The Sister and the Sinner by Carolyn Faulkner

his return. She released his neck to claw at his back. She arched her back, struggling to find that sweet surrender she had experienced only once before. She panted, gasped, even shrieked a little.
    He trapped her happy cries with his lips. He whispered something deliciously decadent in her ear that had to do with beauty and desire of the flesh. Harder... harder... and then, finally, he threw back his head and roared. His shaft shuddered inside her, sending forth its seed. She exploded as well. She shuddered, and happy tears ran down her cheeks. Delightful spasms rocked her, again, and again, in ever-increasing circles, each one bigger but a bit fainter from the one before, like ripples in a pond. Until she was utterly spent and exhausted.
    He rolled of her onto his right side, and pulled her into his embrace. She kissed him again, sleepily, but then she rolled onto her right side as well, settling her bottom into his groin like a pair of spoons in a drawer. Mary Francis fell fast asleep, perhaps truly happy for the first time in her life.
    J.D. did not sleep at all that night. Shame for what he'd done, despoiling a nun, washed over him. It had been so perfect, so incredibly wonderful! Everything about her was absolutely perfect! Except, she was already taken. She was untouchable. Here he had finally found someone he could spend the rest of his life with, and he could never have her. He would have a few precious days at best, for having known her, he knew he would never be able to resist her. That she had been pure, he had no doubt. He'd breached her virgin's barrier, yet she'd welcomed him with innocent abandon. She would welcome him again. They would enjoy a few, brief days of paradise together. And then, he must leave... and never return again.

     

Chapter Five

    Screaming woke them in the middle of the night, and J.D., naked as the day he was born, was up and crouching at the door, gun in his hand, before Mary Francis managed to get out of bed.
    "It's all right! It's Mother Agnes - she's having a nightmare," Mary Francis murmured. "She's prone to them; something about the war. Sometime she likes to scream at the damn Yankees, sometimes it's the dirty Rebs. She never could decide what side she actually favored, I guess."
    Her captor didn't seem very convinced, and continued to crouch by the door, looking every inch the outlaw she thought him to be.
    "Listen to her," Mary urged, trying to convince him that there was no danger. "The voice is in the room next door. A woman's voice. Not the men who are after you."
    Slowly he stood, releasing his grip on the trigger and returning his gun to the holster. "We should go to her," he said.
    "I should go to her," Mary Francis amended. "She doesn't always know who I am - you might really scare her."
    He nodded, still not fully awake. Mary Francis smiled secretively, proud of a man who could protect his own even while half asleep. She reached for her robe and slipped it on, startled by how different it felt without the layers of linens underneath. She moved passed her outlaw, into the hallway, and darted into the room next door.
    "Sh, Reverend Mother... Sh-sh. It's me, Mary Francis," she cooed. "The war is over, and you're safe now."
    The woman continued to moan. Mary Francis wrapped her arms around the ailing woman and rocked her, as though their roles were reversed, and she was the mother, and Agnes was a frightened child.
    Mary Francis didn't know that much about the war. She had been just a baby when it had ended, and anybody she knew who had suffered through it refused to talk about it. She gathered that it had been ruthless. She knew it had been bloody. And she was grateful it was not something she had had to endure.
    Slowly the woman quieted. Her pitiful moans turned to racking coughs. J.D. rushed in with a glass of water, which he offered to Mary Francis. Mother Agnes did not even seem to notice him. She took a few small sips from the glass, then leaned back, exhausted. Mary