Lessons in Sin

by Pam Godwin

Expulsion was what Tinsley wanted. Therefore, it was the one thing I wouldn’t give her. That left scrubbing floors. Or corporal punishment. Slapping. Spanking. Flogging. Choking. I couldn’t. I shouldn’t, for ten thousand reasons all amounting to one. I want it. I wanted to put my hands on her so badly, and if I did, if I physically punished her, it would be irrefutably, uncontrollably, gloriously sexual for me. I’d only touched her one time. Four weeks ago, I’d let my thumb brush her lip. That single, featherlight touch had unfurled a surge of twisted, desperate cravings from the darkest corner of my mind. Since then, I’d kept my hands to myself and forced my black thoughts into nonexistence. But if I touched her again, if I introduced her to my favorite pastime, it was all over. As it was, watching her crawl across the floor on her knees teased the hell out of my sadistic nature. The flagrant sexual symbolism in the act wasn’t lost on her, either. She called me out on it every time, asserting that no student should kneel for her teacher because it was perverte...

She straightened her spine and met my eyes, looking so irresistibly, gorgeously shamefaced. “I’ll kiss the Jesus or scrub the floors or whatever you decide. No resistance. I’m a total shithead.” One of the things I’d come to adore about Tinsley Constantine was the ease in which she could be so genuinely humble and wryly deflating of herself. Rarely did she care about other people’s perceptions of her, but for whatever reason, she didn’t want me to believe she was superficial or weak-minded.

She had no idea how far removed she was from those traits, and that only made her more beautiful, more desirable, harder to go unnoticed. She was unlike any eighteen-year-old I’d ever met. None of that changed the fact that she was my student, half my age, and completely, irrevocably outside my preferences. Yet she had enough sex appeal to hold my attention for eternity. Shut it down, Magnus.

For a spoiled rich girl, she was selflessly devout about protecting vulnerable, unlikable animals. I didn’t understand it and didn’t give her an inch. No assurance whatsoever as I glared at her, making her squirm. Ruthless, down to the marrow of my despicable soul. “Magnus…” Her voice pleaded. She used my first name. Her hand reached for my chest. My brain didn’t know which deviation to rebuke first. As bold as she was with her tongue, she’d never been brave enough to touch me. Even now, as her fingers made a slow, jerky climb toward my shirt, she trembled with uncertainty. I caught her wrist before she made contact, my hand closing mercilessly around delicate bones. She whimpered but didn’t try to pull away. Instead, she drifted closer with her whole body, her gaze never wavering from my face. Hypnotic. Stirring. Intoxicating. My fingers tightened around her arm, preventing her from reaching. But she might as well have put her hand on me anyway. I felt her everywhere, digging in with her nails and sharp kitten teeth while cutting me at the knees with only a look and a plea. “Please, don’t make me regret telling you this.” She wrapped her free hand around mine on her wrist and leaned in. “I’m feeding baby opossums. This isn’t like the bat. I know they’re joeys. Or they were. They’re nearly ready to survive on their own. They just need a couple more days to bulk up for the winter. Please, Father Magnus.” She bent over our hands, lowering her brow to my chest. “Please, don’t...

For four weeks, I’d watched her retreat into this grove while weekend visitors came and went. Every student had received at least one visitor since the start of the school year. Most students had visitors every weekend. Not one person had come to see Tinsley. As we walked back to the classroom, she prattled on about the opossums, sharing stories as if they were her closest friends. She was lonely. If I looked beneath her misbehavior and sass, I would see just how deep her loneliness ran. She was miserable. Maybe that misery began long before she moved to Maine. What had she really left behind in Bishop’s Landing? Shallow friendships? A cold mansion? A world where she went unnoticed, unappreciated, and unloved? She’d stopped asking for her phone two weeks ago.

