Page 18 of Turn That River Red

I won’t do anything to you that you haven’t agreed to.

I haven’t technically agreed to this. Not out loud.

But I do want it, don’t I? Because, God forgive me, I don’t want him to stop.

“What do you say, Mercy?” Ambrose pulls his knee awayfrom me, and its absence makes me gasp. “I make you feel good, and then you help me get access to the files?”

“I don’t have access to the files,” I whimper.

“But you know where they are. So what’s it going to be? Yes or no?”

My breath shudders in my throat. I can’t say yes. Ican’t.

Nois on the tip of my tongue. But it never escapes?—

Because I nod my head in agreement instead.

Ambrose smiles at me, dazzling and toothy. “Wonderful,” he says, and I expect him to press his knee back against me—Iwanthim to—but he doesn’t. Instead, he slides his hand back down and gently trails his fingers over my underwear. Notthere, not where I expect him to touch. He’s a little higher, and he works his fingers in a slow, gentle circle.

I gasp, my body shuddering. It’s never felt like this, not with Reverend Gunner or Pastor Sullivan.

“That’s it,” Ambrose slips his fingers sideways and curls them into the leg band of my underwear. They feel impossibly hot against my skin. “Once you come, you can tell me where the files are.”

Before I can say anything, he pushes my panties aside, and then his fingers areon meon me, rippling over my most private area.

“But I can’t—” The words slip out before I can stop them. Ambrose looks down at me, his pupils flooding out his dark irises, turning his eyes solid black.

“Can’t what?” He doesn’t put his fingers inside me like I expect him to. Instead, he touches that spot that makes my whole lower half feel hot and shaky.

“Can’t come.” I sigh the words out, shame burning in my face.

Ambrose keeps rubbing me in slow, lazy circles. “Yes, you can.” He leans closer, and for a moment I think he’s going tokiss me. “It might take some time, but I can be patient when there’s something I want.”

“I’ve never?—”

“Stop talking.” He says it like an order. A command.

And one I want to follow.

So I do stop talking, sealing my mouth shut.

“Relax.”

That’s harder to do. Every muscle in my body feels like it’s contracting toward the place he’s touching.

“Good girl,” Ambrose says. “Now stop arguing with me and just focus on my fingers. Do you understand?”

Stop talking,he said, and so I nod wordlessly, gazing up at him. He smiles a little. His touch quickens.

“Then let’s begin.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

MERCY

Ithought we had already begun, considering Ambrose is currently swirling the pads of his fingers over some impossibly sensitive patch of skin. He’s not even inside me, and I already feel a quaking, unfamiliar heat between my thighs.

“Why don’t we get you more comfortable?” He smooths his free hand over my hair. “That armrest looks like it’s digging into your back.”

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