Their eyes met. Diego couldn’t look away. Her lips were close. He could almost taste her breath. He watched in helpless fascination as her lips parted. Her tongue flicked out to moisten them.
“You don’t?”
“Nay,” he said softly. “I don’t.”
She waited for more, but he could say no more. How could he tell her what he knew—that it would be a savagery to put an innocent like her into the lair of the wolf? Damian would take her without mercy, use her up, bend her to his will by deceit or by force, whichever served best. He would show no concern for her.
Even without words, Celeste must have discerned his thoughts. Her eyes filled with tears.
Diego was surprised by the feeling that came over him then, a fierce protectiveness, something primitive and feral.
Her eyes—so warm, dark as night, dark as the secrets of a man’s soul. He stared down into them, feeling a decade of anger rip him apart like a wolf’s claws.
He gave in to his darkness, drew her into the pain. He pulled her across the pew and into his arms. He kissed her.
Her mouth was as sweet as he had known it would be, as tender and hungry and eager. As innocent as Eden and as wicked as sin, all at the same time, and worth every moment of the guilt he knew he’d feel.
He tasted her long and deep before he finally pulled away, his body throbbing with what he’d done.
He stared at her, consumed by darkness and guilt, willing his breath to come again, and wishing he wore his robe still, so he could hide the effect of his desire.
He ran his fingers through his hair and looked away, towards the silver crucifix which adorned the wall above the altar. “I’m sorry,” he said, without looking at her. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Then he stood and walked out.
Chapter Four
In his dream he was a man, and not a priest. Diego looked down and the robe was gone. He felt for the heavy weight of the crucifix. Gone, too. He saw his bare feet, his wiggling toes against cool leaves, then his knees and thighs, and realized with delight that he was naked.
The water he entered was still and cool, but she was there, her skin warm against his. She slid against him and his breath caught. “Celeste,” he said. “Don’t. It will only make matters more difficult.” He closed his eyes, already aware of the tingling heat of his loins.
She was a water nymph, a spirit as free as time, as warm as earth. She was a fairy with coppery locks that wrapped around him and pulled his body against hers.
Then he kissed her, tasted the carnal innocence of her mouth and groaned. “I want you, Celeste. I want you,” he said against her wet lips, and felt his manhood push aside the water, push aside the flesh, push into her tight, hot sheath…
Diego awoke just as his body betrayed him.
He closed his eyes and let the forceful spasms subside, let his breathing return to normal and his tense muscles relax again.
It had been a dream. Just a dream.
He groaned, feeling shame even though he knew it was irrational. Feeling he’d betrayed his priestly vows.
Even though a priest was a man.
That was the problem. He was a man—a virile, healthy specimen, with all a man’s innate drive to pursue, to conquer, to mate. A man who’d kissed his brother’s betrothed for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, and who had liked it enough to want more. God help him, he did want more.
Diego smoothed his hands down the front of his robe and sighed. It was good to feel like a true servant of the Lord again. The events of the previous day, the disturbing dreams of the preceding night—what were they compared to the coarse, familiar feel of this robe? Especially when, like today, he had work to do—important, satisfying, soul-cleansing work.
The family of Juan Carlos awaited him in their tiny peasant hut on the far ridge overlooking the valley. His prayers were urgently needed; Juan Carlos was desperately ill. Diego also had coin from the poor box to relieve the hunger of the wife and four small children. Beyond prayer and food, he could do no more. Miracles were still the realm of God.
But when he stood before their dwelling he found there was more he could do. The small garden Juan Carlos had planted was neglected and sadly overgrown. Not only that, but the family’s lone milk goat helped herself to it freely, her eager mouth nipping the tender tops off of whatever poor, struggling plants remained.
This was charity he could do. He set to work clearing the weeds from the small plot. This was charity to benefit their most urgent needs—aye, and his own as well. The hard labour would drive the sinful folly of the previous day from his mind.
Here, sweating in the escalating heat, he could even imagine that the raw desires of yesterday had been but a strange aberration. His life would now return to normal, with his days spent in service to the people of Ricardo’s encomienda and in the prayers and study that strengthened the soul.
It was peaceful, his life, if somewhat predictable, with time measured from Mass to Mass and from each holy day to the next—and if in his inmost being he sometimes found himself longing for something more, he reminded himself that he’d chosen this course for his life, no one but he. He concentrated on its rewards, like the gratitude he’d seen in the face of Juan Carlos’s wife, and the timid smiles of admiration on the faces of their dark-eyed children. Or the satisfaction he’d felt as he’d left them, looking back at the neat rows of plants, cleared now of strangling weeds and surrounded by a fence he’d contrived of sapling poles lashed together with vines.
By the time he left them it was well past midday. He was tired from his labours, and hungry. He’d grown hot and dripped with sweat.
Plunging into the river would go a long way towards refreshment, even without soap or towel, and he headed for it.
It helped his body feel cooler, but also brought to mind the disturbing images he’d worked all morning to set aside. Celeste, warm and womanly in his arms. Celeste the water nymph, her ripe curves sliding provocatively against his own. Celeste the innocent, her lips moist and pliant beneath his kiss.
He left the river with a growl of frustration, shaking wetness from his hair. A large, flat rock nearby usually held his towel, but today he’d have to let his skin dry by sun and wind. Even out of the water, his thoughts had no respite, for as he looked down at himself, sprawled naked upon hard stone, he saw again the admiration in Celeste’s face when her eyes had traced his form.
What madness had seized him? It was insanity, most surely, and he’d come too far to let himself be waylaid by it.
It helped to think of this as a moral test. Lust had been his downfall before. Now it was being presented to him again. His faith was being tested, his resolve tried by the carnality of his flesh. When he thought of that, he was strengthened in his determination to subdue his impulses and conquer his own baseness.
It was only when he thought of Celeste that the whole image fell apart. She was not the brazen temptress it demanded. She was, instead, refreshingly innocent, with scarcely any knowledge of what occurred between a man and woman. A virgin just awakening to the beauty of her own sexuality.
Awakened by him.
And, because he had absolutely no idea what to do about that, he climbed down from the rock, donned his still-damp robe and his sandals, and headed for his tranquil cell. Spending his afternoon in prayer might quiet the confusion and provide the way out of this maze.
Padre Francisco came in the late afternoon. Diego heard his sandalled feet shuffling against the stone floor and raised his eyes from his books just as the elder priest slipped into the seat beside him.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Francisco said.
Diego