Chapter 82
NARRATOR
For a long moment, the world was nothing but silence. They panted with their faces so close their breaths mingled, hearts beating out of sync in the darkness of the hallway.
Lucía was the first to catch her breath.
“This… should never have happened,” she said with a pained smile.
He opened his eyes, still holding her against the wall, and lifted a hand to gently caress her cheek.
“But… do you regret it?” he whispered.
She looked into his eyes and, instead of answering, simply shook her head softly, closing her eyelids to savor his touch. He followed her lead, brushing his thumb along her right cheek and then down to her swollen lips.
“Neither do I,” he said with a crooked, sorrowful smile.
Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, moving in silence through the room barely lit by the Mediterranean moon. He laid her down delicately on the white linen sheets, as if she were something sacred and forbidden at the same time.
He knelt beside the bed, leaning in and placing his hands on either side of her legs. She opened her eyes then, surprised by his new position, and saw him looking up at her with a glint in his eyes that was almost desperate.
“I’m going to do something I’ve been denying myself since the first day I saw you,” he breathed hoarsely.
With a restrained groan, Mateo lowered his face slowly, kissing the inside of her thighs with reverence. There was no rush. Only an absolute need to memorize every inch of her skin.
His mouth closed over her with devotion and mingled desire, tracing slow circles, worshiping her as if this were a forbidden ritual he had practiced a thousand times in guilty dreams.
“Mateo!” Lucía moaned, arching involuntarily. “I can’t… I can’t… not again!”
But he didn’t stop. He gripped her hips firmly, holding her still as he continued with growing intensity, as if he were praying with every movement—each caress a silent prayer to the sweetest sin he had ever known.
He alternated rhythms, pressure, and tenderness that shattered her into short, uncontrollable gasps. There was no control anymore. Only mutual surrender.
One hand found her chest and caressed it while he continued worshiping her; the contrast of sensations pushed her to the edge without letting her fall completely.
“I want to hear you,” he murmured against her burning skin. “Like this… as if it were the last thing I’ll ever do in this life…”
And then he intensified his movements with exact precision.
Lucía broke completely. One hand covered her own mouth so she wouldn’t cry out and wake the girls. She wept silently, moaning into her palm, her body writhing on the bed in long tremors. Her second climax tore through her like a violent wave, deep convulsions bordering on pain as he stayed right there, holding her.
When it was over, he withdrew slowly and moved upward, kissing her thighs, her belly, her breasts, her neck, until they were face to face. Without a word—just breathing, looking into each other’s eyes with contained intensity.
She caressed his trembling cheek.
“You’ll have to pray a lot for the two of us tomorrow…”
He smiled with devastating sadness.
“I’m already praying right now. Because what we just did was a miracle… a forbidden one… but absolutely real.”
He lay down beside her, holding her with desperate tenderness. Skin against skin, shared warmth, intertwined breathing. They slept like that, knowing that true love would be their final act before the inevitable farewell.
At dawn they would know the price of living suspended between heaven and earth.
When the Sicilian dawn filtered golden through the lace curtains, Lucía lay asleep on his chest. Mateo watched her in silence for long minutes, engraving every detail into his memory: the scent of her hair, the comforting weight of her body, the peace only she gave him. He knew that this moment could never be repeated. That the price of that night would be to carry it forever in his conscience like an open wound.
He rose slowly, careful not to wake her. He covered her with the wool blanket and dressed in absolute silence. He took the silver cross that hung above the bed and slipped it into the inner pocket of his black coat. Then he bent down and kissed her forehead with infinite tenderness.
“Forgive me,” he murmured against her skin. “For loving you so much.”
The sun was barely rising when Sebastián’s armored vehicle arrived to take him to the private airport. Lucía stood at the main door of the mansion with the twins asleep in her arms. She wasn’t crying, but her honey-colored eyes said everything.
“Take care of yourself,” she said in a steady voice that barely hid its tremor.
He nodded, unable to speak without breaking.
“I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
He leaned down, kissed each girl on the forehead with paternal devotion, and caressed Lucía’s cheek one last time, memorizing the texture of her skin.
Then he got into the vehicle without looking back, because he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to leave.
Sebastián glanced at him in the rearview mirror as he started the engine.
“Are you sure about this, brother?”
“No,” Mateo replied, his voice breaking. “But I have to do it anyway.”
“You know you’ll always have a place here. This is your home as much as ours.”
“I know. But now I have to face what I left unfinished in Mexico.”
The car slowly drove away along the road lined with ancient cypress trees. Mateo watched through the tinted window as the imposing silhouette of the De Luca mansion disappeared into the morning mist. He knew he was leaving his shattered heart behind, but also that he could no longer keep hiding from the truth.
He would return to Mexico. He would return to his parish. And if God judged him for having loved with every fiber of his being, he would accept the punishment without resistance.
Because, for the first time in his priestly life, he understood that faith was not always proven by praying on one’s knees in an empty confessional.
Sometimes, true faith meant moving forward even with the soul completely broken, trusting that God would understand that love—though forbidden—was also a form of prayer.