Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Joseph

Walking into the weekly church picnic with Mila, the urge to laugh strikes. It wouldn’t be the jovial laugh my congregation is accustomed to, however. No, it would be a whole lot more sinister. Totally unsuited to this bright, sunny day on the great lawn beside the church, the smell of pie wafting in the air.

So I thread my fingers through Mila’s slimmer ones and grind the sound to dust with my back teeth. Everyone has stopped to watch us arrive and I knew it would be like this. Each and every person is a threat now. Someone that might look at Mila wrong or breathe in her direction in a way that I don’t like. Now that I’ve given in and claimed her, I don’t want to share her, especially in the pretty new dress I bought her as she slept late this morning. One of many. No, I want her in our bed wailing for Daddy while the posts of our bed slam into the wall.

I don’t feel like laughing any more. My upper lip curls in a snarl as a male member of the congregation tips his hat in our direction, his eyes raking over Mila’s ripe figure. I disconnect our fingers and grasp the back of her neck instead, letting my touch slip higher into the strands of her hair, wrapping the strands around my knuckles. Everyone in attendance at the picnic was already regarding us with nothing short of awe, but they step back now, probably sensing my beastly energy.

This was inevitable when I made Mila mine. I can’t be their affable preacher any more. The love of my life walks beside me and already might be carrying my child in her belly. I’m not the kind of man who can separate from his wife at a social event and let just anyone have the pleasure of her company. These men sense she’s been bred. I know they do. They’re probably picturing her naked, sweaty, being ridden in a mess of sheets—and she’s so irresistible, they can’t help but want a turn.

And while they obviously sense a change in me already—it’s plain on their alarmed faces—they don’t know I would slit their throat for daring to touch Mila’s hand.

Mila turns her body into mine, her hands climbing my chest. “Everyone is staring,” she whispers. “I think they’re waiting for you to say something.”

She’s right. Normally I would be shaking hands and addressing the concerns of the locals, counseling them, whether or not I have the correct expertise. But I already know in my gut this phase of our life is over. I meant what I said to Mila. She brings out the man I am at the very core. And than man isn’t able to keep up the ruse of a holy man. She’s roused the animal inside me and more than that, now that Mila knows the truth, her watching me continue to lie doesn’t sit right. She deserves a man who is true to himself every moment of the day.

Mila traces a finger down the center of my chest and bites her lip. “Joseph?”

I curl an arm around the back of Mila’s shoulders and draw her as close as possible. Making eye contact with every male in the vicinity, I press my lips to her forehead. “I’ve made her my wife,” I rasp, dropping my hand to the small of her back, where the curve of her ass begins. “Mine.”

People trade disquieted looks, no sound on the great lawn besides the rippling of the wind through the nearby forest.

Applause happens slowly, an uncomfortable smattering, before it dies.

I tuck Mila into my side and continue through the parting crowd, noticing her mother standing off to the side at the pie table, trying not to make direct eye contact. Good. She’ll never have access to her daughter again. She was blessed with the sweetest angel on earth and didn’t appreciate the gift she’d been given. Mila’s mother peeks over and I tell her as much with a dark look. She’s mine forever.

“Joseph,” Mila murmurs with a grin, curling her hands into the material of my long, black jacket. “The ocean sounds good about now.”

I smile down into the knowing eyes of my wife, my heart beating faster at the proof that our minds think alike. As soon as we arrived at this picnic, it was obvious things could never go back to the way they’d been. I’ve married a girl fresh from her eighteenth birthday, one day after I carried her to my office during a church service. Speculation about what has ensued over the last twenty-four hours is probably rampant. I’m meant to be the holiest among them. Above reproach. Yet I took no time to court her and now I’ve got my hands and mouth all over her.

Ask me if I care what they think. I care about nothing besides my little girl.

“Let’s leave tonight,” Mila says, excitement dancing in her eyes. “I want to go on an adventure with you.”

I lean down and kiss her soft mouth. “You are my adventure.”

