Mikael’s POV
I was losing my mind, and I knew it with the precision of a man watching his own destruction in real-time.
I told myself it was natural attraction—the kind any man would feel toward a beautiful woman living in close quarters. A biological response, nothing more. Perfectly normal and easily controlled through discipline and prayer.
Except I knew I was lying with every fiber of my being.
This felt like possession, like hunger. Like something that threatened the very foundation of who I'd believed myself to be for the past decade.
Because it wasn't just her beauty that undid me—though God help me, she was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.
It was everything else.
In the scent of her shampoo that lingered in the bathroom. In the sound of her humming while she worked. In the way she'd reorganized our small kitchen, moving things around without asking.
And you let her. You like it. You like having her here, making this place feel like a home instead of just somewhere you sleep.
Even in the way she looked so small standing next to me, barely reaching my shoulder. She looked like she needed protection from the world. Except she doesn't. Except I've seen her stand up to Dominic without flinching, seen that steel beneath the softness.
The contrast destroyed me.
The way she seemed breakable but wasn't. The way those large gray-green eyes looked at me like she could see straight through my every defense. The freckles scattered across her nose and shoulders like constellations I wanted to map with my fingertips.
Stop it. Stop this right now.
During evening prayers, when I should have been focused on spiritual discipline and communion with God, I found my mind wandering to how she'd looked in the dim light during dinner.
The soft sound of her laugh when I'd made some awkward attempt at humor. The way her wedding ring caught the light when she gestured, that simple gold band that bound us together in ways I was only beginning to understand.
"Grant me strength," I whispered into the silence of the chapel. "Grant me the discipline to honor my vows, to be the man You called me to be."
But the words felt hollow, meaningless against the weight of feelings and desires that seemed to grow stronger with each passing day. My attempts at spiritual discipline crumbled like sand before the tide of very earthly needs I'd spent years successfully suppressing.
I've been tested before. I've resisted temptation before.
Why is this different? Why is she different?
On a Thursday evening, I returned to our apartment later than usual, delayed by an emergency at the shelter.
I expected to find Wren asleep. Hoped for it, if I was being honest. Hoped for the blessed relief of solitude where I could collect myself, rebuild the walls she seemed to demolish without effort.
Instead, I found her waiting for me.
She was sitting up in our bed—the bed I'd been avoiding with increasingly creative excuses—silhouetted against the lamplight in a sheer nightgown that left absolutely nothing to imagination.
Nothing.
The thin fabric clung to every curve, every line of her small, perfect body visible through the gossamer material like a vision designed specifically by the devil himself to destroy what remained of my self-control.
I could see the shadow of her breast peaks through the silk. The curve of her small breasts, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips.
The freckles on her shoulders stood out against her pale skin, and her auburn hair was loose and messy around her face, falling past her shoulders in waves that I wanted to bury my hands in.
My mouth went completely dry. My heart hammered against my ribs with brutal force. Heat shot through my entire body, pooling low in my belly, between my legs, everywhere at once.
This is a test. This has to be a test. Please God let me pass this test.
"Mikael." Her voice was soft, warm, carrying that intimacy she'd been perfecting over the past weeks. Those gray-green eyes met mine, and I saw something in them—amusement? Desire? Challenge? "You're working too late again."
She patted the mattress beside her with casual invitation, as if she weren't sitting there looking like every forbidden fantasy I'd ever tried to pray away.
"It's been weeks since our wedding." Her tone was perfectly reasonable despite the way she was destroying me with her mere existence. "Surely we can at least share a bed now? I understand your need for boundaries, but sleeping separately is starting to make it look like we're having marital problems."
We are having marital problems.
The problem is that I want to cross every boundary I've ever set and I can't.
Her logic was sound, practical, exactly the kind of argument that would appeal to my rational mind. But rational thought had abandoned me the moment I'd seen her there.
"I still have work to finish," I managed, my voice rougher than I'd intended, betraying far more than I wanted her to know. "You should... you should go to sleep."
