushes over his forehead and my fingers twitch with the urge to flick it away.
Caleb.
That’s what Father Andrews called him. “This is my son, Caleb.” I heard nothing after that.
Seeing Caleb offer a small smirk as his father introduced him to a gathering of church goers months ago was all it took to consume me. Lust washed over me, filling me with a heavy, pulsing desire to put his cock in my mouth. My breath hitches. Can you imagine it? How glorious it would be? I can see it now…clean, hard…pulsating. I groan under my breath and shut my eyes for the second time.
I’m a good Catholic girl.
They say God can see our true intent. They say he can see through our words and directly into our hearts. If that’s true, God knows I’m full of shit. He knows I’m not a good Catholic girl. He knows I never have been.
Opening my eyes, I look at Caleb. There’s something dark about him. It’s in the way he glances  around  the  room.  It’s  in  his  aura.  He’s  a  beautiful  lion,  sitting  on  his  rock, waiting…watching. Something tells me him just being here under the Lord’s roof is a slap in
God’s face. Perhaps, he’s not a good Catholic boy like I’m not a good Catholic girl...
I jump a little as he pushes up from his chair and crosses the varnished floor to his father. With an almost bored expression, Caleb flicks through the pages of the book in front of him. It’s mentioned in the program that Caleb will recite the closing prayer. Has it been an hour
already?
When Caleb finds his spot, he grips each side of the tall, oak podium and opens his mouth. The rest of us lower our heads and stare at our laps. I barely last a second before I peer at him through my blonde, wavy locks.
“Our Father…” He begins, his tongue twisting expertly around the sacred words, his voice sinfully dark.
If the devil played any kind of instrument to incite desire in young women like me, it was in the form of Caleb’s voice. A voice so rough and perfect, a voice that causes delightful tremors to dance along my spine, shouldn’t come from a boy with a face so flawless. It’s not fair.
“—against us.” He lifts his daring, green eyes from the prayer typed before him and my
heart just about leaps out of my throat.
I’m breathless.
My lungs burn.
Something sinister flashes in the deep depths of his eyes and I’m the only one who sees it.
A wolf among sheep. That’s what he is.
“And guide us not into temptation,” He states, the corner of his lips twitching.
“But deliver us from evil.” My mother, and everyone else in the room, mutters.
We lift our heads.
“Amen.” He says.
“Amen.” We follow.
The Father’s son is so captivating, time and space falls away and before you know it, it’s all over. Until next week. The thought is enough to arouse disappointment deep in my stomach.
Caleb steps aside as Father Andrews addresses the masses. Once again, his voice is background noise as I drink in Caleb’s tall, broad, and manly physique. He can’t be much older than my nineteen year old self. I’d peg him around twenty-three, maybe. He looks friendly enough. However, in the hour I’ve watched him I’ve only seen him smirk like he knows something no one else in the room does. He hasn’t produced a genuine smile. Not once.
The bench beneath my ass vibrates as people stand and lively chatter fills the room. I move to my feet just as Mrs. Clay rounds the bench and engages my mother in conversation. I roll my eyes. It’s not like Mrs. Clay didn’t stop my father in the driveway before we left this
morning. While Mom and Dad chat to Mrs. Clay about this morning’s service, I watch Caleb and the Father as a small family approaches them. With grace, they both extend their hands and welcome the family to the Church. Even upon greeting the family, Caleb doesn’t smile. He offers a swift nod of the head, but nothing more. It doesn’t take long for his glowing green eyes to slip deceivingly onto the family’s eldest daughter. From where I’m standing, I can see a portion of her face. She’s my age, easily, and her stare is fixated on him just like mine was. She remains still, dead still, as if she can’t breathe. I envy her. I want to be close enough to breathe him in.
His intrigued gaze drops from her classically pretty face and chocolate colored hair to her exposed legs. Though jean shorts wouldn’t be my first Sunday Mass choice, they suit her tremendously, blending  nicely  with her  yellow  shirt. Enthralled by the words of  Father
Andrews, the parents are clueless to the looks his son gives their daughter. But she isn’t. Her once still chest now rises and falls rapidly. Her fists clench at her sides and her pink lips part, undoubtedly letting out a subtle, panting breath. Now I really envy her. Caleb doesn’t see anyone else. He has his eyes on the prize and there’s no mistaking his motives.
He wants to fuck her.
I should be appalled he’s chosen such a sacred place to hunt naïve girls, but I’m not and I hate that the swell of tingles between my thighs makes me feel hopeful. A good Catholic girl should want a good Catholic boy…but I’m not a good Catholic girl and he’s clearly not a good Catholic boy. Does that change the rules? Does that make it okay for me to want him as badly as I do?
 

Caleb cuts in on his father as he gestures around the church. The girl’s parents give a happy nod of the head and Caleb politely extends his elbow to the girl, portraying the perfect gentlemen in her father’s eyes. She slips her slender fingers around his clothed elbow and, for
the first time this morning, a smile manifests on his strikingly handsome face as he leads her away from her parents and down the aisle to the back of the church. With a glance over his shoulder, he opens the door and guides her through it, closing it softly behind him. I sigh a
breath of relief when he’s gone. The air is cooler. My lungs work better. Given the extra space, a sneaky, dense feeling of jealousy clenches all my inner muscles and refuses to loosen.
“Cassia?” My father calls as he peers around my mother, drawing my attention from the door Caleb and the girl fled through.
I look at him and he arches a thick, dark eyebrow. “I’m sorr y, what?”
“Are you ready to go?”
I inhale through my nose and blow it out of my cheeks, disappointed. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
He pulls his crisp, black suit jacket around his protruding belly and turns away from me. In my gut, guilt manifests. My parents moved states and switched churches because of my “over sexual” behavior. I promised them I’d make an effort to be a good Catholic girl after the events that unfolded almost a year ago. I cringe thinking back to that God awful Sunday. I wouldn’t say what I did was wrong, but it was definitely…untraditional. The short version? There was a boy—a good Catholic boy—named Thomas. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember and when we were fifteen we made a pact. The deal was; if we hadn’t lost our virginity by the age of eighteen, we’d take each other’s. Our only rule was to do it once and once only. Simple, right? After the first time we did it...we obliterated the rule. Though we weren’t emotionally connected, having sex was liberating. We kept doing it because it was fun and thrilling—harmless,  really.  For  months,  no  one  knew  what  we  were  doing.  As  good  Catholic children, they trusted us and they had no reason not to until one embarrassing Sunday morning. Like usual, we snuck out the back door and upstairs to the youth group Prayer Room. One
thing led to another and, somewhere along the line, he ended up with his face between my thighs. As luck would have it, my parents decided to leave Mass early because Mom wasn’t feeling well. I was blissfully unaware they were looking for me. They found me pretty quickly, catching Thomas and I in the act mid climax. If that doesn’t traumatize your parents into confiscating your phone, smashing your laptop and moving states, I don’t know what will.
I’ve never seen my parents so disappointed. They’ve treated me like a child ever since, and I’ve been working like mad to get them to trust me again and to stop looking at me with such disgust. I feel like they’re slowly coming around and I can’t let my hormones for Caleb ruin
that. If they find out how badly I want him to strip me naked and plough me like it’s our last hour on Earth, our next move will be to the North Pole...
...and I don’t do cold.

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Copyright. Skyla Madi. 2016