I’m not sure how to explain the unease that prickles the hair on the back of my neck. Only that one moment I couldn’t be more eager to greet the future with my bride—and the next, my stomach is weighed down with foreboding. My muscles harden, eyes ticking up to scan the forest. I hear a branch snap and my blood begins to pump wildly.

Without waiting another second, I drag Mila behind me, blocking her from the threat I sense in the woods. It’s coming. My past in Boston has come for me. I’m not sure how I’m suddenly so positive, except I’ve had this tug in my gut for a while now. I should have trusted my instincts yesterday at the courthouse and left with Mila immediately. Having danger this close to her is unacceptable. And terrifying. The thought of someone taking her away from me is terrifying.

“I need to get you out of here—” A flash of metal flares in the forest a split second before a bullet rips through the air. “No.”

I spin on a heel, using my body as a shield as I hustle Mila across the lawn to the parking area, dodging the members of the congregation who are now scrambling to hide and running in every direction. As fast as I can, I get her locked into my car. “Get down, Mila and stay down. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she whimpers, going down on her belly in the foot area of the backseat. “Come with me, Joseph. Don’t go back there.”

I lean down and kiss her mouth. “I love you, baby girl. I’ll be back. No one is going to shoot at my fucking wife and live to see another day.”

“Joseph.”

Unable to bear the fear in her tone, I close the door and lock it. Using the car as a shield for a moment, I scan the tree line looking for any sign of movement. Or a color that doesn’t belong among the green foliage—and I spot it. It’s very slight, but I see the navy blue peeking out from behind a tree, about fifty yards into the woods. I’m not so out of practice to believe they’d only send one man to kill me, though.

I welcome the challenge.

Murder throbbing in my temples, I crisscross my reach, my hands disappearing into my black preacher jacket, whipping both Glocks out of my shoulder holsters, pointing them at the threat.

“Get down,” I roar at the bumbling idiots trying to find cover around me. They do as I command, thankfully, ensuring I don’t blow any of their heads off as I fire into the woods. One shot, duck behind an SUV. Another shot. Give myself enough cover to advance ten yards. It’s a process and gunfire spits in my direction the whole way, but I finally make it to the tree line. Leaning back against a tree trunk, I close my eyes, hold my breath and listen for the tiniest scrap of sound.

Minutes pass, but I finally hear a leaf crumble and make my move. I come around back of the tree and fire, taking down the navy blue target, immediately finding a new place to take cover as life gurgles out of the man on the forest floor. There’s another one, though, there’s always another one. I think of my sweet Mila and make a mental promise that I’ll never subject her to violence again when this day is over. I’ll take her to an ocean on the other side of the world to ensure it.

I’m getting hard thinking of how she rode me in the bathtub when I hear an intake of breath, coming from nearby. Muscle memory sends me into action and I step right, taking down the second target with a bullet in the neck. He jerks and slaps a hand over the hole I created, but it’s too late. Too much blood has been lost and within seconds he drops, not far from the first man.

I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist and replace the guns in my shoulder holsters. Eagerness to reunite with Mila tears at my chest and I turn to leave, but I stop short when she bursts through the trees, distress written all over her face. “Oh, Joseph, you’re okay. I know you told me to stay in the car, but I h-heard that last gunshot and I was so worried it was you—”

“Never,” I grit out, stepping over one of the dead men on my way to reach her. “I won’t let death take me now that I’ve got my reason to live.”

Her eyes soften and she throws herself into my arms. Wanting to get my mouth on hers, I lift Mila and her legs circle my waist automatically. Her warm pussy settles on my thickening erection and she wiggles around on it eagerly, her innocent tongue venturing into my mouth.

“This doesn’t scare you, Mila?” I say hoarsely between kisses. “Look what I’m capable of. This is the man you’re spending the rest of your life with. I would do it over and over again to protect you.”

“It doesn’t scare me. It makes me feel safe.” We both look down at the luscious tits swelling over her neckline. “Daddy is a bad man, but he’s good to me.”