they’re all I have here. I’ll be devastated when they move on. But I’ll also be proud and blissfully happy. I only want the best for them.” She smiled to herself. “Animals are better than people.” “How so?” “They don’t judge. They don’t hate. If humans had hearts like opossums, what a beautiful world this would be.” If people had hearts like Tinsley Constantine, my faith in humanity would be renewed. For the next few hours, I led her through her lessons. She took some exams, went to lunch, and sat through my afternoon classes. Then she finished her day with the punishment she’d earned for being late this morning. Scrubbing floors wasn’t teaching her a damn thing. But I made no allowances. If she broke a rule, she paid the penalty. I was nothing if not consistent. Thirty minutes into her punishment, she’d worked herself into the far corner. She also had that skirt inched up around her waist again, and this time, I didn’t look away. Bent over on her knees, she gave me a direct view of her heart-shaped bottom in white cotton. The high-cut underwear followed the curves of toned, youthful thighs. The swath of thin material between her legs clung to her flesh, carving an explicit, mouthwatering valley from one virgin hole to the other. I shifted in the chair behind my desk as heat rushed below my belt and tightened between my legs. That damn skirt hadn’t bunched around her waist on its own. I now suspected it hadn’t been the breeze that exposed her this morning, either. She was ...

I followed his gaze across the courtyard and found the steel blue eyes of my nemesis staring back.

“I don’t like the way he’s staring at you.” He yanked his arm free. “I’m just gonna have a chat with him.” That was a terrible idea. My brother was cocky, overprotective, and mouthier than I was. “Just remember.” I jogged to stay at his side. “When you leave today, I have to stay here and deal with the fallout. He doesn’t respond well to threats or disrespect, so please, just…play nice?” We ran out of distance before he could respond. “Keaton Constantine.” He moved right up into Magnus’s face and grabbed my hand, hauling me against his side. “I’m Tinsley’s brother.” “I see the resemblance.” Magnus didn’t move. Not a flicker of surprise or irritation. They stood neck and neck, same heights, similar builds, equal intensity in their eye contact. “We may look alike.” Keaton squeezed my hand, preventing me from pulling away. “But I know you see a lot more when you look at her. A beautiful young thing in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. I’m guessing you’ve never seen a girl as pretty as her come through here.” “Keaton.” With a growl, I yanked on my hand. “Stop.” He tightened his grip. “Just remember who her family is, who her brothers are. If you touch one hair on her head—” “No threats, Keaton.” I shoved at his rigid, immovable frame and turned to Magnus. “I told him not to threaten you.” “That’s okay. Maybe his warning will be more creative and stimulating than your mother’s.” Magnus tilted his head, regarding my brother with chilling indifference. “You were saying?” Keaton’s ey...

A week later, I sat in the third row of Magnus’s classroom, listening as his deep baritone oozed sex into the statistical analysis of economic relationships. Not sure when I started thinking of him as Magnus instead of Father Magnus. I only knew that it was crucial in helping me separate the man from the authority figure, mentally speaking. Separating the man from his job in the literal sense was a whole other story. There were fifteen girls in this econometrics class, including me. As he bent down to grab the paper he dropped, all of them stared at his ass, including me. Chiseled perfection. There was no other way to describe those taut gluteus muscles. As a matter of fact, chiseled perfection could be used to describe all of Magnus Falke. Except his personality. For that, I would lose the perfection and just go with chiseled. Or squared. Old-fashioned and lame.

But also mysterious. He was an enigma to me, and that made him dangerously intriguing. I wanted his secrets. I longed to know what corralled him into priesthood and prevented him from returning to his former sexual self. My internet searches yielded nothing but praise for his past achievements. Self-made billionaire? One hundred percent. He’d gotten rich by flipping businesses. In essence, he bought flailing corporations, fixed them up, and made an astronomical profit when he sold them. By day, he was the king of the corporate world. By night, he was New York’s most eligible bachelor. There were very few photos of him as if someone diligently erased them from the internet. But the ones I’d found showed him wearing suits and tuxedos, attending extravagant parties, each taken with a different woman on his arm. Always older ladies, closer to my mother’s age. All perfectly built and strikingly beautiful. Fashion models. Beauty queens. Celebrities. Looking at those pictures made my stomach turn. He could and did have any woman he wanted, and I hated that for reasons I refused to examine. Even now, dressed in his priestly black on black, he was an effigy of desire and temptation. Shadowed jawline, wicked mean mouth, brown hair falling over his forehead as he crouched to the floor. Then he straightened, turning.