I retreated to my study before she could argue, closing the door with hands that weren't quite steady, my entire body vibrating with need and guilt in equal measure.
"Running away again?" her voice followed me through the thin walls, carrying amusement that made my jaw clench. "We can't avoid this forever, you know. We're married, Mikael. Whatever you think that means."
I leaned against the closed door, breathing hard, pressing my palms against the wood to stop them from shaking.
My entire body felt like it was on fire, every nerve ending screaming at me to go back in there, to accept what she was offering, to finally give in to this thing that was consuming me from the inside out.
This was insane.
I was a priest, a man who'd dedicated his life to serving God and protecting others.
I'd taken vows of celibacy with full understanding of their meaning and importance. I'd been tested before by attractive women, by moments of weakness, and I'd always emerged victorious through prayer and discipline.
But none of them were her.
An hour passed before I finally heard the soft sounds of her settling into sleep. Only then did I dare leave the study, moving through our small apartment with the stealth of a man committing a crime.
But even in the blessed silence of night, the tension remained unbearable.
I tried to pray, kneeling beside my makeshift bed on the sofa, but every word dissolved into images of her waiting for me in that nightgown. I tried to read scripture, but the verses blurred together meaninglessly as my body thrummed with frustrated desire.
The mortal flesh is weak. Just this once. Just once to take the edge off so you can think clearly.
The moment my fingers brush against the stiffening bulge in my trousers, I know I'm lost. The fabric strains against me, I’m already hard with need, all length throbbing like a blasphemy against my thigh.
I shouldn't. I can't. But my hand moves anyway, palming myself through the fabric with a groan I barely manage to stifle.
Wren.
Her name is a curse on my lips, a prayer in the dark. I can still smell her—vanilla and something darker, something sinful—lingering in the air like incense at a Black Mass.
That damned nightgown… Silk so thin it was a mockery of modesty, the way it slid over her hips, the shadow of her nipples pressing against the fabric, hard and tempting.
My hand slips beneath my waistband, fingers wrapping around myself with a groan that comes from somewhere deep and desperate. I'm already leaking, making my grip slide just right, and the pleasure is sharp enough to make my hips jerk forward.
Hell.
I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be thinking this. But the image of her won’t leave me—her lips parted, her hips swaying as she walks, her fingers trailing up my chest like she owns me.
"We’re married, Mikael."
I imagine her straddling me, that silk riding up her thighs, the heat of her pressed against me.
Would she moan when I finally gave in and buried myself inside her? Would she feel as tight as I imagine, hot and perfect wrapped around me?
She's so small. Would she even be able to take all of me? Would I hurt her?
The thought should horrify me, but it makes me harder. Makes my strokes quicken, my thumb swiping over the swollen head and smearing precum down my shaft. The pleasure is filthy, wrong, but I can't stop. I don't want to stop.
I imagine her hands on me instead of my own—those delicate fingers that look breakable but aren't. Tightening around me, her nails scraping down my chest, leaving marks I'd wear like a badge of honor. Her mouth…
Christ.
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood, hips jerking into my fist. I can almost feel her tongue, hot and wicked, tracing the vein on the underside before taking me deep.
Would she choke? Would she smile? Would she look up at me with those beautiful eyes, dark with lust, while she sucked me like a sinner at communion? Would she let me wrap all that auburn hair around my fist and guide her?
She's a half your size. You could break her.
You could hold her down and she couldn't stop you.
The thought is sick. Twisted. But it makes my core tighten, my breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
Except she wouldn't want to stop me, would she? She'd beg for it. Those gray-green eyes would go dark and desperate and she'd whisper "please" against my skin and…
I imagine her beneath me. The way those small breasts would bounce with every movement, freckles on display, nipples hard and begging for my mouth. The way I could spread her open and watch myself disappear inside her over and over.
"Mikael…"
I come with a strangled groan, spurting thick ropes across my stomach, my chest, my damn soul. The pleasure is sharp as a knife, sweet as damnation.
And for one blinding second, I don’t care that I’ve fallen.