Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Sister Mercy

I’m not sure what wakes me up.

Perhaps a bump in the road or a bird calling to our bus as it passes.

But it takes me a few seconds to realize I’m more comfortable than I’ve ever been in my life. My head is snuggled into something that is soft and hard at the same time. I feel so small and protected, very unlike the feeling I used to have in my old bed at the convent. The narrow, lumpy mattress always made me toss and turn, leaving me with grogginess and puffy eyes.

One time, I asked Mother Superior if I could have a new mattress and she sent me off to pray for my materialistic soul. And she was right. A complaining nun is a disgrace. So I almost feel guilty now for burrowing my face into the warmth and protection of the…wait, what is this I’m lying on?

My eyes fly open, the wings of my heart flapping like a wild bird.

I’m sitting on the private’s lap.

My legs are thrown over his massive thigh and my bottom—

Flames eat at my cheeks.

My bottom is notched right into his lap.

In order for the Lord to forgive me this transgression, I’m going to be saying the rosary until I’m ninety. So…

So I might as well enjoy it for a few more minutes, right?

After all, it was an honest mistake. I must have searched out his warmth and comfort in my sleep. It wasn’t a conscious sin.

What is his scent? It’s sweat and soap and…fertile soil. I know that last aroma well because I often help some of the sisters plant bulbs in the fall. The combination of his three smells lulls me, but also makes my belly tingle. That alone tells me I should definitely apologize for my forwardness and go back to sleeping against the window.

Maybe just a few more minutes. Mother Superior is at the front of the bus and we’re tucked all the way in the back. Based on the gentle snores coming from the other seats, I’d say the chances of getting caught sleeping on the private are very low.

Nuns don’t think in terms of what they can get away with, Mercy.

Oh yeah.

I absorb one final second of heat, then start to wiggle my way off the private.

He growls in his sleep and traps me against him more securely.

My second attempt yields the same fruitless results.

While I’m sitting there trying to decide my next move, I realize there is something very large prodding me in the buttocks. A gun, perhaps? I slide my bottom over it, trying to determine the shape and my eyes shoot wide. I’ve never borne witness to male genitalia, but I’ve seen plenty of crucifixes and I know there’s something hidden under the white loincloth. But on the crucifix, the mysterious male part isn’t…sticking out.

Wanting to get a peek at the private’s face to make sure he’s asleep, I peel back my hood fully and look up. He’s definitely sleeping, but he’s far from relaxed. There’s a frustration etched into his masculine features and a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Is he ill? Poor man. Maybe I should wake him and—

He mutters something in his sleep and suddenly I feel it. His hand beneath my robes. His palm on my ankle is coarse, but not unpleasant. No, the act of being touched by another human being is so foreign and satisfying, I almost moan out loud. The private’s hand moves higher, coasting up the curve of my bare calf and squeezing my knee, molding it like a sculptor does with clay.

A confusing wetness coats the juncture of my thighs and my breasts grow fuller, more sensitive, my nipples perking and tightening like the blooms of a rose bush in spring. I find myself wanting to open my legs wider—a sign that the devil has sunk his hooks into me and I must fight. I must…

My thighs encounter the scrape of his calloused hands next. They knead my outer thighs roughly, then change tack, brushing knuckles along the inner sensitive skin, right toward my femininity. Oh my Lord, he’s going to touch me there.

No, I mustn’t let him.

I’d have to leave the church in shame.

Already what I’m feeling must be against the very tenets of my chastity vow.

Because I think a part of me wants to know what it would be like if his hand went all the way to my untouched flesh and explored there.

No. No, you can’t allow it.

I gather my will and push Private Griffin’s hand down, away from my womanhood—and he stiffens beneath me. Awake. He’s awake.

I’m going to be found curled into his lap like a kitten and I can only imagine what he would think if he knew what was taking place beneath my robes. I can barely comprehend what his touch did to my body. Is it normal to be so damp?

Slowly, I look up at the private and find his nostrils flared, his lids so heavy his eyes barely appear to be open. His chest starts to lift and fall against my shoulder. I think he’s going to get angry with me. Lift me off his lap and bestow me back on the cold end of the seat. I never could have predicted what would happen next.

“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, Sister Mercy,” he rasps. The hand that was beneath my robes just moments ago is now under my backside, sliding into his pants. “A man with weaker morals would have already taken you by force on this backseat with a hand over your perfect mouth. My morals are ironclad and still you drive me to such a breaking point that I have to fuck my hand to stay sane.”

