Priest (A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Love Story) Read online

  We sit upstairs when we’re in the mood for quiet elegance, but tonight I wanted the two-pound lobster, so we had to sit downstairs for that. It’s a lot louder downstairs because that’s where the bar is at and a lot of college kids hang out there.

  While we were eating, Jace looked over at the bar crowd and said, “Do you ever feel like you’re missing out?”

  Confused, I said, “On what?”

  “You’re about the same age as those kids at the bar. They’re just having a great time without a care in the world. You just finished school and you have a house and a husband to take care of. Do you ever wish you could go back and do it the way they’re doing it?”

  I glanced over at the kids. I thought about high school and even if you factored out my horrible father, you couldn’t pay me to go back. It was fraught with constant anxiety over what to wear and who was talking about who and what boys were going to want if I went out with them.

  Being a child of sexual abuse could have sent me over to the promiscuous edge, but instead, it sent me in the other direction. I never accepted dates because of my fear that the guy would want sex. I was a senior before I had my first real relationship. He was the one who ran when he tried to get me in bed and I told him about my dad.

  I looked back at Jace and thought about how when you change one thing in your life, it often alters the course of it, and I said,

  “No, not even a little bit. Mostly because had I done things differently, I would not have met you. Look at me now!” I giggled.

  He smiled. “Yeah, look at you now. Happy looks so good on you. It’s hard to imagine the different courses our lives would have taken if we’d never met.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think you would still be a priest if we’d never met?”

  He nodded and popped a piece of lobster in his mouth. “Yeah, I think so,” he said, after he swallowed. “It wasn’t terrible. I was never really content with it, but until I met you, I really thought it was where I was supposed to be.”

  “Are you ever sorry you gave it up?”

  “Not even a little bit,” he said, copying my words with a grin. “I love you, Daphne. I love our life, and I think God and I are okay these days.”

  “Good. Me, too.”

  “You too what?”

  “I’m good with God.”

  “What about me?”

  I knew what he was fishing for, but I liked messing with him sometimes. “You just said you’re good with Him too.”

  “But what about how you feel about me?”

  “Oh! I’m good with you, too.” He made a sad face and I smiled. “I love you more than life itself.”

  He grinned and said, “I knew that, I just wanted to hear it out loud.”

  ******

  When we got home that night, Jace looked at the couch and with a grin he said, “You know something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “We made love on my old couch and on your old couch, but we haven’t done it on our new one yet.”

  I went over and slid my arms around him. He kissed me deeply, and I said, “Do you think we should christen it?”

  “I absolutely do,” he agreed with a grin. He flexed his hips into me, and I felt him already growing hard. He kissed me again and as he did, he pulled my dress up to around my waist. I broke the kiss and raised my arms so he could finish pulling it off. I walked over to the couch, saying,

  “Let’s do this.”

  He laughed. “I think I want you on this side,” he said. He was standing near the back of it.

  I raised an eyebrow, but went around next to him. He grabbed my face in his hands and gave me another hard kiss as he released my bra. He flipped me around so I was facing the couch and pulled my panties down. I stepped out of them and felt his hands roam down across my backside, over the curves of my butt and dip between my legs.

  “Mm, my baby is always so responsive.” I turned back around to face him and we kissed again. God, I love kissing him. I could do it all day. He had other ideas as he growled and buried his face in my breasts. While he was doing that, and doing it very well, I unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. I slid my hand down inside and found his now rock hard cock. I gave it a squeeze and felt him shudder into me.

  “Take them off,” I told him. He reached down and put his fingers against my outer lips again and said, “Mm, so wet baby…”

  “That’s because you’re so sexy, you make me that way.”

  He reluctantly let go of my breasts and pulled his hand away from my pussy. I watched as my gorgeous husband stripped off his clothes. I could also just look at him all day. He grinned again and said, “I think I changed my mind. I think I want to sit on the couch, with my beautiful wife in my lap.”

  “I like that idea,” I told him. He finished getting naked. God, he’s gorgeous, I’m so lucky. He sat down on the couch and I straddled him.

  We kissed for a long time with his hands rubbing my back and shoulders. I loved it when he touches me like that. I loved everything he does.

  I reached down and took him back into my hand. I lifted up on my knees and while his hands found my breasts and began to massage and caress them, I lined him up with me and sat down on his cock. God…there is no better feeling in the world than being filled up with my husband.

  I started to move up and down. He was still licking and sucking on my nipples, using his teeth to graze them lightly because he knows how much I love that. I arched my back so that I could take his cock even deeper inside of me and I rocked back and forth on his lap. His thighs were hard and tense as he used them to bump my butt up and down as he flexed his hips so that he could thrust up into me.

  He kept a breast in his mouth while he reached down between us and found my clit. I moaned at his pinch. I leaned back even further to give him better access, and he began to rub it with two fingers while he continued to pound my pussy.

  Each time he bottomed out inside of me, he would round his hips, grinding up into me hard and deep. I’ve never felt anything like the way this man makes me feel and I’m sure that I never will. The sex is fantastic, all the time, but I believe our emotional connection feeds that and makes it so much better.

