26 | Descent To Hell

**GABRIEL**

After Sienna had left that evening, I locked myself in the bathroom and stood under the cold spray for hours until my erection relented and my mind was cleansed.
All I did for the next hours until night was read the Bible until my eyes were drooping with sleep and my body was wrung out in exhaustion. But I realised that none of those practices mattered when I saw Sienna during the morning Mass.
There were two hundred girls in attendance, excluding Father Lucas, choir girls and a few others and yet I found myself drawn to one girl. One look at her innocent face, and I got hard underneath the black frock. And I was standing in the house of God, vowed to be the Shepard and not the wolf.
So I decided to avoid her at all costs, carefully delegating my classes to other teachers until I get a fucking grip on myself, but Sienna Emerson does not seem to take a hint.
I almost denoted when her voice floated in through the lattice, tempting me to tear down the separation and devour her the way I wanted to. And her words only added fuel to the fire in my heart.
“I enjoyed it,” she whispered deliciously. “I mean…the spanking. It gave me something I had never felt before. Like a burning feeling deep inside, and the same feeling between my legs.”
*Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Please, stop.*
My hands fisted on my lap, almost crushing the rosary I held between my fingers. “Is this confession over?” I asked. My voice was so hoarse that it grated on my ears.
“Do you want to know in detail?” she asked eagerly.
“This confession is about you and not me.”
She must have shifted in her seat because the wood creaked a little. “Is it a sin to *want you*, to *indulge* in your thoughts?”
“Stop, please—”
“I *need* you, Gabriel,” Sienna’s words sliced through my resolve like a razor through silk. “I don’t care how desperate and pathetic I sound, but I want you badly. And I am tired of rubbing myself at the thought of your *cock* in my—”
“Sienna! I said *stop*!” I snapped, slapping the latticed opening and watched her jerk back through the restricted view.
Her ragged breaths filled the silence once again. “Why are you fighting this, Gabriel?” she coaxed. And fuck that voice; it sounded like a siren’s call.
Do not lead me into temptation…
I pressed my forehead against the hard wood and shook my head in denial. I cannot become the man I was six years ago, tainted in blood and lust. One girl, no matter how innocent or tantalising, was not going to unravel everything I had built for years. She was not going to destroy everything I’d worked so hard to create for myself.
Nothing good would come out of this.
I straightened myself once again, and even though I knew that she could not see me, my profile hardened with an iron-clad resolve.
“I am your teacher, and I am a man of the cloth. Harbouring thoughts of the flesh is a sin in the eyes of God.” It was more of a reminder for myself than for her.
“Spare me the seminary bullshit, Gabriel,” Sienna snapped. “If you are not ready, then there’s no point of this conversation. I want it to be real between us — no pretence.”
“That is not possible. You can’t tempt me anymore.”
*Shit*.
“Anymore?”
It was too late to shove the word back. Sienna must have been young but not ignorant or stupid by any measure. And I knew she’d caught that careless slip.
Instead of answering her, I quickly rattled the prayer of absolution, despite the confession was nothing like it should have been.
“And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Go in peace.”
Her exasperated huff of breath was the only thing I heard before she got up to leave.
“This is not over, Gabriel. You can’t hide behind the shadows forever because one day, I will get the truth out of you.”
And then I heard the door of the booth slammed shut.