Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Mila

As soon as the door closes behind the preacher, I throw my arms around myself and squeal, spinning madly around the office. Am I dreaming or did the man of my dreams just promise me forever? When I woke up this morning, I was determined to crack the preacher’s exterior, to push him into a reaction when I was standing right in front of him in the flesh…but I never expected him to be so loving.

I slide my hands up my cheeks and bury my fingers in my hair, messing it around, unable to wipe the delirious smile off my face.

You’re sweet and precious in every way.

My breasts tingle at the memory of him touching me there, gently but with total possession. He called me little girl. He called me the name I’ve imagined him saying to me in the dark so many times.

“He doesn’t think I’m wicked at all,” I whisper in awe, throwing my arms wide and twirling in a circle—

I come to an abrupt stop when I see my mother standing just outside the office window, her face pinched with disgust. Did she see me kissing the preacher? No, I would have noticed her before. That’s just her default expression. Why is she here and not sitting in our usual pew, listening to the rest of the sermon?

Hesitantly, I sidle toward the window and open it slightly. “Hi, mama.”

It’s only when she gives me a once over and breathes the word slut, do I realize I’m still in my slip, the water having made it transparent. As quickly as possible, I cross my arms over my chest, just in time for my mother to reach through the window and wrap her fist in my long hair.

“‘Direct channel to His grace,’ my left foot,” she sneers. “Get out here, you little tramp. We’re going home.”

“No!” I dig my fingers into the windowsill but it’s too late, she’s yanking me through the opening and I’m crashing to the ground, rapping my head on the earth. I try to scramble to my feet and run, but I’m too dizzy and…and I can only stumble blindly behind my mother as she drags me toward the station wagon.

“If you open your mouth, I’ll belt it shut, do you understand me?”

“Yes, mama,” I sob, casting a longing glance toward the church.

“You were always a willful child. Daydreaming when you were supposed to be doing schoolwork or chores. Maturing way too early, like you’d been sent straight from the devil—”

“No mama, you’re wrong. The preacher told me—”

Her backhand catches me across the mouth and I’m too stunned, my ears ringing too loudly, to do anything but let her push me into the backseat of the station wagon. “If the preacher told you something different, it’s because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Now you listen to me, young lady,” my mother says, her eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror. “I’ve already been forced to endure the humiliation of two husbands leaving me behind. You will not embarrass this family any further, do you understand? Naked in front of the preacher—I’ve never seen the like. It’s over for you. Starting today.” She shakes her head and revs the engine of the car, pulling out onto the dirt road leading to the main junction. “How am I going to show my face in church again after the stunt you pulled?”

“I’m sorry, mama. Please just let me go back.”

“Why? So you can harass that poor, God-fearing man? No ma’am. We’ll be lucky if he agrees to come over and perform the exorcism on you.” My mouth drops open, but she only nods. “I plan to call him soon as we get home and tie you up.”

Stars wink in front of my eyes and blackness hits.

Next time I wake up, my mother is tying my wrists to my metal bedframe, muttering about heathenism and this country’s youth being oversexed thanks to the television. One of my wrists is already bound and I can tell from the painful bite of the rope that attempting to free myself is futile. I try anyway, Joseph’s name sticking in my throat in the form of a wretched sob. I want to ask if she called the preacher to come perform an exorcism yet, but I don’t want to come across overeager, lest she cancel the idea and I don’t get to see him. The man who kissed me so tenderly.

What if mama was right, though?

What if the preacher was only being nice by telling me I don’t have the devil inside me? Isn’t mama always ranting about how men will say anything to make women lay with them? Maybe I tempted him so terribly with my wicked ways that he turned into a lying sinner—and it’s all my fault.

Tears fill my eyes and the fight goes out of me. My mother leaves the room and I see her pacing back and forth in front of my bedroom, phone pressed to her ear. “Why won’t he answer?” She screeches. “This is an emergency!”

Shame swamps me and I turn my face toward the window, unable to witness her disgust with me a second longer.

The sound of screeching tires makes me stop breathing.

Is it the preacher? Did my mother get a hold of him?

If he comes in here and performs an exorcism on me, I don’t know if my heart will be able to stand it. I don’t want proof he thinks I’m a bad seed.

An engine cuts out in front of my house.

Silence falls, briefly. Then there’s a jarring crash at the front of the house. The door being kicked open? Boot steps move purposefully across the floorboards toward my room and I see my mother backing down the hallway, laughing nervously.

“Preacher, thank the almighty Lord you’ve come.” She points a shaking finger into my bedroom. “I hope you brought your Bible because this one needs the demons driven out. Her feminine wiles are out of control. Why, I’ve even heard rumors she’s got the local boys worked up. I’m sure they won’t be held off any longer—”

“I dare them to try.”

Did that cold, raspy voice really belong to the preacher?

Again, my mother laughs nervously. “W-well thank you kindly for coming, preacher. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Scotch.”

A pause. “Oh…well sure. I’ll fix that right up for you, while you get ready.”

