Page 40 of Turn That River Red

Reverend Gunner rolls off me with a sigh, and I don’t move, just stare up at the ceiling as he heaves himself off the bed and fumbles around for his clothes. “Stay here until sun up,” he tells me. “This is where you’re safest. Not with?—”

He cuts himself off.Not with Ambrose Echeverría, I finish in my head.

I drop my head to look at him, skin crawling. “I will.”

Reverend Gunner pulls his shirt over his head and slips his shoes on. “I mean it,” he says. “Deacon Price has set up multiple guards. But this killer—” Reverend Gunner’s eyes flash. “He wants to see me destroyed. He wants to see the whole church destroyed.”

“I understand.”

Reverend Gunner studies me like he’s trying to decide what to say next.

“We could use some prayers,” he says. “The whole congregation.”

And then he’s gone, the door slamming shut behind him.

I count to ten, then slide out of bed, pad over to the door, and turn the deadbolt. The suite is completely silent, the window unit AC having kicked off at some point while Reverend Gunner was on top of me. I slide back into bed, stillnaked, and stare up at the ceiling, my thoughts swirling around. I feel hot and distracted. Unfinished. I wish Ambrose were here.

There’s a devil hunting our church, and all I can think about is Ambrose. And I keep thinking about him—because I’d much rather think about him than the killer, actually. I know I’m safe in the marriage suite, the door dead-bolted from the inside and the windows locked. Not even Reverend Gunner can get in here, and he has a key.

So I close my eyes and once again let my thoughts go where they want—to Ambrose. I imagine us in the chapel, sunlight pouring in through the tall thin windows to shine on the altar. He’s standing. I’m kneeling in front of him, my bridal veil streaming out behind me. Praying to him.Worshippinghim.

Worshipping his cock.

That’s it, he purrs, and I can hear his voice in my head, dark like cigarettes and twinged with a faint whiskey drawl.You suck my dick so well, Mercy.

Here in my bed, my body heats again. I run my hands over my breasts and squeeze them in tight handfuls, my nipples hard against my palm. I squirm against the mattress, pressing my legs together, trying to relieve the pressure from my fantasies.

Don’t get me wrong, Mercy. I’m going to fuck you.

I imagine it, Ambrose fucking me. I imagine he’s here in the marriage suite, that it’sourmarriage suite and he’s thrusting his thick, veiny cock inside my body, and I spread my legs across the bed, moaning softly. I drop my hand down over my stomach, slow and trembling, and try to touch myself the way Ambrose does.

It doesn’t feel quite right. But it doesn’t feel bad, either.

You’re mine, Mercy. Not Reverend Gunner’s. Do you understand that?

“Yes,” I whisper, just as I did this morning. “Yes, Ambrose. I belong to you.”

I run my fingers in clumsy circles, dragging them through my moisture until it almost feels like Ambrose is touching me. There’s a hard, throbbing nub—my clitoris. It’s the first time I’ve ever touched it.

“I belong to you,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut. Pornographic images flash through my head. My mouth around Ambrose’s large penis. Me on my hands and knees as Ambrose thrusts inside me, his hands squeezing my fleshy hips. Me kneeling in front of him as he prays over me—except he’s naked, his body lean and muscular as he strokes himself with one hand and presses the other against my head.

Behold, thou art fair, my love. Thine eyes are as doves.

I groan in the bed, lifting my hips as if Ambrose were here and I could pull him inside me. Instead, I make do with my fingers, rubbing and rubbing in this one particular spot that makes my legs shake and my heart pound.

Worship me, darling, the Ambrose in my head mutters, and I do worship him, there in the middle of the chapel of my mind, sunlight shining over both our bodies. In the real world, in the bed, my pleasure builds into an uncomfortable tension. I would give anything to be kneeling in front of Ambrose for real. I would give anything to pull his cock into my mouth and taste his seed again. I would give anything to behishelpmeet, to come willingly to his bed every time he asked it of me.

Worship me, he growls in my head, and I whimper, “I do! I worship you! Ambrose, I?—”

And then the pleasure splits me open. It tears through my body and makes me jolt against the bed. I slap my free hand against my mouth to keep from crying out, and I pant against my palm, touching myself until it hurts too much to continue. Ambrose would have kept going, and I would have worshipped him for that, too.

I pull my hand away and sink into the mattress, shivering with the aftershocks of my orgasm and the chilly air of the AC,which kicked on while I was touching myself. My thoughts feel tattered, like old clouds. I wish Ambrose were here, wish he would gather me up in his arms and tell me I needn’t fear the demon stalking our church. And not because God would protect me.

But because Ambrose would.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MERCY

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