“You . . .” Raphael cleared his throat. “You look so beautiful.” Gone was the arrogant, dominant male, and in his place was a humbled lover, walls torn down and the jagged scars of his soul exposed. “Maria . . .” he whispered and leaned over the coffin to run his hand softly down her face. It was almost her undoing.
She pictured him in the bath, in his trophy room, how lost he had been after the rose garden. How he’d told her of his mother. He had no one. No one had loved him . . . Maria felt a tightness in her chest.
Love.
Sin is simply due to the absence of love.
She inhaled a stuttered breath as she thought of love. She couldn’t . . . it wasn’t possible. He wanted to kill her . . . but . . .
But as she looked at Raphael, curled her cheek into his caressing hand, she was more determined than ever to heal this man who had never known good, who had been mistreated by everyone he had ever encountered.
She wouldn’t be another to fail him.
Her calling as a nun was compassion. What greater compassion was there than bringing love to a sinner, showing him that not everyone would let him down? Giving him whatever made his heart happy.
Maria thought of the death pictures he displayed on his trophy wall. She was at peace. That was it. Maria’s eyes filled with hot, sorrowful tears. Raphael equated death with peace.
The lost boy who fought a constant inner war.
“I love it, my lord,” Maria whispered, and Raphael’s lips curled back into the biggest, most stunning smile Maria had ever been blessed with witnessing. “It’s perfect.” Raphael’s eyes lit with uncontained happiness.
Groaning, he scooped her out of the coffin and took her straight to the bed. He kissed her and kissed her until her lips were bruised and swollen. Raphael was as gentle as a whisper as he rid Maria of her clothes and slipped inside her. He stared into her eyes as he made love to her.
Because it was making love. Maria knew that now. The way he touched her, the way he stroked her hair and kissed her lips . . . it was love. It was obsession and possession and ownership in every way.
Maria knew she was his. She had been saved all those years ago to give Raphael his dream. To show him that not all people would let him down. That some would protect him and sacrifice themselves to finally heal the darkness in his soul.
When Raphael and Maria came, Raphael hung on to her, head on her chest, still inside her as he fell asleep. Stroking her fingers through his messy brown hair, Maria drifted off too.
Death looming.
Yet she was unafraid.
*****
Maria sat up in bed. It was dark, the open windows letting in only a slither of moonlight. Heavy, quick breathing and agonized moans sailed into her ears. Maria searched the bed and found she was alone.
“No . . .” Raphael’s voice was laced with pain and seemed . . . afraid? Her heart cracked. He sounded afraid. He had never once sounded afraid.
Maria scrambled to the side of the bed, frantically searching for him. She froze when she found him on the floor, his naked body facing down. A sob escaped from her lips. His body had made a cross on the floor—arms outstretched as if someone were holding him down. But his legs . . .
His legs were parted, and his body rocked back and forth as if someone were in between his legs . . . as if someone were forcing themselves inside him.
“Father Murray,” he said through gritted teeth. “I will not repent.”
Maria felt the blood drain from her face. Father Murray . . . Maria couldn’t have stopped her mind racing if she’d tried. As she stared at Raphael, such a formidable man on the floor, fingertips digging into the carpet, unable to move, locked in a nightmare, all she saw was an innocent boy who had lost his mother in the most tragic of ways. And she saw Father Murray above him, naked but for a crucifix around his neck. The kind they had given her before the mission to the sex club so many weeks ago.
“I . . . won’t . . . repent . . .” Raphael hissed, his head snapping back and a scream of pure torment echoing like daggers around the room.
Maria couldn’t take another second of seeing Raphael so haunted, so in distress. Jumping from the bed, she crouched at his side. Even in the dull light of the moon, she saw the thick layer of sweat coating his body. But as his hips lifted again, what was worse was his erection, pushing against the cage he never took off.