All Chapters of Craving Forbidden Pleasures : Chapter 41

The cottage was small, but it was theirs. They had taken residence in the village when they left the convent. Lucien found work helping repair the village chapel, though he refused to wear a collar. The priest there, old and nearly blind, welcomed the help but didn’t ask questions. Emilia worked in the market garden behind the butcher’s shop, her hands always in the soil, her skirts always dusted with dirt.They did not speak of the past.Not openly.But it lingered in everything—how Lucien still rose before dawn and knelt in the empty room where an altar should have been. How Emilia kept her rosary on the windowsill, though she no longer touched it.Their love had changed. It was still passionate. Still consuming. But now layered with the slow, steady ache of reality.He came to her in the night, always wordless. His mouth found hers before sleep, his body hot and needing. They still made love like it might be their last night on earth. But afterward, he often turned away, silent.