The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,41

be?

Under his roof.

Sure, I’m not in his bed, but that will come with time.

He’s mine.

I just need to show him the way.

As I stare up at the wall that separates my bedroom from his, I wonder if he sleeps naked. Do priests do that? I mean, I told him he wasn’t a priest, but he kind of is.

Maybe, on the outside, he still is, but on the inside? Nope. He’s a regular Joe.

Which, honestly, makes his crimes that much worse.

My nose crinkles at the thought, and I choose to discount the word ‘crimes.’

Not that they’ll spare him whether he’s a man of the cloth or an everyday person.

Or would they?

Maybe I should research that just in case everything goes to shit.

It soothes me to know that we’re in the same house, and I curl up on my side, watching the wall like I can see through it.

My body aches from the day’s adventures and, truly, I need to sleep.

Though I stayed relatively calm throughout the ordeal downstairs, cleansing Savio’s back?

Nightmare.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.

Not ever.

And I’ve dealt with friends who’d come to me after their spouse or partner had attacked them. Linda’s husband had accused her of cheating on him with one of his partners—he worked in a law firm. He bleached her fucking hand because, he said, it needed to be clean.

I mean, it made no sense to me. Unless he thought the partner had only received a hand job from Linda.

Is that what happened in extramarital affairs?

I guess there was more to the story than Linda told me, but dealing with the burns on her hand had been bad enough.

It soaked through enough tissue to damage the skin, but not to the same extent that the whip had to Savio’s back.

And the worse part of all?

It wasn’t to purge himself of sins, but to self-harm.

I don’t think even he registers that, and that concerns me.

He’s farther along this path than I could have ever expected, and the sad thing is, he thinks I’m the crazy one.

Sure, I think I’m an angel and I have wings and my brain has been operated on, but I function quite well among society.

I’m nice. People like me. They want to be my friend—even more so now that I’m famous, but in the grand scheme of things, they want to be friends with me, too, because I’m cool.

I like to help people—not to make myself feel good, but because I’m like that. I’m kind.

Not to sound bigheaded or anything, but there’s no point in lying about something like that, is there?

But Savio?

He’s dour.

I saw him chatter with the parishioners, sure. Priests don’t have to do that. They could just retreat to their office after a service, not communicating with their flock at all.

He had, however, and it had surprised me. It had also surprised me how he handled the kid in confession. But every other person who’d come to that booth?

He hadn’t been particularly feeling.

I purse my lips at the thought, wondering how I could help him.

I don’t think sex is a salve, although if any man truly needs to have sex, it’s Savio. He practically oozes testosterone. Like, on an epic scale, and I don’t think he knows that either.

I’m probably shit in bed.

That’s what happens being a virgin at my age, but hell, he’d be so ready to explode the second I got him between the sheets he wouldn’t care.

Regardless, sex isn’t going to cure him.

Maybe just being able to be candid with me would?

I want him in all ways. I have ever since that first time I’d seen him. Something about him is it for me. He personifies all the stuff I appreciate in a man.

And even though half of him was covered in blood today, yikes, his body? All muscle. Like muscle on top of muscle on top of muscle.

Yum.

He has these big veins running down his biceps, which might have been gross, but I know they were pumped because of what he’d been doing—whipping himself.

Fuck.

I try to imagine the frame of mind you have to be in for that to feel like a solution to a problem, but even as my mind puzzles over it, I know I’ll never comprehend his choice.

Of course, all thoughts are thrown to the wind when I hear him shout.

I should have anticipated it.

Maybe I did.

Maybe that’s why I’m still awake even though my head aches like a pile driver’s been gnawing on it, and I’m so tired my