Lust Is the Thorn Read Free Page A

always have.” She gripped the blanket.
“Father.”
    I tugged on my clerical collar again and studied her, tallying each mark and bruise as a personal failure of mine.
I had failed Rose
. But I wouldn’t do it again.
    Never again.
    “I’m not a priest yet. Just a deacon.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Same thing, if you ask me.”
    I stared at her, not sure what to say. Or do. I didn’t feel that familiar comfortable warmth I got when in her company. I didn’t immediately know how to make her laugh. Or smile. Or open up to me. For the first time…
    I had no clue what to say.

Chapter 2
    Rose
    Thorn stood watching me with those dark amber eyes of his, with his perfectly styled brown hair and olive complexion, and all I could think was:
he knows
. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, or what I’d done. I’m a fighter. I did what I had to do to survive, to take care of myself, and had been doing that since I was old enough to realize my deadbeat parents never would. But seeing the worry in Thorn…
    Yeah. I didn’t like it.
    “You might not have taken the vows, but you look like one, and act like one, too,” I said softly, gesturing toward the collar he was never without. “Or are you still out there fucking your way through women, like the good old days?”
    He rocked back on his heels and avoided looking at me. Was it just me, or did he
blush
? The old Thorn didn’t blush at anything. “You know I’m not.”
    “Yeah.” I forced a laugh. “I guess I do.”
    God knows that if he was interested in fucking anyone, he’d have a long line of ready and willing women to choose from—and I’d be at the front of that line with a shiv.
    Pathetic, but true.
    In true Rose Gallagher fashion, I was in love with a guy I could never have. With a guy who would never want me, even if he
weren’t
practically a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. To him, I was an obligation. A little sister. Someone to protect, not fuck. He might look like he belonged on the cover of
GQ
without a shirt, but he kept himself under tight control.
    Always had.
    Well, that wasn’t true.
    His iron self-control had kicked in after Mikey died in a tragic drunk-driving accident almost eight years ago. That night, it was like a switch was flicked in Thorn’s head, and he became a new man. Instead of drugs, girls, and booze, he spent his days and nights at the Holy Mother Roman Catholic University in the heart of Chicago, studying to become a
priest
. He left the slums of Englewood behind, and made something of his life.
    Left me behind, too.
    We had weekly lunches, and I knew he cared about me in his own way, but it wasn’t the same as having him living three houses down, or as good as having him climb through my window in the middle of the night because mine was easier to get through than Mikey’s. It wasn’t the same as spending evenings together, reading together, feet touching as we quietly enjoyed each other’s company. He wasn’t
that guy
anymore.
    I was happy for him, and all the changes he’d made.
    Honestly, I
was
.
    But he seemed to think meeting up once a week to shoot the shit meant he knew what was happening in my life. He didn’t. Never had. I’d purposely kept him in the dark, because a man of the cloth didn’t need to know what I was up to. What I had to do to survive.
    No matter how many times he’d crawled into my room as a kid.
    “What happened tonight?” he asked, his voice soft yet firm.
    “I finished up work—”
    “At a strip club.”
    My cheeks heated. “Don’t take that tone with me. I needed money, and a place to stay, and Kitty Kat’s offered both those things. It was just a temporary solution till I got back on my feet.”
    He didn’t say anything, just glowered at me.
    Raising a brow despite the pain, I refused to back down. I had nothing to be ashamed of. So what if I needed to take my clothes off for some horny middle-aged men to get by for a week or two? If it’s what needed to be done, I would do it,