Page 70 of The Preacher's Pet

“It’s exactly why. It’s not like I didn’t try a couple of times. And I mean physically, I could have gone ahead with it. Mentally, though, it was messing me up. Making me feel like what I was doing was dirty and wrong. But now, now there’s a bigger reason to do it. Now, if I make love to Ophelia, I can save her … and myself.”

His words worry me. Where is he going with this? Make love? Save himself and her? It all seems very heavy.

“What are you planning on doing?” I ask.

“Not only me,” he says. “Us. We need to help that girl, and I have a plan. Let’s just say it will involve Ophelia running for her life, and us chasing her. And when we catch her, by the time we’re done with her, I don’t think that voice will be an issue at all.”

38

MALACHI

At first,I’m not sure I’m hearing right.

“You want to do what?” I raise my eyebrows in a question.

“Chase her. Or at least give her something to run from. How many times has she said that she feels she’s been unable to escape this man, even though she ran from him? How often has she talked about always running, but being unable to escape herself? My plan is that we give her something to run from.”

I shoot a look over to Cain, who seems as confused as I am.

“You want her to run from us?” Cain checks.

Roman nods. “Think of it like immersion therapy. Like when someone is afraid of spiders, they get them to hold a giant one. Or a person who is afraid of the dark spends the night in a dark room to prove there is nothing to be scared of.”

Cain palms the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. “This is not the same thing.”

Roman sits back and folds his arms over his chest. “Isn’t it?”

I agree with Cain. “No, it’s not. We don’t want her to be scared of us.”

“That’s the beauty of this,” Roman insists. “She won’t be scared of us, not really. She’ll know, deep down, that she’s safe with us, but her instincts won’t know that. Think of that firstnight we met her here, how she ran through the forest. Now picture the same thing, except we’ll be chasing her for real this time, and when we catch her…”

I can’t help it, my cock springs to life in my jeans. Fuck. Is he saying that I think he’s saying? That when we catch her, we fuck her?

Cain swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “When we catch her, we what?”

Roman looks around at us both. “We finish what we started. Or at least, I finish what I should have last night. Both you and Mal gave a piece of your essence to her last night, and what did I do? I fucking ran away.” He scrubs his hand over his face. “This time, if she agrees to it, it’ll be all three of us. Me included.”

A new kind of tension settles between us.

Cain clears his throat. “You think that will work?”

“We need to become more important to her, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally, than that bastard Prophet. We need to be the ones to drown out his voice. We need to free her body and mind by claiming it for our own.” His tone lowers to a fierce rumble. “She’s ours now. Ophelia. She’s one of us. And if she’s got a monster in her head, then we need to replace it. We have to become what she fears, do you see? If she views us as bigger than him. Scarier than him. Then she’ll be ready to believe us when we say he’s gone.”

Automatically, we all glance over at where she’s sleeping. It feels so right, having her here. I’d always imagined having a woman here would ruin things, it would disrupt our dynamic, and maybe it did, for a short time. But now it’s as though she has always been here.

“She might not agree,” Cain says. “It’s pretty fucking intense for someone who’s been through what she has.”

“She’ll agree.” I look to Cain. “She’s desperate.”

He narrows his eyes. “And you think that’s okay? That she’s desperate, so we get to chase her through the woods, and fuck her when we catch her?”

“Only if she wants us,” Roman adds. “And I believe she does. You saw her desire last night. You felt it for yourself. She’s not that little girl from your childhood anymore, Cain. She’s a grown woman with her own sexuality.”

For some reason, despite what we all did last night, this feels wrong, and my protective instincts are on high alert. Is it because I truly believe she won’t want this or because it’s Roman suggesting it?

“Oookaay,” I say slowly. “So, say she agrees to this. What if she changes her mind during the chase?”

“We’ll give her a safe word she can use any time.”

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