My breath catches in my throat when Joseph’s tall form fills the doorway and he looks nothing like the town holy man. No, the look in his eyes when he sees me tied to the bed is decidedly hellish. A muscle snaps in his cheek and he seems mighty close to ripping off the doorframe. Because I made him forsake his faith back in the church office? Yes, that must be it. He looks so livid.

“I take it you didn’t leave my office your own accord, Mila?”

I shake my head slowly.

“If I’d known what was happening in this house, I would have come much sooner,” bites the preacher, blue fire igniting in his eyes.

“Well, I would have told you, only…” says my mother, joining him in the doorway and handing him a glass of amber liquid. “I thought the baptism might drive out the devil. It’s not your fault, preacher. Mila’s evil is more firmly rooted than most. Her father was the same. Left me high and dry with that hellion in my belly.”

“Leave us.” Joseph turns his blue eyed fury on my mother and she stumbles out of view. “Let me do my job.”

“Of c-course,” babbles my mother, her footsteps receding. “Y-yes, preacher.”

Me and Joseph stare at each other as the front door slams and silence reigns.

He kicks the entrance to my bedroom shut and walks slowly toward the bed. Oh God, he’s going to try and exorcise me. He said so himself that he has a job to do. Oh, my heart, it’s ripping into a hundred pieces. The man of my dreams thinks I’m evil. “I’m sorry,” I whimper, pulling at my bonds. “I’m sorry I tempted you in a place of worship. I’m sorry I made you forsake your faith.”

“Mila.”

Tears roll down my temples. “Yes, preacher?”

I think Joseph is going to sip his scotch, but instead he holds the glass to my mouth. “Drink, baby girl.”

After I’ve done as I’m told and the burn in my sternum has calmed me some, Joseph sets the drink on my side table. Then he reaches down and brushes away my tears with his thumb. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’ve been trying so hard to do the right thing and stay away from you, I missed the horror you’ve been living with.” His lips peel back from his teeth. “Who could treat my sweet angel like this?” The lump in his throat slides up and down, his fists becoming shaking fists. “Have any of the local boys touched you?”

“No. I’ve been staying inside lately, except for church.” Hope has snuck into my tone. He called me his sweet angel. Is it too much to hope for that everything he said to me in the office was true? I want to so badly, especially when Joseph exhales a pent up breath and rasps thank fuck. But I want to be positive I’m not going to ruin the preacher, so when he reaches over my head to untie me, I shake my head. “Maybe you should wait to untie me preacher. Make sure I’m not going to tempt you down a dark path first.”

His soft laugh is incredulous. “I’ve been down every dark path this world has to offer. You’re the opposite, little girl. You’re the path of light. That’s part of the reason why I’ve tried so hard to keep my distance.”

“What’s the other reason?” I ask breathlessly, my nipples turning to tight peaks at the endearment.

Joseph grows short of breath watching it happen. “Apart from you being a teenager?” He skims his palm up my inner thigh, tracing the edge of my panties with his middle fingers. “I’m a very bad man underneath this starched Sunday shirt, Mila. I’ve managed to lay low and adopt this new way of life. But one taste of your mouth and the man I’ve been hiding is already trying to break free.”

“Maybe I am a bad seed, then,” I whisper, my lower lip shaking.

“No, Mila. No, you just call the real man inside me, like nothing else in this town. Like nothing else anywhere on this damn earth.” He dips his head and breathes harshly against my mouth. “Unfortunately that real man is a bastard. And you’ve woken up his jealousy, lust and violence. It’s not your fault, little girl. It’s fate. I don’t know how long I can pretend to be a holy man when I’ve given in and taken what’s mine. I’m going to be like a dog with a fucking bone.”

I tip my face up, begging without words for him to kiss me. “Will you tell me who you really are, preacher?”

“Yes.” He traces my cheeks, forehead and lips with his open mouth, his eyes pinched shut. “Yes, I’ll bare my soul to you, Mila. No one else.”

Oh no.With Joseph touching me, the ache down in my core is worse than ever. There’s a string inside me pulled tighter than fishing wire and I’m wet, so wet that my thighs are turning slippery and I don’t know what it means. I don’t know where it leads. “Will you help me figure out what’s wrong with me?” I gasp, my whole body trembling head to toe as Joseph runs a knuckle down the center of my secret place. “I’m so restless a-and hot,” I heave, twisting in my bonds. “Nothing I do makes the horrible throb go away.”

His dark brows snap together. “You haven’t come before, Mila?”

I shake my head miserably.

“God, Mila. I can’t stand knowing that.” With a vile, muffled curse, Joseph releases the top button of his shirt and pulls at his collar. It’s the first time I’ve seen his throat and I swear I glimpse a swirl of ink beneath a layer of sweat, but I’m burning with a wild fire and can’t be sure it isn’t my fevered mind playing tricks on me. “There’s nothing wrong with you. What did I tell you at the church? Your body needs mine, little girl. I’m your cure. And you’re mine.” He reaches above my head. “I’m going to make it all better, but I can’t stand to see you tied up anymore.”