  I rode him hard and fast until I felt his breaths begin to shorten and I knew he was ready to come. I squeezed my pussy muscles, clamping down on him like a vice and that sent him hurtling over the edge.

  I felt the warm liquid fill me up as he held me down tightly against his lap. He was moaning and making primal sounding grunts as he milked himself into me. When he finished coming, he didn’t stop moving. He’s a generous lover; never stopping until I come.

  He kept flexing his hips and rubbing my clit with his fingers. He brought the other hand up and pinched and rolled my nipples. I felt the orgasm washing over me and tightened every muscle in my body as I came.

  Jace kept rubbing lightly until my body stopped shaking and I collapsed into him, breathing heavily. He put his hands on my back then and began to rub my back and run his hands through my hair. He was kissing the side of my face and telling me he loved me over and over.

  When I had the strength I pulled my face up and looked at him. “I love you, Jace. I never imagined being happy like this.”

  He smiled. I still melt when his smile is just for me. “I thank God for you every day, Daphne. I love you more than I can ever put into words and I am so grateful we found each other. I look forward to discovering new things with you every day for the rest of our lives.”

  I kissed him again and I thought, who would have ever imagined that two abused kids who at more than one point in their lives thought they could never be happy would find each other and change that.

  I know that I’m where I’m supposed to be and Jace tells me he knows this is where he belongs to. I’m going to hold onto him forever, and I know in my heart that it’s only going to get better and better.

  That’s the end of Priest. Below I
included 2 of Alycia Taylor’s previous books to read as a free bonus.

  Click here to continue to my next book.

  Get Each of My Newly Released Books for 99 Cents By Clicking Here

  Click here to get my book Swipe for free

  SHIFTING GEARS

  The Complete Series

  By Alycia Taylor

  Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  Painting Candy Canes

  Kate

  The emergency room is uncharacteristically slow at St. Mary of Egypt Medical Center. It’s not a regular part of my job, helping out in the ER, but I am coming to the end of my shift and, for once, it might just be slow enough for me to run out the clock here.

  I’m having an innocent conversation with my friend Paz when a patient walks by, his upper lip pulling into a sneer as he passes.

  “You see the way he looked at me, like he thinks he’s better than me?” Paz asks, just loud enough for the patient to hear.

  “Paz,” I say, “you’re doing the crazy lady routine again.”

  There are many and varied reasons my twenty-eight-year-old friend has the highest resting blood pressure of anyone on staff, but looking at her the wrong way will set her off faster than nearly anything.

  As the man’s standing there, though, his eyes big, his mouth open, I notice something.

  “Oh, I know you did not just make that face at me again,” Paz says, this time to the patient.

  “Paz?” I mutter, barely audible even to myself.

  “You just think you can stand there and smirk while I’m doing a thankless job for no money and I’m just going to take it, huh?” she accuses the patient.

  “Paz?” I say a little louder than before.

  “Yeah, you’d better turn around and get back in your room,” she mutters.

  “Paz!” I yell, the size of my voice startling even me.

  She snaps her head around toward me. “Oh, chica, you wanna remember who you’re talking to,” she snaps at me.

  When she starts with the Spanish, that’s when you know you’re in trouble.

  I got her to admit once that she doesn’t speak the language; she knows a few words and likes to think it gives her “street-cred.” Those are her words. It's her way of telling me if I don’t back up, I’m getting hit.

  Paz isn’t the standard smiles-and-platitudes kind of nurse. She’s not the burnt-out nurse who’s been doing this forever and is understandably a little jaded. She’s more the “Why would she ever want to get a job dealing with people?” type.

  Paz is hostile all on her very own.

  Fortunately, though, she’s a friend of mine.

  “Look at his chart,” I tell her. “I think he’s got Bell’s Palsy.”

  Being the daughter of a mom who’s chief of surgery at one hospital and a dad who is a resident at the only other hospital in town, I’ve picked up a few things over the years. Right or wrong, this might just be the insignificant slight that puts me on Paz’s list.

  Paz’s list is not a metaphor. She has a notebook containing the names of the people she thinks have wronged her over the years, and those names don’t get crossed off until she’s exacted some disproportionate response.

  “That true?” she barks after the patient.

  Through the doorway, I can hear the man’s timid voice as he answers, “Yes.”

  Without any ceremony—or apology—Paz turns toward me saying, “You’re getting pretty good at that, kid.” Then, as if nothing had happened, our conversation resumes. “So back to what I was saying: I told Marco if he wasn’t going to stop spending all his time with that puta, I was going to break it off.”

  I’m trying to conceal a grin. “How relieved was he?” I ask.

  She raises an eyebrow, saying, “He stopped smiling when he found out I didn’t mean the relationship.”

  “We’re talking about his mother, right?” I ask. “She’s the puta?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Whatever,” she says. “So then, he tells me that I need to go to counseling or something because I’ve got ‘anger problems.’ Can you believe that? Paz means peace. How am I going to have anger problems?”