I flinch at the profanity, so rarely heard by my ears, but the chemical reaction in my body is the opposite of scandalized. No, it seems to thrill to the gruff cursing. The bluntness. The honesty. I can only watch in fascination at the way Private Griffin’s teeth sink into his lower lip, his gaze zeroed in on my mouth.

His fist moves slowly at first, then with more and more urgency. Because I’m sitting directly on top of his actions, I don’t feel like a bystander. I feel like a participant—and while I know that is truly, dangerously wrong, I cannot seem to stem the excitement that rocks me. I think…I enjoy seeing his pleasure and knowing I am having something to do with it.

They should strip me of my habit and cross this instant.

“Look at that sweet fucking mouth. It whispers prayers when it’s made for screaming into my pillow.”

“Is it?” I breathe, my fingertips lifting involuntarily to trace my lips.

“Yes,” he grinds out. “God help me, I’d like to grab you by the hair and plow my cock right into it until cream drips down your chin.”

A shock ripples through my body at the way he speaks to me. It’s inappropriate and filthy and it makes muscles tighten where I didn’t know I had any. I should recite a scripture about temptation, but I can’t seem to remember a single word in the Bible. That wetness is growing worse and I have the most shameful urge to circle my bottom around in his lap.

Don’t you dare.

It’s bad enough that I’m allowing Private Griffin to…pleasure himself.

Yes, that is what’s happening here, isn’t it? His low grunts and the punctuated upward pumps of his hips are the telltale signs of mating. Even that I learned from the Bible.

“I’m almost done, angel baby,” he pushes through clenched teeth. “Let me see your hair. Let me imagine it in tangles on my stomach.”

I know I shouldn’t.

I know I’m probably going to fall from favor with the Lord, but my hands seem to perform the deed all on its own. I want to show him my hair. I want…no, I need to help him find release. That responsibility is like a throb inside of me that grows stronger with every passing moment. My veil comes off first, and that alone is egregious. Being so bold makes my fingers shake as they untie the white wimple at the back of my head. I hesitate for one heavy moment, but I can feel Private Griffin’s hand start to move faster, his upper lip beading with sweat and his chest heaving with anticipation and I can’t deny him. I don’t know how.

Pulling the final tie of the wimple, I let my auburn hair bound free around my shoulders and the private makes a choked noise, his hips jerking so wildly, I’m nearly unseated. There’s a squelching sound that makes my blood tingle, along with his blind eyes and slack jaw. Watching him in the throes of catastrophic pleasure, the strangest thing happens. A coil beneath my belly button tightens to the point I think something is going to burst, but it doesn’t. It simply remains like that, on the edge of destruction of oblivion. How can I be sure?

It scares me how much I want to find out.

How much I want to find out everything about Private Griffin and what just took place inside of his body. There’s even a part of me that wants to peel his pants down and explore what he looks like and find out what his satisfaction looks like after the fact. To witness what we did.

I want this forbidden knowledge so badly, I know I have to put distance in between us. Now. Surely the last little while has been the product of exhaustion, the darkness, and grief over leaving my home. It can’t be that I want him.

I’m not allowed to want him or any pleasures of the flesh. I’ve already crossed the line considerably and now I will spend my life repenting.

“Sister Mercy,” says the private, directly beside my ear. “You need relief. Climb your sweet ass back up on my lap and let me give it to you.”

“Relief from what?” I say, too quickly, hurrying to put back on my wimple and veil. “I f-felt nothing. I’m fine.”

A skeptical eyebrow goes up. “Isn’t lying a sin?”

“What we just did is worse,” I breathe, heat rushing to my cheeks. “And it will never, ever happen again.”

Before he can respond, I turn away as much as possible with his large body taking up most of the seat, and press my face to the ice-cold window. Don’t wish you were still in his lap. Don’t wish you were still in his lap.

With a frustrated sigh, Private Griffin scoops me up and deposits me back in the position I woke up in. “I can’t relax when you’re shivering.”

I sputter for a moment, but I can’t help but snuggle my cheek into his shoulder, the body heat already making me drowsy. “No funny stuff,” I whisper. “Promise on our friendship.”

His next sigh almost blows my habit back off. “I promise,” he mutters. “Get some sleep, angel baby.”

Oh dear. I like him calling me that far too much.

The next week is going to be complicated.