All Chapters of Craving Forbidden Pleasures : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The first time I knelt in the booth, it wasn’t to confess.It was to watch.I’d been sent to clean the church after hours. Just me, a mop bucket, and the echo of old hymns in my head. The chapel was dim, lit only by the flicker of votive candles and the watery glow of moonlight spilling through the stained glass.The confessional had always given me chills—heavy carved wood, red velvet curtains, the faint scent of incense clinging to the air like a prayer gone stale. But that night, something was different.The curtain was drawn.And someone was inside.I paused, hand tightening on the mop handle. No one was supposed to be here.Then I heard it—breathing. Low. Rough. Masculine.A rustle followed. The soft thud of a shoe shifting against the booth’s floor. Then the faint, unmistakable sound of a zipper sliding down.I should have left. Should have crossed myself and run.But I didn’t.I stepped closer, my heartbeat loud in my ears, until I could press my ear against the polished wood.

It started the way it always did—velvet curtain drawn, candle burning, the three of us locked away from the world.But Delilah was restless that night. I could feel it in the way her hands roamed, not content to keep me pinned in the booth.Halfway through, she pulled back from me, lips glistening, eyes glittering with mischief. “Why do we keep confining ourselves in here?” she murmured, glancing at Gideon. “This whole building is ours after midnight.”Gideon’s gaze slid to mine, dark and knowing. “You think she’s ready?”Delilah’s smile was slow and wicked. “She’s past ready.”Before I could ask, Gideon was on his feet, unlocking the door. His hand closed around my wrist, firm but not unkind, pulling me out into the empty chapel.The air was cooler here, the shadows longer. The stained-glass windows caught what little moonlight there was, scattering fractured halos across the floor.“Here,” Delilah said, guiding me down the aisle. Her heels clicked softly on the marble as she led me

The chapel was a vault of shadows at midnight, hushed and unmoving, as though the world itself were holding its breath. The air was heavy with incense and the faint waxy sweetness of candles burning low on the altar. Their flames sputtered softly, sending thin ribbons of smoke upward, the wax bleeding in slow tears that pooled like molten sorrow at their base.Sister Emilia stood before the Virgin’s statue, her bare feet cold against the stone floor. She was not praying. She hadn’t prayed—not truly prayed—for days. Her lips still shaped the familiar words of her devotion when others were present, but her heart no longer dared to believe they would be heard. She had broken too much. She had surrendered to the one temptation she had sworn to resist, and instead of remorse cleansing her, it had only left her wanting more.Her hands were fists at her sides, the rosary she usually clutched lying forgotten in her cell. The pale light from the candles brushed her face, catching the glint of

The convent bells tolled vespers, echoing across the fields and corridors like a sacred warning Emilia no longer heeded.She stood by the fountain in the inner cloister garden, the stone cool beneath her bare feet, her wimple discarded, her veil unworn. The evening breeze kissed her flushed skin, and still she burned.Since that morning in the grass, she had not slept.Not truly.Lucien haunted her dreams, her thoughts, her every breath. She could feel the echo of him inside her even now, a dull ache between her thighs that pulsed with memory. The garden—once her refuge—had become the site of her undoing. Her sins bloomed among the roses.She didn’t hear him approach. She never did anymore."You're not hiding well," Lucien murmured from behind her, voice low and dangerous.She turned slowly.He stood in his cassock, though it hung looser now, as if he, too, no longer wore the uniform of God with conviction. His collar was undone. His gaze devoured her.“I’m not hiding,” she replied, l

They left the convent at dawn, when the mist still clung to the hills like a secret.Lucien held her hand the entire way down the stone steps. He didn’t speak, didn’t pray—just stared straight ahead as though if he looked back, the guilt would consume him. Emilia walked beside him barefoot, her veil tucked beneath her arm, her body raw with ache and rebellion.Neither of them had anywhere to go.They simply… went.By nightfall, they found shelter in an abandoned rectory on the edge of a quiet village where no one asked questions and no one cared about collars or habits. It was crumbling, quiet, and cold.But it was theirs.Lucien built a fire in the hearth while Emilia stood at the window, her arms wrapped around her body. The world felt too wide, too loud. And yet for the first time in years, she could feel her breath fill her lungs without permission.She turned to him. “Do you regret it?”Lucien didn’t look up from the flames. “Only that I waited so long to touch you.”Her breath c