When Joseph Stark came to town, he was just so…other. Quiet, intense, watchful. Different from everyone else. I’d lay odds he’s from a place faraway from Mississippi. A Yankee from up north, perhaps. Up until that first day I saw him behind the pulpit, I’d been spinning crazy tales in my head about the father I never met. Maybe he left to be an astronaut or solve crimes for the FBI.
But when I glimpsed Joseph, I wanted him for my father. Yes, I did.
There was no one better, more powerful or righteous. He could teach me to be a classy lady, make me a God-fearing woman and rub my back when I cried. And so those first few months, I idolized the preacher. Mooned over him from my pew, blushing innocently every time his eyes landed on me. Those dark blue eyes of his started to land on me more and more, though. That’s when I noticed the presence inside me. The awakening. The heaviness in my most private flesh. It bloomed and heated and grew weightier until Joseph became my father figure and the man who touched my body. In my dreams, anyway.
“Daddy,” I whisper now, dropping my pelvis to the bed and grinding down, sobbing in frustration when the ache only deepens. “Please, please…”
Every week, I ask please.
The devil in me is growing tired of asking like this, though. So tired. I don’t know how much more of the pressure between my thighs I can stand before I go stark raving mad. Already I have no ability to concentrate on my chores or the travel books I used to love. My thoughts are consumed with images I don’t understand. Mouths and hands and the preacher’s voice. His body pinning me, those blue eyes piercing my very soul.
Next Sunday is my baptism.
It will be the closest I’ve ever come to the preacher in the daylight. He’ll be forced to put his hands on me to dunk me beneath the water, right there in front of the congregation. Mama thinks the baptism will drive the devil out of me. But I’m not sure anything can.
Mama would agree if she knew my plan.
I should do the right thing. Hang a curtain over my window and stop obsessing over the preacher. I’ve reeled him in with the unholy darkness inside me. I continue to tempt him, reveling in it, even. Cutting him loose would be the Christian thing to do. But there’s a whispering voice in the back of my head telling me his devil wants to dance with mine—and that possibility fills me with an overwhelming breathlessness. What if he’s plagued with the very same darkness?
What if he’s the only one who’ll be able to get rid of my ache?
Jesus help me, I have no choice but to find out. I can’t take it anymore.
With my mouth open on the mattress, I slide a finger under the waistband of my panties and tuck it between my slick lips. Outside, I hear a muffled moan and I almost, almost reach the next height of my need—maybe even relief?—but it dissipates too fast and I choke down a sob. Still, I moan and let my body go limp, as if I’ve found the elusive next level of heaven. The throb between my legs remains.
Seven days until Sunday.
Seven more days.
CHAPTER TWO
Joseph
I can feel her coming.
There are four hundred people attempting to shoehorn themselves inside this fucking church and yet my blood changes direction when I hear the parking break of her mother’s station wagon. Pretending to study my sermon while everyone finds their seats, I picture Mila entering the church in the same cheap, thin purple dress she wears every week. The one I want to rip off with my bare hands.
I’ve seen her wearing much less through her bedroom window, but the dress…it’s a symbol of the struggle I face every Sunday, trying to concentrate when my body is screaming at me to take the girl. Just give in and take her.
Keep her.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, that would have been considered kidnapping.
What would my congregation think of me if they knew how I spend my Sunday nights? If they knew I park on the border of her mother’s property behind a copse of trees and cut through the darkness to Mila’s window, jacking myself dry while she humps the bed on the other side of the glass. I can’t stay away. Since that first day she walked into my church, I’ve been drawn to her like a bee to the sweetest honey and it’s becoming impossible to maintain distance.
Just knowing I’m mere minutes away from seeing Mila has my dick hard as a rock, my balls cinched up tighter than my starched white collar. How I get through Sunday sermons with my erection battling my zipper is a mystery, but somehow I manage. Somehow I manage not to storm the audience, rip Mila away from the safety of her mommy and find a dark corner to inflict my raging lust.