Page 43 of Turn That River Red

Of course I already know the answer is no, but I’m playing a role here.

“No, nothing like that.” Mercy gives Max one last scritchbetween his ears and straightens up. She’s nervous, though, another thing I can’t tell her I sense it. She tries to cover it up with a shy smile. “I, um, I brought you something.”

I blink, surprised—I’m used to people being afraid around me. That goes with the territory. This is different, though. She’s acting more like a schoolgirl who got caught breaking the rules.

“Brought me what?” I step closer to her, relishing the way her biorhythms change, her heart and breath speeding up. She lifts her eyes to meet mine, her lips parted. I’m not a mind reader, but I know what she’s thinking. My heightened senses tell me exactly how my closeness affects her.

And since I’m a fool who loves having this power over her, I step closer. She doesn’t step back.

“What’d you bring me, Mercy?”

She slips her hand into the big pocket of her dress and pulls out a square of yellow paper. “I had to go to Reverend Gunner last night.”

Jealousy flares in my chest, hot and burning. I’m surprised by how intense it is.

God, I want to cut that man’s dick off.

“I um…” Her cheeks turn bright red, and she looks down at the paper, squeezing it in her hands. “I thought about you while he was...”

Oh, that goes straight to my head. And my cock.

“Did you now?” I grab her chin and guide her gaze up to meet mine. The way she yields to me, the wide, submissive gaze in her eyes—it drives me wild. Even though it’s so, so dangerous. “Did you come, thinking about me?”

Her blush deepens. “After he left. I—I touched myself the way you—the way you showed me.”

I slide my fingers around her throat, smiling at the spike of her fear and her lust. Then I pull her up to me and kiss her, slow and deep. She relents for a few seconds, then jerks away, her gorgeous tits heaving beneath that baggy dress. “And then Igot you this,” she mutters, not looking at me as she shoves the yellow paper to my chest.

I catch her wrist, then fold her hand in mine. She lifts her gaze, and I want her on her knees for me. I want her eating my body. Not just my cum. I want to feed her my literal flesh, thin delicate strips of it. And then I want to consume her in kind, bite by fucking bite.

“It’s the code to the bunker,” she says breathlessly.

Thatjerks me out of my fantasies. “What? How?” I unfold the paper and stare at the six numbers written out in Mercy’s neat, feminine hand. “I thought you said you don’t have access to it.”

“I don’t.” She sounds sheepish. “I just didn’t tell you that Reverend Gunner writes all his passwords down. I figured this one would be, too, but…” Her cheeks turn bright red. “But I didn’t really have a way to get it. I knew it would be in his home office?—”

“And you had a sleepover last night?” I hear the sharpness in my words. The idea of that piece of shit touching her, touching what’s mine, is too damn much, even if I did baptize her. Even if she was thinking about me the whole time.

“He made me stay in the suite afterwards,” she says. “Because of the killer.”

Damn. Well, I’ve got no one to blame but myself for that one, I suppose.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she continues. “And I was thinking about you, and?—”

She blushes again, and I wonder what exactlyshe was thinking about. I wonder how filthy my little human can get.

“I thought it was worth a try.” She shrugs, then peers up at me. Her hair glints around her like a halo, and somehow it just makes her eyes darker, two deep pools I’d be willing to drown in a thousand times over.

You really are beinga fool, Ambrose.

“And it paid off.” I fold the paper back into a square and then slide it into my wallet for safekeeping. “Thanks.”

“I know it’s not safe,” she says, worrying her hands. “But if you’re going to go, it should be at night. I just don’t—” The earnestness in her expression nearly undoes me. “I just don’t want you to be the next?—”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.” Part of me wishes I could tell her why, if only to hear her melodious scream again. But if I do that, I can forget fucking her. Me and the dogs’ll be on the lam. Or I’d have to kill her, which is not something I’m terribly interested in doing. She’s more fun to me alive.

“You don’t know that,” she says.

“I do, actually.” I smile at her, wondering if she’ll put the connection together. I doubt it; even if some part of her subconscious has figured it out, she doesn’t want it to be true, so she won’t see it. Not until there’s hard evidence.

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