Penance (Devout Trilogy #3) - Lesli Richardson Page 0,2

how desperately ethereal and impossible.

The darkness shaped like your memory.

But if you’re going to fucking waltz into my life like this, then you damn well deserve them.

All of them.

Behold the contents of my drafts folder, accumulated over the past twenty years.

Why can I hate what you did so much and yet still love you so damned hard that it takes me out at the knees? That it makes me want to be a stupid guy in college again, fucking your brains out any time we had privacy and five minutes of free time?

I was going to marry you, Ward. I wanted you to be my husband, my partner. You heard me talk about the plans I had for us and you let me go on, knowing you were going to ghost and shred my soul?

Who was really the sadist, huh?

Despite me being happily married ten years now, why do you STILL have the power to gut me and rip my heart from my chest? Why do I know if you asked me if you could come back to me, if you knelt at my feet and begged me, I would take you back in an instant and without a second thought?

God help me, how can I STILL love you so much that it scares me the lengths I’m already contemplating going? That I want to drag you home with me?

I have broken my vows because of you. I don’t know if I’ll even have a marriage after I confess to him what’s going on. I wouldn’t blame him if he leaves me.

Here I thought I’d abandoned worshipping your ghost, and yet, all these years later, I’m still as devout as I ever was.

The question is, what are you willing to endure? You have now wrecked my world twice in one lifetime. The very least you can offer is worthy penance to atone.

Start by reading them all.

Every last fucking one of them.

Oh, how the situation has shifted since that day.

Reading those e-mails also triggers old memories I hopelessly tried so hard not to think about during my years away from him.

I remember the Sunday church services we attended in college, an hour or so spent sitting in a not-so-comfortable pew, usually made even less comfortable by the butt plug tightly wedged up my ass—and my accompanying erection—while Liam sat next to me and wore a smugly satisfied smile.

I think about the times we fucked or I blew Liam in a church bathroom because we couldn’t wait to get back to our dorm room.

I recall the times Liam’s hand crept into my lap in a darkened movie theater, or how he’d grind against me as we stood on a crowded subway train.

I relive the finite nights sharing a bed, an invisible clock only I could see ticking down to what I felt was the inevitable conclusion.

I knew he’d try to talk me into staying with him, but my fear of my father—and what he might do to Liam—was stronger than my love for Liam, back then. Not by much, but enough to fuck up the rest of my life.

And Liam’s, too, apparently.

I said no to the only person I should have been screaming yes to.

Closing that e-mail, I open the text that arrived a few minutes ago.

From Daniel. One I’ve already read.

No briefs tonight. I will check.

I swallow hard because as I sit here on the toilet, I look down at my slacks, which are puddled around my ankles.

No briefs. I removed them after receiving his text.

Because I’m Sir’s good boy and desperate to please him.

What am I doing? Seriously? These aren’t frat-house games.

Liam and I are senators. Daniel is chief of staff to senior House leadership.

About the only thing I’d have left if I’m caught doing this would be my political office, if that. Olivia would strip everything else from me and then some. She’d suck the marrow straight from my bones, and don’t think I don’t know that.

I have to divorce her.

Our prenup doesn’t say we can’t get divorced, obviously. It lays out specific clauses for behavior on either of our parts that triggers certain penalties.

If I ask for a quiet, simple divorce and state irreconcilable differences while implying my workaholic nature is to blame for us growing apart, she would probably gladly go along with it.

Making her look good is the key.

Not embarrassing her.

Meaning not getting caught in a messy scandal, like someone walking in to find me on my knees and sucking Liam’s cock, or getting fucked up