One of Many (11 page)

“I can only assume it’s not good.” I shiver, remembering his beatings, and grab another egg, then slip it into the pocket at the front of the apron Father Weston makes us wear when we cook. 

“It goes deeper than Father Asshole being pissed, ya know.”

I wrap my fingers around a brown egg, still warm. “I know.” My heart lurches, and nerves tingle down my arms.

“Do you?” he presses. “Having sense means you don’t buy the bullshit anymore. Having sense means you question everything. And the people here need this
everything
. After all, they gave up their lives to be here. Traded everything for a new fucked-up kind of everything.”

I straighten, trying to make sense of his words. “One weak link compromises the whole chain,” I say, remembering the old phrase. “If I question things, someone else will.”

“That’s if you’re lucky.”

“And if I’m not lucky?”

Clouds of pewter darken his gray eyes. “No one likes to feel threatened. And questioning everything is a threat in their eyes.”

He’s right. The people of The Community wouldn’t take well to someone questioning the very principles they gave up everything for. “Then I won’t let anyone know I have sense.”

He smiles. “You have something else then too.”

“What is that?”

“Smarts.”

I let out a shaky breath and gather more than enough eggs. “Has anyone questioned Father Weston before?”

“Of course.”

I leave the coop, shut the gate behind me, and fall in step next to Kiev as we walk toward the house.

“Have you seen it?” I ask.

“Seen what?”

“People question him.”

“I have. It’s not pretty.”

I bite my lip, my heart racing. “Is that what happened to you?”

He halts. “In part. Listen, Little Bride, this isn’t something to play around with. If Father Weston feels threatened, the people who more or less worship him feel threatened too. Piss off one fucked-up zealot and you’re in enough danger. Piss off the whole fucking village…”

“I get it.”

“I don’t think you do.” He grabs my arm and pulls me to him. “Threats are eliminated.”

“Eliminated? Like
killed
?”

“Yes,” he hisses.

I don’t believe it.
“No.”

Father Weston might be a self-centered prick, but he’s not a killer. “Father Weston won’t kill anyone.”

Darkness flashes in Kiev’s eyes. “Don’t be a fool. What do you think happened to my mother?”

My heart feels as if it drops to the bottom of my chest. “What do you mean?”

The air around Kiev changes, his anger giving way to grief for a moment.

I take his hand. He looks down, questioning the gesture, then flips his wrist around and laces our fingers. He turns his attention back to me, and for a moment, we look at each another.

There is a softness to Kiev that he doesn’t show. A softness I like, that I want more of. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sorry for whatever happened.”

“It was a long time ago,” he says quietly. “But thanks.” He gives my hand a squeeze and lets go.

“I don’t want that to happen to me.”

“I won’t let it,” he promises. “I won’t let that bastard hurt you again, not like he did to my mother.”

I move my head up and down, my hair falling around my face. I believe Kiev, missing him already, though he’s standing right here in front of me. Sooner or later, I’ll have to go back into the house alone.

Alone with not just a liar but also a possible murderer.

Kiev

The eggs click against one another in the pockets of the stupid apron Audrey wears as she scurries after me.

Shouldn't have said that shit about my mom. But it's done now. Can't take back the confession. All I want is to visit her grave. Find where she's been laid to unrest. But that's
after
I bury The Community.

For Mom.

For me.

My eyes slide to Audrey, rushing beside me to keep up. Maybe for the Little Bride.

Maybe for her more than I want it to be.

“Hey!” Audrey says in an out-of-breath whisper. “You can't drop that bomb and not explain.”

I whirl, and she slams into my chest.

Audrey stumbles backward, and I wrap my hands around her upper arms.

She gasps, that electricity we have coming instantly online.

I've got an idea. It's not original, but I like it.

I think of Langley. And his suspicions. Because coming by the house without verifying that Audrey's underage seems sloppy. Granted, it's Tea, South Dakota, small-town USA. Still, his visit had the feel of gauging shit.

But what?

I let Audrey rip her arms out of my hold. “Speak to me. Stop all this cagey crap.”

“When all the facts come to light, you'll know everything, I promise.”  Early summer heat pounds the yard into submission, whitewashing everything like bone dust.

Not Audrey. She's a torch of color in the early morning glare. Her rich hair has many colors in the sun. Black, chocolate brown, and a few red strands sparkle in the sunlight. Her eyes hold me captive. Wide, sky blue—innocent.

Angry.

“I don't like these games you're playing, Kiev.” Her bottom lip trembles, and a wisp of hair lifts in the breeze, and my hand moves of its own volition, tucking it behind her ear.