“Will you please leave me tied?” I blurt, before I know my own mind. “I can’t explain why it’s different having you here and…not being able to get free. Only that it feels so good to trust you. I want to bare my soul to you, too,” I finish in a whisper.

Joseph leans down and captures my mouth in a hard, seeking kiss. “You were made for me, Mila,” he grates when he pulls away. My chest shudders up and down as Joseph stands and moves to the end of the bed. He leans down and hooks his finger in the waistband of my panties, tugging them down my thighs, knees, calves, ankles…before dropping them to the floor. I’ll never be able to explain this moment. Having Joseph look at my bare womanhood and not being able to hide myself, even if I wanted to. The lack of power is wonderful and sends a feminine thrill rushing through my body. What’s he going to do with me?

Anything he wants.

More moisture coats my thighs under Joseph’s watchful blue eyes and he groans, falling to his knees on the floor, lunging forward on his elbows to lick me straight up the center. A scream catches in my throat, my vision wavering. H-he licked me. There. A sensation I’ve never known gathers in my middle, a storm full of thunderheads preparing to break. And that’s before Joseph finds that secret nub at the very top of my flesh—I never thought to look that high—batting it with his tongue, before lightly sucking. Then he’s alternating between the gentle suction and rolling the flat of his tongue over me, side to side, teasing it with quick, little flickers.

“Oh my God,” I scream, my head thrashing side to side on the pillow, wrists yanking at the bonds. “My God, my God, my God.”

“Sounds like you’re doing a great job in there, preacher,” my mother calls from the other side of the door. “She’s already calling out to her maker. You’ll get the devil out of her yet.”

Joseph doesn’t seem to care that my mother is listening on the other side of the door, because he presses my knees wide on the bed, the pink folds of my femininity blooming open for his blessed tongue. His expression is almost feral as he licks the gloss off my thighs, savoring it like communion, his nostrils flaring, fingers tightening on my knees like he can’t help it. And then he goes back in for more, tucking his tongue inside my opening and wiggling it around until my back arches off the bed. “I’ll do anything,” I holler, not even sure what I’m asking for. “Please, please. I’ll do anything.”

“Pray!” My mother calls from the hallway. “Pray for your life.”

“Jesus save me. Jesus,” I babble, my legs wrapping around Joseph’s head, hips twisting to combat the unbearable pressure between my thighs. “Oh, please. I can’t take it anymore.”

Joseph moans into a thorough lick, the pupils of his eyes having bled into the blue irises, making them totally black. Sweat dots his brow, his big shoulders heaving. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s the preacher licking me in my most private place. And now he’s using the V of his fingers to open me up even more, pressing until I can see the pink bud from my position on the pillow, can see his tongue taptaptap it, then lave it like a fiend, his expression nothing short of beastly. It’s the last straw. My body explodes like an atom bomb, my senses shooting out in five directions, that wire inside me snapping, finally finally snapping.

My scream brings pain to my own ears, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop rubbing my convulsing flesh all over Joseph’s tongue, can’t stop my legs from trying to gather him closer. All the while, he’s snarling and lapping at me, the lower half of his face covered in my essence.

The door opens to my left and my mother gapes at the scene we create, her hands flying up to clutch at her throat. “Oh dear lord. Preacher. Look what she’s done to you.”

He looks over at my mother and slowly drags his tongue through my folds. Still watching her, he lays a kiss on either one of my knees, then stands. “She’s cured for now,” he rasps, using his sleeve to wipe his damp jaw. “But she’s going to need another healing session soon. As early as this afternoon.”

Turning his back on my mother, he releases me from the ropes and my hands fall limply at my sides. Joseph rubs his thumb along my lower lip, his touch traveling lower to fondle my breasts through the white slip.

“I’ll be keeping her with me for close observation.”

“Keeping her? For how long?”

“Forever,” Joseph growls. The look he sends my mother would make grown men weep. My mother backs up into the hallway, her back hitting the opposite wall hard. “You’re lucky I’m letting you live after tying up this sweet girl. Feeding her lies about herself. After taking her from me.” His voice turns silent, almost thoughtful. “On second thought, maybe I won’t let you live.”

The blood drains from her face. “Please. I was just trying to do what’s best. I’m a God-fearing woman.”

“Now you fear me. Do you understand?” Joseph brushes his fingertips over my belly before crossing to my closet, opening it. He takes out my purple Sunday dress and shuts the door once again. “We fell in love after today’s baptism and I took Mila home to make her my bride. God shined his light when I held her beneath the water. You couldn’t be happier about the match. That’s the story you will tell people.” He sends me a hungry glance. “The truth is I’ve been in love with her far longer than that.”

“I’ve loved you, too,” I whisper, sitting up, itching to throw my arms around him. I’ve never been so euphoric and that light, bubbly feeling is evident in my voice. “Are you really going to make me your bride, Joseph?”

“As soon as humanly possible, Mila.”

I collapse back on the bed with a dreamy sigh and Joseph chuckles softly. “That reminds me,” he says, taking out his wallet and handing my mother some money. “That should cover a new paint job outside her window.”

The man of my dreams scoops me up and carries me out of the house.

Neither one of us looks back.