Priest
by Sierra Simone
Published by Bloom Books
Book 1 in the Priest Series
There are many rules a priest can't break: A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God.
I've always been good at following rules. Until she came. My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I'm twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again. I am a priest and this is my confession.
Genre
Triggers
Mentions of systemic sex abuse and a sister's death by suicide.
Also involves a consensual sexual relationship with a priest.
Contains some BDSM elements.
So funny story about this book.
It's been on my TBR a long time. A lot of books I've wanted to read have been.
What made me pick it up recently - besides being temporarily available on Kindle Unlimited - is that my best friend hates this book.
Every week we browse our local Indigo, we see it, and she can't help but talk about how much she hated it.
Pretty sure she eventually DNF'd it.
But me, loving to needle her from time to time, kept saying that when I do read it, I hope to love it, just to bug her about it.
So when I picked up the book, I'm not sure what I was expecting.
I will admit that I liked Priest.
I didn't love it.
There were some questionable sentence structure issues that really bothered me. Some annoying word usage. But overall, I liked it.
I liked the story.
Which surprised me.
Because I'm not a fan of the Catholic church as a whole.
I'm not a fan of any religion that forces celibacy.
I did love the theology throughout the book. Which I understand is weird, considering I'm an atheist. But it added something to this book.
Without it, it would have been just pure smut.
Because there is a lot of it.
Like, so much of it, that I found it too much.
So, if I liked the story, why am I only giving it three stars?
Well, besides the sentence structure and word choices, I couldn't stand our female lead in this book.
Besides her looks, what did Tyler see in her?
It wasn't that she was a deeply sexual woman, her occupation, or anything like that. I just hated her personality.
I couldn't get over that.
The story, and Tyler's inner battle with his faith and his desires was what made this book good.
And while it was a lot, the sex was intense and hot.
So I ended up getting to tell my best friend that I liked Priest. I agreed with some of her thoughts on the book, but while she hated it with a fiery passion, I ended up enjoying it enough to read the next book.
by purchasing this book through one of my amazon links, the amazon gods will bestow upon me a couple of pennies as thanks.
I needed to focus. And not on the way her voice made me suddenly feel much more man than priest.
Poppy: “It’s easier to not see you, with, you know, the robes and stuff while I’m talking.”
Now I laughed.
Tyler: “We don’t wear the robes all the time, you know.”
Poppy: “Oh. Well, there goes my mental image. What are you wearing, then?”
Tyler: “A long-sleeved black shirt with a white collar. You know the kind. The kind you see on TV. And jeans.”
Poppy: “Jeans?”
Tyler: “Is that so shocking?”
I heard her lean against the side of the booth.
Poppy: “A little. It’s like you’re a real person.”
Tyler: “Only on weekdays, between the hours of nine and five.”
Poppy: “Good. I’m glad they don’t put you in a crisper between Sundays or something.”
Tyler: “They tried that. Too much condensation.”
I paused.
Tyler: “And if it helps, I normally wear slacks.”
Poppy: “That seems significantly more priestlike.”
Oh, and I spend a lot of time on The Walking Dead Reddit. Too much time. Last night I stayed up until two a.m. arguing with some neckbeard about whether or not you could kill a zombie with another zombie’s spinal column. Which you can’t, obviously, given the rate of bone decay among the walkers.
Tyler: “I believe in God, Poppy, but I also believe that spirituality isn’t for everybody. You may find what you’re looking for in a profession you’re passionate about, or in travel, or in a family, or in any other number of things. Or you may find that another religion fits you better. I don’t want you to feel pressured to explore the Catholic Church for any reason other than genuine interest or curiosity.”
Poppy: “And what about an unbelievably hot priest? Is that a sound reason for exploring the Church?”
I must have looked horrified—mostly because her words were nipping at my strained self-control—and she laughed. The sound was almost stupidly bright and pleasant, the kind of laugh bred to echo across ballrooms or next to a pool in the Hamptons.
Poppy: “Relax, I was joking. I mean, you are hot, but it’s not the reason I’m interested. At least”
—she gave me another up and down look that made my skin feel like it was covered in flames—
Poppy: “it’s not the only reason.”
Poppy: “It’s a long story.”
I leaned back in the chair, making a show of settling in.
Tyler: “I’ve got the time.”
Poppy: “It’s boring,”
Tyler: “My day is a praxis of liturgical laws that date from the Middle Ages. I can handle boring. Promise.”
She was indeed the perfect package on the surface…but below it, I sensed she was so much more. Messy and passionate and raw and creative—a cyclone forced into an eggshell. Small wonder the shell had broken.
I knelt down behind her and spread her legs, spread them so that her cunt was gloriously bared to me.
Tyler: “My little lamb. You are so very, very wet right now.”
One and a half inches of damnation, and all I could think about was sinking deeper into hell.
Tyler: "I had a few really great girlfriends in college. But it was easier to lock that part of me away, to have the healthy, confident girlfriends and the vanilla sex. It was safer.”
Poppy: “Then you became a priest.”
Tyler: “And that was much safer.”
Tyler: "Sean and Aiden even have a name for why people are the way you are; they call it the monogamy gene.”
Poppy: “The monogamy gene. I suppose that’s about right.”
I sat back. Downtown Kansas City came into view, glass and brick monoliths scraping against a lavender sky, the river a steel-gray snake below.
Tyler: “They also used to joke I had the celibacy gene. Although now I’m not so sure.”
Streetlights and stoplights flashed across the car, and Poppy deftly maneuvered through the traffic to pull into the heart of the city.
Tyler: “Maybe it wasn’t the celibacy gene,”
I said more to myself than to her.
Tyler: “Maybe it’s just that I was always waiting for you.”
Tyler: “I spent the week writing a homily about this passage. And then when I woke up this morning, I decided to throw the whole thing in the trash.”
I paused.
Tyler: “Figuratively speaking, I mean. Since it’s on my phone, and even I’m not holy enough to give up my iPhone.”
I honestly didn’t know what I wanted now. I mean, I’d never wanted to be with a woman rather than be a priest; I’d wanted to be with Poppy rather than be a priest. I didn’t want the freedom to fuck; I wanted the freedom to fuck her. I didn’t want a family; I wanted a family with her. And if I couldn’t have her, then I didn’t want this other life. I wanted God, and I wanted things the way they were.
Poppy: “I knew we could make it through anything Sterling threw at us, but I couldn’t handle the thought of you leaving the clergy…leaving for me.”
She looked at me, face pleading.
Poppy: “I couldn’t live with myself if you had. Knowing that I had taken your vocation from you—your entire life—all because I couldn’t control my feelings for you…”
Tyler: “No, Poppy, it wasn’t like that. I was there too, remember? I was choosing the same things you were; that mantle of guilt wasn’t yours to bear alone, if at all.”
She shook her head, tears still falling.
Poppy: “But if you’d never met me, you wouldn’t have ever thought about leaving.”
Tyler: “If I’d never met you, I would never have really lived.”