“That's the thing, sweetheart—I'm not playing games.” She has no idea how much this is not a game.

“Audrey!” a sharp voice cuts the languid sexual tension building between us.

She whirls, the picture of guilt, crossing her arms protectively in front of her chest.

It's Ginny, wife number one.
Sanctimonious bitch.

Her mouth is a grim slash across her middle-aged face. Betcha she's not getting a slice of the getting-fucked-by-Father-Weston pie anymore.

Makes me smile.

Always hated her. She'd lie to Weston, tell him I'd done things I hadn't. Especially after Mom disappeared.

Guess who he believed?
Always a wife. The glory of pussy power.

She doesn't have much of that left. Ginny's getting the beginnings of facial dump, fine lines have deepened to a number eleven between her brows, and laugh lines have miraculously appeared, though I never remember her being first in line for a humor award.

Now she looks at Audrey with the same brand of hate she has for all the wives.

I stare at Audrey, looking at her through Ginny's eyes.

Young. Pure. Beautiful. Audrey doesn't need the affectations Weston has such a fucking hard-on for. And that's probably the main reason a cruel smile seats itself on Ginny's tired face.

Weary.

She probably looks like that because of the pretense of The Community. It'd zap a person's youth quicker than gravity, time, anything.

“Yes?” Audrey asks, guilt plugging her voice an octave lower than usual.

“What are you doing out here in the yard with Kiev?” Accusation hits Audrey like a physical blow. “Breakfast needs to be made, and it's
your
day.” Ginny's hands peg her wide hips, her beady eyes swiftly moving between the two of us.

She makes me rethink hitting a woman. “I was sexing her in the chicken coop, Ginny,” I say with a straight face.

Ginny gasps. In one breath believing my lie, in the next she's clearly infuriated by my comment. I'm making fun of her, being crass simply for the sake of shock value. She's pissed.

Feels fan-effing-tastic.

Audrey bursts into tears, wrecking my feelings of superiority, and basically making me feel like a huge dick.

“Hey,” I say quietly.

She doesn't turn around to acknowledge me. Audrey stalks toward Ginny, saying as she passes, “I was collecting eggs.”

She brushes by Ginny in a huff, and wife number one and I face each other. With my eyes, with the tense line of my body, I challenge her to say anything.

“You will
not
speak to me that way.” Her voice is a low command. “I am a Cho—”

I roll my eyes to the view of the sky then laser back on her. “Fuck you, Ginny, and the Chosen horse you rode in on. I'm not a scared six-year-old boy you can frame for kicks anymore.”

Swift satisfaction swarms me when her mouth thins. Her silence is her answer.

“Stay away from me”—I look down on her, both literally and figuratively, as I move by—“and stay the fuck away from the new bride.”

“Or what?” she asks, cocking her eyebrow.

I lean down into her personal space. She's got balls, this wife. That's what a couple of decades of living with Weston will get a woman. Perseverance.

“Or I'll make you miserable.”

“Is that a threat?” she asks.

I shake my head and pull my lips back from my teeth like a shark scenting blood. “Nah. A promise.”

*

I finger the business card Langley left on the table for Audrey. She didn't get it, though. I'd scooped it up instead.

Time to come clean. Time for a chat, a little sit-down.

But first—time to set things straight with Little Bride.

I glance at my thick black sports watch and note it's the witching hour. Oh, excuse me,
worship hour.

I smirk.

Making fun of The Community has become a hobby.

Audrey is breakfast girl this morning. She's not the wife to be pranced around the pulpit today.

Plus, I'd heard breakfast didn't go well.

I don't knock on her door.

I turn the knob and walk right in. A shower is running, and I feel a big grin sweep my face.
Nice.

I glance at my watch again. Another hour until Weston comes back from Worship. Unless he has new followers.

That'll take more time.

I turn the lock on Audrey's door.

After quickly taking off my clothes, I toss them on the floor beside her bed and stride to the
en suite
bathroom.

Each wife has her own bathroom.

Audrey is lathering her body. Seems like her hands are spending a lot of time between her legs.

I move to the clear glass partition.

The water from the large showerhead sheets the glass like rain outside a window during a storm.

But this is no storm. Unless you include us doing what I plan for us to do.

She turns, not having heard me enter, and screams.

I rip open the glass door and clamp a hand over her mouth.

Hot water hits my bare back and runs between the crack of my ass, then makes its way down the back of my legs.

Feels good.

Not as good as her big tits smashed against my chest. Her wide, terrified blue eyes are blinking up at me.

“We're done playing cat and mouse. I'm the cat, and I'm here to fuck the mouse.”

Audrey's hands leave her pussy and frame my face.