His lashes lifted to half-mast, and his piercing blue eyes landed directly on me. Bedroom eyes. I imagined they looked just like that, sensual and heated, when he was in the throes of orgasm. Now that I had his rapt attention, I slid my finger between my lips and slowly sucked from tip to knuckle. As I withdrew it, I painted the wetness from my mouth along my slack bottom lip, rolling my tongue a little and— “Class dismissed.” He clipped out the words, never taking his eyes off my lips. I smiled. He scowled. “We still have ten minutes.” Carrie, so desperate to be the teacher’s pet, didn’t move from her chair. “Get out!” His roar rattled the windows and cleared the room in under three seconds. I might’ve peed a little, but I forced myself to remain seated. Forced my gaze to stay with his. Something had changed since the night he returned my phone. I’d deliberately shown him my underwear, and just like that, he’d stopped punishing me with labor that put me on my knees. No more floor scrubbing. All week, I’d argued through his lessons, spat obscene words at his face, and engaged in my usual ornery way. But each infraction was met with forced prayers and Bible study. Boring. My sore...

Paralyzed, I didn’t take my eyes off him as he walked toward me in a slow, menacing manner. I suppressed the need to swallow and jutted my chin higher. For six weeks, I’d poked and pushed and drove the beast to the edge. I wanted to watch him unravel so completely he would have no other option than to send me home. I was here for the ruination. Mine. His. No matter how badly it hurt. This could’ve been so much easier. He could’ve gotten rid of me on day one, but his arrogance stood in the way. Now, we would both pay the price. He set down the phone, the ghostly music pealing around us. He didn’t try to speak over it. Instead, his hand shot to my hair, fingers closing around the roots, and with a force of aggression that emptied my lungs, he swung me out of the chair. My hips slammed into the desk as he threw me face down across the surface. The rough treatment should’ve panicked me, but I loved the feel of his iron grip, the heat of his legs against my backside, and his single-minded focus on teaching me a lesson. I wanted his lessons in sin. Stars danced across my vision as he shoved me harder against the desk. Then he was on me, his whiskered jaw scratching my cheek, his heavy frame folding around my back, tucking me against him as he panted in my ear. “I tried to protect you.” He curled his fingers around my throat and scraped his teeth against my jaw. “I tried, and now, it’s too late. I won’t be able to stop. Not with you.” Every thought, every snarky retort, died with...

Everything inside me heated at the familiarity of my name on Tinsley’s lips. She looked like a broken angel, kneeling in the brutal storm, hair like gold gossamer around her ethereal face, and shattered blue eyes staring up at me, so trusting, so needful, so goddamn beautiful. Nine years ago, I would have dragged her into the shadows and fucked her like this—drenched, shivering, heartbroken, ass reddened with my marks, uniform shoved up and twisted about her waist, face smashed into the mud, and my cock a hard lesson that some things should never be coaxed out of hiding. I was no longer that monster. But I knew, in the sick workings of my mind, that I couldn’t be trusted. Not with Tinsley. Never again. “Someone killed Jaden and Willow.” Her chin quivered, and she locked her jaw tight, anger leaking into her voice. “Someone killed them! You can punish me for breaking curfew. Do whatever you want to me. But please, Magnus. Please, help me.” I’d received calls from both Daisy and Miriam explaining the situation. Someone had left the dead opossums in a shoebox on Tinsley’s bed. When I found that someone, there would be hell to pay. But right now, I needed to get her out of the rain. My gaze lifted to the residence hall at a distance behind her. Dark windows, lights out, the students would’ve been sent back to their beds. I couldn’t send Tinsley back in there like this. She’d run for a reason. She’d asked for my help, and by that, she meant comfort. She needed me to console her...