  She’s not great on self-awareness.

  I looked it up once. The name Paz does indeed mean peace. That said, calling a baby girl Chastity all but guarantees she’s going to strip at some point during her lifetime. I’m pretty sure that’s the type of thing we’re looking at here.

  The thing I love about Paz is that it doesn’t bother her one little bit if I’m quiet. She’s more than happy to talk for the both of us. I think it’s about my only requirement for friendship anymore. Between work and school, it’s not like I’ve got time to be picky.

  I’m a candy striper, although I could have sworn the job had a different title when they let me start volunteering here. I got into it because the parents wouldn’t pay for the college they wanted me to go to in the first place if I didn’t.

  I wish I could say that my job is some amazing, fulfilling experience, the likes of which I can hardly even fathom. The truth is that I’m a glorified—and unpaid—hospital maid.

  Every once in a while, I get put in the gift shop, but that’s about the only time I ever see a smile in this place.

  There’s a commotion at the far end of the ER and without a word, Paz rushes over to see what’s causing the disturbance. A couple of doctors and nurses wheel a man into the ER on a stretcher.

  I’d love to follow Paz over there and help out, but I’d just get in the way. Candy stripers are ideal for autoclaving—not as exciting as it sounds—but whatever’s going on, it’s over my head.

  Still, I do find myself gradually making my way over in that direction, though I make sure to leave plenty of room between the patient and me. I’ve been yelled at by doctors before. It’s not fun.

  “I'm all right,” the bloodied man on the stretcher says, covering his nose with his hand. “Seriously, I’ve got that peroxide stuff or whatever at home. Seriously.”

  As I’m leaning against the counter of the nurse’s station, just trying to blend in, a man comes over to me, saying, “Call me crazy, but just taking a look at him, I’d say that’s a bad idea.”

  I glance over, asking, “Do you know him?”

  “Yeah,” the man says. “Right before he decided to take a detour into an oak tree, we were on our way to a thing. He’s going to be okay, right?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” I tell him.

  “Hey, Mick, this lady out here says you don’t have a chance, jackass,” the man calls to his friend.

  “Shut up, Rans,” he says. “I’m fine. Will you tell these doctors to get off of me?”

  “You know,” I tell Rans—whatever kind of name that is, “if he’d just stop struggling, they wouldn’t be trying to strap him to the bed.”

  Rans smiles at me and turns back to his friend. “What?” he calls, “So you’re just going to lie there and take it? If you’ve got a problem with it, put up a fight. What’s wrong with you?”

  It’s not easy, but I manage to conceal my amusement. “You see, that’s kinda the opposite of what I was telling you,” I say to Rans. “By the way: Rans?”

  “Short for Ransom,” he says.

  Ransom. That’s the stupidest nickname I’ve ever heard, and I've come across a lot of them, preferred nicknames being one of the lines on our intake form.

  “You can call me Eli, though,” he says and then starts cackling as Mick gets an arm free and starts swinging it wildly.

  “He’s going to hurt himself,” I tell Eli.

  He snickers. “Good thing he’s in a hospital, then.” I’m not sure if the guy wants to see his friend injure himself more than he already has or if Eli’s just got an unusually harsh sense of humor. Either way, the next words out of his mouth are, “You’re doing great there, bud. Don’t take any garbage from these people. You’re a free man!”

  Either this is just some big practical joke that both these guys
are in on, or Eli’s friend is a bit of an idiot. I’m not to make judgments about people, but the man on the stretcher, who must have agreed to come to the hospital in the first place, shouts something to the effect of, “I’m an American citizen! You can’t do this to me!” The next thing I know, Dr. Perlman is calling for full body restraints.

  “This’ll go a lot easier if your friend calms down,” I tell Eli.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen, though,” Eli says. “The guy’s scared stupid of hospitals. The only way I even got him to agree to let me bring him was to take him in here myself and promise to talk to him.”

  “Do you think this is what he had in mind?”

  Eli grins. “You know, now that you mention it, we may not have gotten that far in the conversation.”

  I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to bring some sense of calm back to the room, but the view is funny. The man on the stretcher can’t be too injured, or he wouldn’t be throwing punches while the doctors are just trying to get him moved to the hospital bed.

  At least, that’s my justification for laughing along. It’s certainly not the fact that Eli’s tall, athletic, and has the kind of rich brown eyes that make me quiver a little on the inside.

  I’m just waiting for Paz to start going off on the guy. Eli’s friend may have the adrenaline, but Paz has the violent streak.

  “Mick?” Eli calls. “How are you doing, buddy?”

  “Did you see my car? How screwed is my car?” Eli’s friend—Mick, apparently—says.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” he answers.

  Mick stops struggling as much. He’s not calm or rational by any means, but at least he’s stopped throwing elbows.

  “That was actually rather nice-” I start.

  “I’m pretty sure the thing’s in so many pieces they’ll never know who owned it,” Eli interrupts me to rile up his friend. “Yeah, you’re out about fifty thou, but at least you won’t be spending too long in prison after the doctors here transfer you over to the state.”