My groan carries through the wooded area and my body gives me no choice but to take. Take what my little girl offers. I put Mila on her feet turn her around so she’s facing away from me. Then I walk her forward, stopping at a tree not two feet away from the second dead man. “Brace your hands on the tree,” I rasp, unbuckling the belt of my dress pants. “I’m in need.”

“Me too,” she hiccups, doing as she’s told.

The act of lifting her hands has raised the hem of her white dress and I lift it higher now, overcome by the sight of her thighs, her supple butt cheeks. An emerald green strap of silk is tucked down the center—one of the new thongs I bought her—and I pull those panties down now, letting them fall at her ankles. I reach around the front of her body to slide a finger through the folds of her pussy, ensuring she’s warm, wet and ready, before I grip my cock and cram it up inside her, grunting into her smooth neck, growing louder with every inch she accepts. “Tilt your hips back,” I growl. “Let Daddy have that wet, little fuck hole.”

“Okay,” she whimpers, the humps of her backside lifting against my belly, her body trembling. “L-like this? Oh!”

I’m already fucking her, yanking my little girl up on her toes and squelching in and out of her tight cunt. She feels so perfect, my head falls back and I groan up into the fractured sunlight breaking through the trees. I’ve got the front of her pussy cupped in my right hand, my left arm slung across her hips in an unbreakable bar. I can already feel her pussy muscles starting to quiver, her thighs growing restless.

“I’m going to come, I’m going to come,” she gasps. “Don’t stop.”

My laugh is a dark rip of sound. “Even if you begged and screamed for me to stop right now, little girl, I wouldn’t be able to. Soon as you flashed those big eyes at me, I was always going to fuck you until I finish.”

I use the pad of my finger to tickle Mila’s clit and she starts whining in that way that drives me crazy. “Daddy. Oh Daddy.”

The sound of a twig snapping makes me nostrils flare, my head coming up. But I don’t stop fucking Mila. I can’t. I can only cover as much of her as possible with my body, lifting her feet off the ground as I continue to shove my cock into her pussy, struggle to get it out, then ram it back in. Heaven. Who could leave heaven under any circumstance?

Another twig snaps. Three, four. And I glance over to see the whole damn congregation coming toward us through the trees. They don’t know where to look. At the dead bodies on the ground. Or at me railing my little girl, snarling like a fucking wolf as I thrust into her incredible cunt over and over and over, growing more and more frantic as I race toward my climax. Her bare legs dangle in front of me, shaking with each savage upward drive of my hips, her head lolling back on my shoulder. She can’t help sobbing Daddy and that title being said out loud elicits gasps from the dozens of people watching. I want to blind the male onlookers with a hot brand, but another, sicker part of me glories in marking my territory, right there for everyone to see.

I look into the eyes of two nearby men and let them know. That’s right. I’m the only one who’ll ever get balls deep in this.

Mila’s ass writhes on my belly and she sucks in an audible breath. Then her whole body pulls taut like a wire and she screams, her cream gushing down all over my invading cock. I catch her juice with the pad of my finger and use it to jiggle her clit as she orgasms long and loud. Her pleasure triggers my own and I bellow her name, freeing the immense pressure in my balls, my stomach. I lose my sight for a moment, sunlight winking through the trees, disappearing and coming back. I don’t like being weak this close to other men when I must protect my wife, though, so I grit my teeth and force my way through the immeasurable bliss she gives me, only giving myself a moment to savor the satisfaction of watching come sluice down her inner thighs.

Both of us are still panting as we fix our clothing and engage in a slow, hungry kiss over her shoulder. “What do you say?” I murmur. “You want to get out of here?”

Mila glances down at the still body of the man I killed, her eyes twinkling with humor as she looks back at me. “I think we’d better.”

As I take my obsession’s hand and walk her out of the forest, through the throngs of shocked onlookers, I wonder if she doesn’t have a little bit of the devil in her, after all. If so, it’s going to have a lot of fun playing with mine for the next sixty or so years.