This was a church. I never allowed my depraved thoughts to desecrate these walls. She was safe from me here. I carried her to the first row and lowered into the pew. We were soaked from the rain, quivering uncontrollably, and dripping water all over the place. As I shifted to set her beside me, her arm stiffened around my back, wordlessly demanding I not let go. “Tinsley.” I held her on my lap and gripped the soggy cardboard. “Give me the box.” “No.” Her head shook rapidly, her gaze waterlogged and devastated. “I can’t.” “You can.” I injected steel in my voice. “Do as you’re told.” Her fingers sprung open, releasing the shoebox, and a sob tore from her throat. “Good girl.” I set it aside and pulled her against my chest. She was so small, her lissome limbs curled into a ball on my lap, her head tucked beneath my chin. We needed towels, dry clothes, but that would require going back out in the rain. So I gave her my body heat and removed the phone from my pocket. After sending off a few quick texts, I set the device aside. Then, under the guise of keeping her warm, I gave into the urge to touch her. Slowly, agonizingly, I circled my palm across the silky wet skin of her thigh, torturing myself. If I wandered a few inches higher, I would reach heaven. She’d gifted me a clear, unhampered view of her glistening slit this afternoon. With her bare ass perched in the air and the belt she’d so naughtily earned leaving stripes of angry red flesh, I applauded myself for not impaling ...

She gasped and flew off the pew as the young opossums scurried from the box. Swooping them up in her arms, she laughed, a gloriously musical sound that coursed warmth through my chest. The opossums climbed to her shoulders and clung from her wet hair, leaving no doubt that these were the critters she called Jaden and Willow. A shocking amount of relief settled over me as I met Felix’s cloudy eyes. “I have a theory, Father.” He handed over the duffel bag and grabbed the shoebox, tucking it under his arm. “But you’re not going to like it.” “I’m listening.” I removed a blanket from the bag and draped it over Tinsley’s shoulders. Her gaze stayed with the opossums, but I knew she was listening, too. “There’s been a lot of roadkill between here and the neighboring towns. Lots of opossums.” He stared at his wet boots and grimaced. “Seeing how it’s Monday and the students had visitors over the weekend, it’s an easy assumption that someone collected what’s in this shoebox and brought it onto the campus. Looks to me like these”—he tapped the shoebox—“were hit by a car.” “I know who put it in my room.” Tinsley growled in her throat. Hot-tempered without being vindictive. Soft and fierce and elfish. Enchanting. “We’ll talk about it when I do a full investigation.” I turned to Felix. “You found her opossums near the north wall?” “Yeah. They’re trying to get out but don’t know how to breach the electric fence. Opossums are travelers, never sticking around the same place too long. I know...

She didn’t spare it a glance as she slid into the front seat. The opossums absorbed her full attention. During the drive, she petted and played with their ears and tails. I left her to it, knowing these were her final moments with them. Twenty minutes later, I parked along the gravel path that led to the entrance of the state park. “Ready?” I twisted in the dark to face her. She stared down at the animals on her lap. Her chest lifted with a heavy inhale, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she nodded, and a tiny smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. Wrapped in blankets and escorted by the moonlight, we stepped onto the path in our soggy shoes and icy clothes. My breath formed puffs of white vapor, and my fingers were so cold they’d gone numb. But I was at ease. Unburdened. Peaceful. This deep, genuine sense of happiness was new to me. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so content. It had everything to do with her. In the space of six weeks, she’d become a coveted presence. I eagerly awaited every word from her mouth. Looked forward to seeing the ferocity in her eyes. Counted down the seconds until she punched back with another witty retort. As she lowered the opossums to the ground and coaxed them into the woods, I realized this was the side of her I cherished the most. With her guard down and her soft underbelly exposed, she was an angel beyond her astral form. Her power came from her inner grace and compassion. When she wasn’t trying to raise hell in my classroom, she was in...

I felt a sick sense of jealousy that she got to leave. It didn’t seem fair.

