Raphael leaned forward and timidly lowered his mouth to hers, hovering just over her waiting lips. His eyes met hers, searching for something she didn’t understand. Then, unsurely, he pressed his mouth over hers, and Maria felt as though she were back in the path of the sun, being blinded by the deepest form of grace. Warmth spread along her bones and limbs; peace infused her blood and pumped through her frail heart, reviving it with something akin to contentedness.
When Raphael pulled back, he reached down and lifted Maria’s naked body against his own. She placed her hands on his thick shoulders and kept his gaze as he walked them to the bed. He laid her down on the soft mattress and climbed over her body, blanketing her, keeping her safe. Maria’s hands never left Raphael’s skin. Her fingers journeyed over his scarred flesh and tattoos. They threaded under his arms and caressed his back. Raphael’s eyes closed as she worshipped him in return, touching the wounds that traveled deeper than his flesh.
Raphael tilted Maria’s face up by her chin, and he stared into her eyes. He kissed her again. She moaned as his tongue slipped into her mouth. Maria wrapped her legs around Raphael’s waist, arching her back when his hand slipped between them and ran along her core. His familiar fingers caressed and massaged her until she broke from the kiss just to catch her lost breath. Raphael kissed along her neck, her throat, and over her cheeks. His mouth never broke from her, even when she felt his length grow hard and heard him hiss with the pain his caged device would be bringing. Raphael pushed a finger inside her, and Maria cried out softly, her whimper more of a sigh. She didn’t overthink what was happening. She just felt. In five years she had kept what had happened to herself and only herself. With Raphael, she had opened a door she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to re-close. Wasn’t sure she even wanted to.
Raphael’s finger moved from inside her, and she watched his face as he reached downward. It took her a minute to realize that he was squeezing his penis, fisting it in his unyielding grip over the silicone cage. A wave of sadness engulfed her. She wanted him freed from whatever it was that made him need such pain and violence to be intimate. When she looked into Raphael’s eyes, she froze. She saw something in his golden gaze she had never seen before. Not in any man’s eyes. Vulnerability. Stark vulnerability.
Raphael didn’t speak, and Maria basked in the silence. Her vows as a nun made silence a sanctuary for her fragile soul. It was perfect, as Raphael tipped Maria’s hips up and pushed his length inside her, that there were no words being exchanged. No cries of pleasure or crude groans. There were only labored breaths and the feeling of such heavenly freedom.
Maria gasped, cinching her thighs together when Raphael’s movements became painful. He stopped, watched her for a signal to continue. This man, this broken man who was so violent and aggressive, so domineering and dark, was waiting for Maria to move.
Giving her control. She wasn’t sure if he knew it. But he was.
Tears flooded Maria’s eyes as she lowered her hands to the bottom of his back and guided him back inside. Her eyes squeezed shut as he pushed forward. She held her cry captive in her mouth as he broke through her virginity and filled her to the hilt. Raphael paused as Maria tried to catch her breath. Holding his gaze, she nodded, telling him without words to move. And he did. He rocked into her, his jaw clenching as his length pushed in and out, each movement less painful than the last. Sweat glistened on their bodies, and the moon cast their skin in an ethereal glow. Maria couldn’t look away from him, the man who she knew still wanted to kill her. Something had happened to him in his past. She didn’t know if he would ever share what. But whatever it was, it had made him believe that his only option was death and violence and sin.
Pausing, Raphael gripped Maria under her behind and pulled her up. He kneeled back and brought Maria to straddle his lap. Raphael guided her hips, rocking in and out of her. But Maria couldn’t stop the tears from falling when he moved his hands up. Slowly and softly, he moved his hands to her back and stroked her scars. Her bottom lip shook, but when she looked into Raphael’s eyes, she saw a desperate unspoken need in them. Maria moved her hands from Raphael’s shoulders and down to his scars, the large red welts that crisscrossed in jagged stripes. And they didn’t stop. As they rocked and moved, sinking deeper into each other, their hands praised their scars. Scars that no one saw and that were never spoken of. The secrets they both kept, the demons that lived buried deep in their souls.