All Chapters of TRANGRESSION: A Collection Of Forbidden Desires : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Tessa hadn’t been back in three years.The number felt heavier than it should have as she took the highway exit and the familiar stretch of flat land opened up under a washed-out late-afternoon sky. Same water tower with the peeling high-school mascot. Same line of trees along the river. Same diner sign that still flickered on the left side like it couldn’t commit to staying lit. She had told herself the place would look smaller, diminished by time and distance and the life she had built in the city. It didn’t. If anything it looked exactly as it had the day she left—stubborn, ordinary, and far too good at pulling old feelings out of the places she had carefully buried them.Her mother’s birthday was the official reason. One dinner. One night in her childhood bedroom with the same constellation stickers slowly dying on the ceiling. Then she would get back in the car and let the town shrink in the rearview mirror again. That was the plan. Clean. Contained. No lingering.She almost beli

Morning came in slow and grey.Tessa woke to the weight of Cole’s arm across her waist and the low, pleasant ache between her legs that reminded her exactly how the night had gone. For a long minute she didn’t move. The room was dim, curtains still drawn, the air carrying the faint scent of sex and clean sheets and his skin. Outside, a bird called once and then went quiet. The rest of the world felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.Cole’s breathing changed against the back of her neck. His hand flexed on her stomach, then slid higher to cup her breast in a sleepy, possessive hold. She felt him harden against her ass, slow and inevitable.“You’re still here,” he muttered, voice rough with sleep.“Observant.”A quiet huff of amusement. He kissed the place where her shoulder met her neck, then again, slower. His thumb brushed over her nipple until it tightened under his touch. Tessa’s breath left her in a soft exhale. The want that should have been satisfied hours ago stirred a

The retreat house sat at the end of a narrow road that the diocese still pretended was important.Sister Miriam arrived just after four, the taxi’s tires crunching over wet gravel. The building was a converted stone farmhouse with white shutters and a small chapel attached to the east wing. Someone had planted lavender along the walk years ago; it had gone woody and neglected, but the scent still rose when the wind moved. She paid the driver with the exact change the Mother Superior had counted into her palm that morning, then stood with her small suitcase while the car turned around and disappeared back toward the main road.Twenty-three years old. Four years inside the convent walls. This was the farthest she had been sent alone.The assignment was simple on paper: deliver a sealed envelope of correspondence to the retired bishop who sometimes used the retreat house, stay two nights if necessary, return with his reply. Mother Superior had chosen her because Miriam was quiet, obedien

The dark did not feel empty.It felt occupied—by the rain against the windows, by the tick of cooling pipes, by the open doorway upstairs that Miriam could not stop picturing. She stood in the sitting room long enough for her eyes to adjust into grainy shapes: the outline of the sofa, the darker rectangle of the hall, the faint uneven glow that passed for light when the clouds thinned.She told herself she would light the candles and return to her room. She told herself she would kneel by the bed and pray until the heat in her body subsided into something manageable. She told herself many things as she moved into the kitchen, found the drawer by the sink, and closed her fingers around a box of matches and two stubby candles.The first match snapped. The second caught.Flame small and steady. She lit both candles, set one on the counter, and carried the other into the hall. Wax pooled quickly against her thumb. The light climbed the stairs ahead of her in a trembling circle, leaving ev

Lila moved like someone who had practiced getting out of compromised rooms.In the dark she found Miriam’s veil, pressed it into her hands, and began fixing the worst of the disorder with swift, silent efficiency—habit yanked back into place, sheet dragged up, the smell of sex impossible to erase but the visual evidence reduced to something that might pass for ordinary restlessness during a storm. Her mouth brushed Miriam’s ear once.“Follow my lead. Do not over-explain.”Then she was at the door, opening it just as Mrs. Keane’s flashlight beam reached the top of the stairs.The older woman stopped short, raincoat dripping, a plastic jerrycan of fuel in one hand and a portable generator’s cord trailing from the other. Her eyes moved from Lila to Miriam’s figure in the doorway behind her, then to the bishop’s closed door at the end of the hall.“Miss—Lila, was it?” Mrs. Keane’s voice carried the frayed edge of a long, bad drive. “I didn’t expect anyone else still awake. And Sister. Goo