He stepped to his desk and perched on the edge, his head down and eyes up, never taking his attention off me.

His face showed no emotion. A face his god had gone to great effort designing and sculpting. “You’re free to go for the day.” “Oh.” I glanced at the door. “No punishments. No opossums. What ever shall I do?” He tilted his head, studying me, his gaze enigmatic. “What?” I returned stare for stare. “Have you given any thought to applying for colleges?” “Yes. No.” “Explain.” “I’ve given a lot of thought to what I want to do, and it doesn’t require a college education.” “I’m listening.” “I want to run an animal rescue.” My stomach tightened as I braced for a negative reaction. He pushed his lips out, thinking. Then he nodded. “I can see that.” “Really?” “Yes, but I suggest you earn a degree in business so you can operate it efficiently.” “I would hire someone to do that.” “Okay. What about the actual care of the animals? The health care and maintenance?” “I would hire people for that, too.” “Then what would you do?” “I would play with the animals, of course.” “Of course.” He narrowed his eyes, judging. He thought I was spoiled and entitled, and he would be right. “Annnd…” I jogged my shoulders playfully, grinning. “I would fund it.” “With your trust fund?” “Yes, that. And with my amazing passion. A project, business, charity, movie, piece of art—none of that takes shape unless it’s backed by someone who’s deeply passionate about it. It’s that investment of passion that drives the success of any business. Am I right?” “Yes.” A smile pulled at his mouth and lit up his stunning ey...

As she set off to interview coaches and players, I was content to watch the boys run through their drills. There were plenty of studs on the team. Cute ones. Beefy ones. A lot of them stared and winked at me from across the field. But my interest in their kind had changed over the past six weeks. Maybe I should call my mother and tell her that her decision to send me to an all-girls Catholic school had cured my curiosity with boys. I was no longer interested in giving blow jobs to college guys who worked at Burger King. Now I only wanted to spread my legs for men twice my age who bit and spanked and wore clerical collars.

Blond hair, brown eyes, with an explosion of muscles along his six-foot-three frame, he was conventionally handsome. Six weeks ago, I would’ve thrown myself at him.

“Does it matter?” I dropped to the bench and shoved my face in his. “She’s a person, and you’re suffering from delusions of adequacy. Also, I prefer a battle of wits, which you appear to be unarmed for, so fuck off.”

It had been four weeks since he kissed me in the forest on that cold, stormy night. He hadn’t kissed me since. But he wanted to. I watched him wrestle with it every day with every breath. We both fought against that ceaseless pull. It was fucking exhausting.

I felt enchanting in this dress. The delicate gold lace and organza stopped just above my knees. With an A-line silhouette, illusion neckline, and satin belt with a bow knot, the gown was both princessy and sexy. I owed Keaton and Iris big-time. “Thank you, Father.” I

“He kissed me a month ago. I kissed him back.” I watched for surprise in the Filipino priest’s eyes and found none. “Since then, he’s put his hands beneath my skirt, over my underwear four times, and I welcomed it. I wanted more.” After the day he trapped me against the door and buried his nose between my legs, he’d done the same thing three more times. His fingers never breached the crotch of my underwear. He never exposed himself, and he never touched my breasts or pussy—under or over my clothes. Much to my despair. He was fighting this thing between us and winning. I did my part by not encouraging it. I hated the resistance. It made me restless and crazy. The unanswered sexual tension between us was so heavy and unwieldy it drove me out of my skin. But like I’d told him, I didn’t want him to resent me when all this was over. “You’re his student,” Crisanto said quietly. “And he’s a priest. That’s why our attraction hasn’t moved past that kiss. But if it ever does, remember this.” I smoothed my hands down my dress and stood taller. “I’m a legal adult. What he and I do together is between him and me. I know he’s not a gentle man, and I love that about him. He won’t hurt me. Not without my permission. I believe the word that might give you peace is consensual. That’s all it will ever be with us.” “You’re…” He set a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “You’re a very smart, mature young lady.” “I’m learning, and believe it or not, he’s helping me with that.” “He’s a goo...

