The Breaking

Chapter 3: 

Cassian's POV 

He stepped into the church smelling of rain and wine, and something in my chest pulled tight.

Elias Voss. Twenty-two. Lean and gracefully built, pale skin flushed from the ride and the alcohol. 

Soft black hair darkened by rain, droplets still sliding down the sharp line of his cheekbone.

 Dark expressive eyes that had never learned how to hide what they wanted.

 The damp shirt clung to his shoulders and chest, outlining the narrow cut of his waist. 

Even from the altar I could see the way the wet fabric stuck to him.

 He looked painfully attractive, and the fact that I noticed it with such clarity only made the weight under my ribs heavier.

I had spent four years avoiding this exact moment.

When he asked for confession, there was pain in his voice—quiet, stripped, almost pleading.

 I swallowed and told him it was late. The refusal was automatic, the same careful wall I had built for years. But tonight the wall felt thin.

 The nightmares had returned—my father’s blood on my hands, the rattle of his last breath while I held him. 

Exhaustion made everything sharper. Desire made it worse.

I agreed.

He followed me to the confessional. I was too aware of the soft sound of his damp shoes on stone, the faint scent of wine and rain that clung to him. Inside the booth I sat in silence while he began to speak.

 I should have stopped him the moment the words turned personal. I had done it before. 

Young women had come to me with similar confessions—soft admissions of longing for someone they should not want, eyes lowered, voices trembling with shame and hope.

 I knew the script. A firm but gentle warning. 

A reminder of the law of Vespera and the weight of sin.

 A clear boundary spoken in the language of the Church. I had delivered those words dozens of times without hesitation, watching relief and disappointment move across their faces in equal measure. I had the exact tone ready. 

I had the scripture. I had the practiced distance that kept everything safe.

I said nothing.

I listened instead. I recognized the shape of what he was describing. This was not a fleeting crush or a confused impulse. It was an obsession—focused, patient, and already years deep. He spoke of the first day, of the look I had not been careful enough to hide, of the years of careful pursuit. Then he described the nights.

 The locked door. The lubricant. The way he stroked himself while thinking of me.

 My cock hardened so fast it hurt, straining against my underwear beneath the cassock. 

Heat flooded low in my stomach. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and forced myself to remain still, furious at the speed of my own body’s betrayal.

When he finished, the silence stretched.

Then his voice came again, quieter.

“Forget I said anything.”

Then I heard him stand.

 I froze.

For a long moment I stayed seated in the confessional, hands locked together, telling myself to let him go.

 It would be safer. Cleaner. I had spent four years building this exact distance. 

I almost spoke the words that would send him away for good. 

Then the thought of him walking out of the church and never looking back again, never wanting me, never waiting for my footsteps or coming to ask questions so I could look at his doe-like eyes hit me with a force that left me breathless.

I was on my feet before I fully decided to move.

Panic moved through me with a force I had not felt since the seminary, since the first time I understood what I was and tried to pray it out of existence. 

The other men in those years had meant nothing—brief, shameful releases that left only guilt and the taste of ash. 

This was different. The thought of him walking out of the church and burying every memory of me made my heart slam once against my ribs, hard enough that I felt it in my throat.

I was out of the confessional before I fully decided to move.

“You’re playing with fire, Elias.”

He turned. A small, reckless smirk touched his mouth.

“Then let me burn in it, Father.”

The last of my control snapped.

I closed the distance in three strides, one hand wrapping around the front of his throat—not hard enough to hurt, just enough to hold him still—and crashed my mouth against his. 

His lips were soft, full, already parting under mine. I kissed him with years of held-back force, giving him only the shortest breaks for breath before taking his mouth again.

 He tasted like rain and wine and something I had denied myself for too long. 

My cock throbbed, fully hard now, begging to be freed from the confinement of cloth and restraint.

I broke the kiss long enough to look around the empty nave.

  I forced myself to stop. I looked around the empty nave, listening hard for any sound beyond the rain. My pulse was too loud in my ears.

 The church was silent. No footsteps. No voices. Only the rain against the high windows.

I bent, put my shoulder into his midsection, and lifted him. 

He made a startled sound but did not fight me. The walk to the east wing was short. 

My private quarters were restricted—cleaners came only during the day, and no one else had reason to enter at night. 

I pushed the door open with my foot, carried him inside, and set him down on the bed with more care than the rest of my body wanted to show.

I locked the door of the private quarters behind us with deliberate care, then stood still for another second, making certain the corridor remained silent, before I allowed myself to turn back to him.

Then I was over him again.

I kissed him until his breath turned uneven, then worked my way down his body.

 I opened his pants and freed his cock—seven inches, already hard, the head flushed and wet with precum.

 I took him into my mouth without hesitation. The broken sound he made went straight through me. I sucked him deeply, tongue pressing firmly along the underside, taking him as far as I could. 

His hands grasped at the sheets. His hips jerked helplessly.

 My name left his lips in raw, repeated groans as I worked him with steady, relentless pressure. When he came it was with a sharp, helpless cry; I held him there and swallowed every pulse, then cleaned him with slow, thorough passes of my tongue until he was trembling and oversensitive beneath me.

I pulled back and looked at him.

“Kneel.”

He obeyed. I freed myself from the cassock and underwear.

 My cock sprang out, nine inches, thick and heavy, the head already slick. Elias’s eyes widened. 

The open shock and hunger on his face sent a dark, satisfied heat through my chest. I stroked myself once, slowly, from base to tip, letting him drool over my length.

I stepped closer, guided the head to his lips, and pushed into his mouth.

 He choked at first. I held still, one hand buried in his damp hair, and taught him the rhythm—how to breathe through his nose, how to relax his throat, how to take more without fighting it. 

He adjusted quickly, eyes watering, determined to please. 

When his tongue circled the sensitive head I had to pull back with a sharp, uncontrolled breath, the edge of release already dangerously close.

I shoved him gently onto his back on the bed and reached for the small bottle of lubricant I kept in the drawer of the reading table.

 I coated my fingers first, then my cock, the slick sound loud in the quiet room.

 I looked down at him, at the flush across his pale skin, at the dark eyes that had followed me for four years.

“Tell me if it’s too much.”

He nodded, pupils blown wide.

I pushed into him slowly. The tight heat dragged a low, rough sound from my chest. 

I gave him time to adjust, watching every flicker of expression on his face, before I began to move. 

Deep, steady thrusts. The years of restraint poured out of me in the way I held his hips fucked him roughly, “you wanted this right?”, “how much do you love me filling you up?”. 

He whimpered in response— and the way he pushed back to meet me, the helpless sounds of my name—drove me harder.

 I fucked him with the full weight of everything I had denied, chasing the release that had been building since the moment he walked into the church smelling of rain and wine.

When I came it was with my face buried against his neck, buried to the hilt, the force of it leaving me shaking above him.

Outside, the rain continued. Inside the locked quarters of the east wing, four years of resistance finished breaking in the dark.