The gesture is so unexpected I drop my hand from her mouth, and those turquoise eyes damn me with her tenderness.

“You don't have to play games with me, Kiev.” She clamps her teeth on her full lips as the spray from the shower drops gems of water on her eyelashes. She blinks them away and says in a low voice, “I think I’m falling in love with you, Kiev.”

No.
My stomach feels as if it's falling out my ass.

This is
not
part of the plan. I slap the cold tiles on the shower wall. Colder than my heart.

My heart that is beginning to melt for this girl.

I shut my eyes against the expression in hers.

She runs her small hands along my unshaven jaw, her skin whispering against mine.

I capture one of her hands in my own. “Don't fucking lie about shit you don't understand. I want to fuck my dad's Chosen—his
wife
.” I swallow, forcing myself to meet her eyes. “This isn't about love, Audrey.”

“It is for me,” she says and puts her hand on my cock.

My dick jerks in her inexperienced hand, and my exhale is one long, excruciatingly raw breath.

“Take me—take me before he does, Kiev.” Her eyes plead with me. Her soul.

I don't think, just react.

I grab her, forcing her down in the large walk-in shower, and move my cock to the cradle of her hips, kissing her with every part of me.

Parts I didn't know I had.

“He'll know you're no virgin.”
God, don't let her fuck Weston
. I want to be the only man to fuck this woman.

Her pussy is mine.

Audrey shakes her head as though dismissing my words, her wet hair a soaking fan beneath her body as it anchors her head.

I take her mouth again and again until Audrey can barely breathe. Her legs widen, and I finger her wet pussy. I find the barest bit of the barrier still left, the shallow little shield built into her body as proof of her purity.

Suddenly I want to tear it away, reveal her for what she is.

Mine.

“Please, Kiev,” Audrey pants as my finger moves in her tightness. I don't dare add another one.

I want her hymen shredded by my cock, not a finger.

Pumping inside her, I move deep, my cock throbbing for entry. I swear I can feel the seed burning for exit from my aching balls.

I'm condemning her if Weston gets a chance to fuck her.

He'll know it was me
. The knowledge gives me savage pleasure.

“Fuck me, Kiev.” Her hips pump against the one finger, her pussy drenched, her face flushed. She opens her eyes, and they're dark with desire, the pupils growing large inside the sea of blue.

She says she loves you, asshole. Think of someone else besides you for once.

Audrey guides my prick with her hand, and my thoughts blank. And suddenly the first bit of me is inside the first bit of her.

“I want you first. I don't want it to be him.” Her lips quiver. “My first time should be with someone I chose. Every time should.”

“It's gonna hurt,” I tell her in warning, too fucking weak to stop.

She nods.

I shove forward, tearing off the bandage of her virginity in a single thrust.

Her body rejects my cock like a gag. Audrey yelps. “Ah!” Tears well in her eyes.

I hold her head steady and gently pull out.

The water moving to the drain is now pink with the mixture of her blood.

I push forward again.

She mewls as I pin her body with my cock, my hips. I rise up on my knees, still partially impaled within her body.

My thumb moves to her clit, and I swirl it. Hard. The strokes do what they should, and I rock my cock inside her deeper. Audrey's tightness strangles my dick.

She gasps, surprise washing over her face.

I lightly pinch the tiny bud of nerves, and she gasps, her back arching. I plunge the last inch inside.

She sighs.

I run a finger down the side of her face, feeling the softness. The skin of her cheek is flushed, wet from the water, pink with desire and emotion.

“Hurts,” she says in a whisper.

I nod, pull out almost all the way, and before I move, I rub her clit back and forth, taking wetness from her pussy and lathering my cock with her juices.

I slide back in. She is velvet-slick torture, and I hold back from filling her. But I'm not that much of a cockbite. Working the bundle of nerves, I slowly move back and forth with my thumb.

Audrey begins to move with me.

I bunch her legs up, her knees beside her shoulders, and take in the slit I'm buried inside, feasting on the view. Her pussy is hot pink, wet, and a little blood rims our joined bodies. Fucking hot.

I pump into her again.

Audrey meets my thrusts.

I tamp down on her clit with my thumb, keeping the pressure there, and begin a gentle pounding. My hand is at the small of her back, and the thumb of my other hand is pressed on her clit like a go button.

“I feel,” she pants, her eyes wide—kind of shocked. “I think I'm going to come.”

“Come for me, Little Bride,” I whisper.

I'm going to town on her tight pussy now. Her cunt gives a low, thrumming pulse, and I groan. “Hurry,” I breathe, trying to think of anything but being inside her slickness. Taking her virginity. Maybe feeling something for her.