With excitement thrumming in my blood, I stepped through the doors, and my entire being homed in on him. Through the flickering lights, beyond the crowds of dancers, he stood like a sentinel on the far side of the gym. Dressed in all black with a square of white at his throat, he appraised me with sublime intensity and attention to detail. His earnest stare didn’t miss an inch as it raked me from head to toe and back again. The dance music swirled around me. Students paused and turned their heads. But all that existed was him. My breath sped up, heat and hunger tangling. I wanted to run to him. I ached to feel his lips again, taste his tongue, hear his throaty groans, and writhe beneath his capable hands. I wanted to strip that man and fuck him like the good Lord intended. By the smoldering look in his eyes, he was thinking the same about me. “Lord have mercy, you two couldn’t be more obvious.” Crisanto’s whisper came over my shoulder, and his finger jabbed into my spine. “Pull your eyes away from him and go find Daisy.” I blinked, breaking the trance. That was when I noticed my surroundings, the onlookers. Everyone was watching me stare at my teacher. Shit.

I turned and found Tucker Kensington sauntering toward us. His gaze lingered on me, giving my dress and heels an unabashed perusal. Over the past few weeks, he’d started to grow on me. For a cocky, immature, self-centered trust fund kid, he had a couple of strengths, such as his skill with a football and his ability to roll with Daisy’s punches. He’d put a lot of effort into winning over my prickly friend, and the best part? His attempts were sincere. He seemed to actually enjoy riling her up with compliments. I still didn’t know why he gravitated toward me the way he did. I wasn’t particularly nice to him and never gave him an opening to kiss me or touch me sexually. If I was reading him right, he wanted out of the friend zone but wasn’t aggressive enough to make that happen. Seemed weird considering the ease in which he flirted with every other girl at Sion. He was the most handsome, most sought-after boy at St. John’s. He was also the wealthiest. His family had more money than God. Standing before me, he wore a tailored tuxedo and a panty-melting smile. Every girl on the dance floor gawked at him and glared at me. Daisy had been right about this whole thing. Tucker had asked me to this dance, and all the girls hated me. As if I cared.

That was a lot of work just to win a dance with me. But this was about more than a dance. He’d made some sort of claim on me. I sensed it every time I was around the other guys from St. John’s. None of them hit on me. None of them asked me out. And as I stood here, watching boys in tuxedos lead girls in glittery gowns on and off the dance floor, not one of them invited me to dance. Not a single pair of eyes turned my way. That was Tucker’s doing. I was certain of it. Without telling me, he’d taken me off the market and declared me as his.

But the joke was on him. I was already taken. My thoughts, my breaths, every beat of my damn heart belonged to someone else. And all of it jumped to life as his unmistakable heat and power greeted my back. “You’re ravishing, Miss Constantine.” His purr caressed my ear, making me shiver. In the next breath, he appeared beside me, still as stone and his gaze directed across the dance floor as his chiseled lips mouthed, Drop-dead gorgeous. An intense feeling of affection, warm and wrapped in possessiveness, settled into my midsection. Then he gave me his eyes, the caress of his hungry stare, searing my skin and deeper, strangling my air like a closed fist. Heat swept through me, surging between my legs. In mute fascination, I watched his gaze discover my nipples beneath the thin organza and travel lower, tracing the lines of my body and devouring every swath of exposed skin. Then he lifted my hand with professional grace, bowed his head, and rested his hot mouth upon my fingers. The feel of his lips sent my heart into the decorated rafters. But it was the wicked glint in his eyes that stole my soul. The man he’d pretended to be for the past nine years was a lie. He was danger. Sin encaged in muscle and bone. A demon wearing the face of a god, the collar of a priest, and the belt of Adonis. “May I cut in?” Tucker stood beside Magnus, reaching for my hand still held in Magnus’s grip. Magnus took his time releasing me and straightening to his full height. On the dance floor, Dai...