“I can’t…” he’d whispered and his hands had dug deeper into her soft skin.
And she should have left at that. But she couldn’t. In her twenty-eight years, she’d had sex, she’d liked sex, she’d enjoyed sex…but not until that moment had she needed it, needed it more than the air her lungs demanded of her.
“Please.” She’d said please once and she should have stopped there. But it came out again. “Please, Søren…please…” and over and over again. She begged for him, begged for it. Even now, six weeks later, she couldn’t think of how much she’d pleaded with him without blushing with utter shame. She would have sold her soul to feel him inside her.
Instead he’d covered her mouth with his hand to stop her words.
“Forgive me, Suzanne,” he’d said and she heard her own need echoed in his voice. “I do not belong to myself.”
And slowly he’d let her go. And once free of his shockingly strong hands, she’d run hard and fast from the rectory, back to her car, back to the city and away from him.
The next day she couldn’t stop staring at her own skin. Søren had purpled her arms from elbow to wrist. And looking at those bruises brought back such waves of desire that she’d lain in bed giving herself the pleasure he’d denied her and crying during every orgasm.
“I f**ked up, Patrick,” she said finally. “I f**ked up the whole investigation. I killed my credibility.”
“What did you do?”
Suzanne pulled her hands from her face.
“I kissed him.”
A half-truth seemed better than a lie.
“You kissed him?”
She nodded miserably.
“And it doesn’t matter. Because he kissed me back. And I know he wanted me and he didn’t do anything. Just stuck to his vows. He’s a good priest. I wasted his time and my time and your time… It’s pointless. You were right. I shouldn’t have pursued it.”
Patrick shook his head.
“No. You were right. There is something weird about him. There’s no way some stranger would send you an anonymous tip about him if he was the saint everyone says he is.”
“I dug, Patrick. And I can’t find anything. The kids at church love him and trust him. The parents love him and trust him. What else is there? I don’t care if he’s cheating on his taxes as long as he’s never hurt a child. I wanted to believe he was a monster just because he’s a priest. Look.” She pointed at a box on the floor by her desk. “There’s all my notes on him. There’s nothing. He’s a saint.”
With a groan, Patrick got up, grabbed the box and sat back down on the couch. He flipped through her notes.
“Nice to see you made sure to write down how hot he is,” Patrick said, reading her steno pad.
“It’s ungodly how gorgeous he is, Pat. You’d turn g*y for this guy.”
“Don’t think so. I like young, buxom redheads only.” He winked at her, and for the first time in six weeks she started to feel human again.
“I’ll try to find you one then.”
Suzanne sat up and stared down at the box of notes. She pulled out a newspaper. “Oh, and look at this. We thought something funky was going on with Father Stearns and Nora Sutherlin? Check this out. That guy look familiar?”
Patrick squinted at the Page Six photograph.
“That’s Nora Sutherlin,” Suzanne supplied. “And that gorgeous male-model clone is—”
“Griffin Fiske.” Patrick shook his head. “Yeah, covered his rampages a time or two. Fucking trust fund babies. They get all the girls.”
“They get Nora Sutherlin apparently. Seems she prefers rich boys over poor priests.”
Patrick took the newspaper and tossed it aside before grabbing her notebook from the box.
“What’s this? ‘Min Søren, Min søn er nu en far. Jeg er så stolt. Jeg elsker dig altid. Din mor.’”
“I think you just murdered the Danish language.” Suzanne sat up.
“Danish?”
“Yeah, it means, ‘My Søren, my son I am so proud. Your mother.’”
“The priest is Danish?”
“Half Danish, half English. Mother was an au pair for this wealthy family in New Hampshire. The wife had a hysterectomy after baby Elizabeth was born. Daddy raped the pretty blond nanny who then gave him the son he wanted.”
“Jesus…” Patrick breathed. “That’s f**king awful.”
“Yeah. I can’t imagine what that does to someone knowing your father’s a ra**st. She must have been an amazing woman to love her son so much considering how he came into the world.”
“Søren…I thought his name was Marcus.”
“It’s both. Marcus is what the dad named him. Søren is what the mom named him. He says only the people closest to him, who know his past, call him Søren.”
“Søren…I guess that’s a good name for a priest. Like Søren Kierkegaard, right? The theologian?”
“I don’t think Kierkegaard was Catholic.”
“You sure?” Patrick grabbed his laptop and opened it. As long as she’d known him, Patrick would never take her word on anything. He’d been a reporter too long and had to fact-check everything. “Yup. You’re right. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard—Lutheran. You two have the same initials, Suzanne Angela Kanter. Anyone ever call you Suzangela?”