Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance Read Online Free Page A

away in a hospice bed. But a priest wasn’t selfish. Benjamin had
taught me that. The collar bound the man inside, and the priest offered himself
to the world, his parish, and those he meant to serve.
    I stood and
unbuckled the case.
    “You’re anointing
me again ?” Benjamin coughed.
    “Yes.”
    “There comes a
point in a man’s life when he is ready to pass, Rafe.”
    “I’m doing what I
can.”
    “If you had it
your way, you’d grease me up and slip me through the bars of the Pearly Gates.”
Benjamin grinned. “Got news for you, son. I’m gonna be dead soon. I don’t mind
waiting for my invitation on the inside.”
    The vials and
books clanked in the case. While away from their desk, most men carried their
laptop and files from work. I did too, but I also secured holy water and oils,
wine and wafers with Velcro to the interior of my briefcase. Mobile Mass, the
parish called it. Efficiency in times of need.
    “Don’t you do it.”
Benjamin pointed at me. “Put the stole down.”
    I held the silk
vestment with a frown. “You don’t want to be blessed?”
    “Not for the third time since I came to the hospice.”
    “It’s a comfort.”
    “For whom?” He let
the question hang and then offered a wave. “All right, all right. Come on then.
Let’s do it.”
    I’d faked a smile,
and he indulged the blessing. It was the only kindness we could offer each
other now, no matter how ineffective it felt.
    I bowed at his
bedside, beginning the prayers. Benjamin crossed himself with me, murmuring the
words.
    “In the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…”
    Benjamin knew the
process, but he listened intently, smiling as I spoke.
    Proud .
    My chest
tightened. He was always so proud of everything I’d done, and I hoped he
realized it was all because of him. Though the words of the Anointing asked for
the Lord to save the sick one’s soul, it was Benjamin who had saved mine.
    I sprinkled holy
water and bowed my head. “Do you have anything you wish to confess?”
    “Not since the
last time you asked me,” Ben said. “Not much cause to sin now. It’s not even
good entertainment.”
    I knew he took the
sacrament seriously—when I was a teenager, he had forced me to scrub the steps outside
the church with a toothbrush for a similarly flippant answer. He appreciated
and welcomed the anointing, but he tried so hard to keep my spirits up.
    I wished that one
day, I’d be as great a man as he was. It’d never happen, but I could wish.
    We prayed, and I
anointed him with the oil. Even that extra prayer taxed him. He took communion
though his hand trembled to cross himself.  The nurses waited as long as they
could before they interrupted to place the oxygen at his nose.
    Death was ugly and
terrible, but my friend, mentor, brother, father met it with every grace a man
of God could hope to achieve.
    “Thank you,” he
said. The nurses left us again, and he patted my hand. “Rafe, why are you here
at my bedside? You have better, more important work at the parish. I know for a
fact you owe a day at the diocese’s office too.”
    “Part of my duties
are to attend the sick. I’m attending.”
    “You are not. You’re
looking for guidance.”
    “Aren’t we all?”
    “Depends if you’re
receptive to the words of a dying man.”
    “I’ve always
listened to you, Fath—Ben.”
    He laughed. Not
the scratchy, joyful laugh I remembered, but one only a man facing his
mortality could gloat over his closest friend and surrogate son.
    “Hardly. You know
we have different paths to righteousness. Yours is…” Ben shook his head. “A
self-inflicted difficulty.”
    “Not to me,” I
said, sinking into the chair after I replaced my oils and stole in the case.
    “ Especially to you. You make it so hard on yourself, and you’ve made it harder every day of
your life. Save some room on the cross, Rafe. He died to make this easier for you.”
    “You sure you’re
getting enough pain-killers?” I