Page 99 of Turn That River Red

I release him with apopand look up at him, numb to the horror of what I’ve done. He keeps stroking my hair, his touch shockingly gentle.

“However you want,” I whisper.

He smiles, and I kiss his cockhead like a lollipop, swirling my tongue around his hot flesh. “Tell me what you’d do,” I whisper. “Like you did before.”

I swallow him again, and Ambrose groans, dark and throaty. His fingers tighten slightly against my head.

“I’d have to get them alone first,” he rasps. “Out of the compound. Down by the Concho, maybe.”

I moan at that, rocking my hips against the mattress.

“You like that idea, do you, humanita?”

Ambrose pushes my hair away from my face as I suck him more fervently.Worshiphim more fervently. Just for a few seconds. Then I release him and stroke his wet shaft as I say, “It’s where I was baptized.”

“Mmm. I think you need a new baptism.” Ambrose pushes my hair away from my face, and I lick down his length and then pull one of his testicles into my mouth, still stroking him. He groans. “I thinkIneed to baptize you.”

I can’t even imagine what depravity his idea of a baptism would be. But still, I look up at him again. “I want that.”

“Finish me with your mouth,” Ambrose orders. “And I’ll baptize you into a new church.”

“Tell me what you’d do to them,” I counter.

Ambrose’s eyes flash, and he grabs his cock from me and bats it against my lips with firm hard slaps until I open up for him.

“You’ll get them to the river for me,” he says, rolling his hips against my face—gently, but still with enough force to remind me that he is the god and I am the worshipper. I swallow him as best I can, wrapping my arms around his legs to brace myself. “I’ll be waiting for them with my long-range rifle.” He groans. “Then I’ll hunt them, one after the other. I’ll wound them. Let them suffer in the heat.”

His thrusts grow sharper, but I match their speed and he stills, letting me take over. Salt blooms on my tongue.

Ambrose grabs onto my hair, his words punctuated by sharp breaths. “Once I’ve got them where I want them, we’ll track their blood trails together, you and I.”

I moan, knowing I’m condemning myself to hell but not caring because hell is better than Heaven ever could be. My clit burns—the pressure of the mattress isn’t enough, but I’m afraid to let go of Ambrose’s legs to touch myself.

“I’ll gut them,” he rasps, thrusting his cock over my tongue. “Field dress them. Then I’ll cook you a god damn wedding fea?—”

The wordweddingsears through me, but only for a second, because Ambrose shoves his full length into my mouth and releases his seed with a roar. It shoots down my throat, making it easy to swallow, and I keep sucking on him until he wrenches himself away. He stares down at me as he tucks himself back into his pants, his face flushed and his chest heaving.

“Strip for me,” he says.

I want to ask him what he was going to say, about a wedding—but, in this moment, he seems more demon than man. I would also rather die than disobey him.

I fumble with my sleeping clothes, dragging the shirt over my head, yanking down the boxers. Ambrose just watches me, his eyes shining in the dark.

“Lay back,” he says when I’m naked. “Show me your cunt.”

I do, pushing my legs wide, my breath shallow. Ambrose falls to his knees and attacks me with his mouth, plunging his tongue up inside my body. I shriek and lift my hips to greet him. He pushes me down and kisses my sex as if he were kissing my mouth. And he keeps doing it, unleashing an unrelenting onslaught of pleasure.

I moan, jerking up toward him, thighs trembling, orgasm surging?—

But then, just as I’m about to come, Ambrose pulls away.

“Get on the floor,” he orders.

“Why?” I can barely get the word out. It’s like the pleasure is shredding me to ribbons.

Ambrose tilts his head, and his eyes turn black again. “So I can baptize you, Mercy Hendricks.” He reaches behind him, into his back pocket, and pulls out the same slim switchblade he used on me in the cemetery.

“With what?” I whisper. Even though I know.

---