by Madison Faye
“Eavesdropping is a sin, Paul!” I yell.
“No it ain’t,” he chuckles. “And besides, I’m just reminding mama that once my church is up, we’ll have no need for traveling preachers like this Gabriel guy.”
Mama shakes her head and puts hand to her heart as she raises her eyes heaven-ward. Her lips move a little, and I smile. Mama’s piousness might be a little much sometimes, but it’s one the character traits that I love about her.
“Well, this Gabriel guy,” mama mutters. “Is only going to be preaching the Lord’s word for a might longer, and if you don’t get going, you’re going to miss it!” She turns to me. “White dress, Delilah. Don’t be sinful.”
I sigh. “Okay, okay.”
She smiles. “Thank you, honey. Now get ready!” She pokes her head out of my bedroom door. “Paul! Are you dressed?”
“Nah, mama, I can’t go. I promised to bring Mayer Pearson some coffee so we could talk about zoning.”
The front door opens loudly, and my father bustles in, grinning. “That’s right!” he beams. “That’s my son the minister with his very own church!”
Well, not yet, but, that’s the plan at least. Paul spent a long time being what mama would call “aimless”—working some odd jobs, hanging around town here in Canaan, and even a year or two living the city life in Savannah—a place both mama and papa agree is a wicked, wicked place. But now with a year of divinity school under his belt, Paul has apparently found his calling, which is to raise the funds to build a church here in church-less, small-town Canaan and be its minister.
“Delilah!” papa calls from the kitchen with a muffled voice.
“Jedediah!” mama hisses back, storming from my room. “You darn well better not be getting into my baking for tonight!”
I can almost hear my father swallowing pie crust from here, and mama can too. She sighs with a smile and turns to point a finger at me. “White dress, right now, honey.”
“Okay, okay!”
“You comin’ too, dear?” Papa calls.
“I need to finish the prep for supper,” she laments. “But if you and Delilah don’t hurry—”
“Oh we’re hurrying! Delilah!” he bellows in his big belly voice. “Truck’s leaving in two minutes! Let’s go!”
“Alright, alright!” I shut my bedroom door and quickly start yanking on the white sundress.
Twelve minutes later, papa’s pickup truck bounces off the dirt road onto the little patch of grass where the other townspeople are parked.
“He’s the real deal, honey,” papa gushes as he puts the rumbling truck in park and turns off the engine. “Gene Parsons said this guy visited his cousin’s town up in Tenseness last summer?” papa whistles. “Said it was the best dang sermon he ever did hear. Moved him in ways the Lord is supposed ta move ya.”
Papa reaches up with his perpetually grease-stained hands from the garage and puts a hand over his heart. He doesn’t show it much, like he doesn’t really show much of himself that a shirt with rolled up sleeves would show, but I know he’s touching the crucifix tattoo over his heart. Canaan isn’t exactly a place you’d find much tattoo ink, and if you didn’t know my father all that well, you’d never guess that he does, either.
But papa spent a number of years when he was young and before he met our mother in what they both call a “bad crowd.” He calls it his dark past, or his “forty years in the desert” before he met mama. There’s a lot more tattoo ink besides a crucifix under his shirt, but he doesn’t like to talk about it, at all. To papa, all that matters is that he found my mother and found the Lord’s salvation along with her.
Then came Paul, and then dad’s mechanic’s shop, and then years later, me.
We bustle across the field towards a gathered crowd standing in front of a Winnebago with a trailer hooked up to the back of it.
“Don’t preacher’s usually come with a church?”
Papa chuckles. “Very funny, sweetheart,” he pants, tugging me across the field and puffing hard. “God’s great green earth is a church, Delilah. And blessed men like Preacher Gabriel here are His humble servants, wandering His realm bringing salvation and comfort upon thems without.”
I smile. That does actually sound really nice, and like a really amazing, selfless thing to do. We’re closer now, and I can hear the voice of Preacher Gabriel calling out scripture, and I can already feel the comfort of it. As we get closer and closer, I can spot the dripping wet, beaming townspeople standing at the back of the crowd.
“Mercy,” papa puffs. “I surely hope we ain’t too late!”
He taps a few people we recognize on the shoulder, who turn and smile and gladly let us through. All of them looks so serene and peaceful now that they’re dripping wet in the Lord’s salvation and love, and my heart beats faster. Of course, I’m already baptized, and even if there’s no church in Canaan, on the Sundays we can, we pile into the pickup and drive over to Huntington Parish for a service.
But today is special. Word of Preacher Gabriel’s moving sermons hit our town like a wildfire before he even got here. And even if you’re already baptized, papa says, there’s no harm in “getting good with the Lord all over again.” Can’t really argue with that.
My heart beats a little quicker as I hear a deep, melodic and booming voice proclaim “And ye! Thout shall be clean and loved by me anew!”
My, Preacher Gabriel has a lovely voice—strong and confident, and yet so gentle and soothing. It’s sounds like woodsmoke and leather, and maybe a bit like the whiskey Paul keeps hidden in his room above the garage.
“Step forth from the healing waters of His Glory, brother Joseph!” he booms, and my heart flutters as we start to push through the last of the already-dunked crowd.
Papa taps Mary-Beth Coleson’s shoulder, and she turns with a big smile and nods before she steps aside.
“Oh he’s wonderful, Jedediah!” she gushes quietly.
My heart beats faster, and my grin spreads over my face as the excitement grows. Papa takes my arm and pulls me through, and I smile brightly as I look up at the man standing waist-deep in the slightly raised baptism tank.
…My heart skips a beat.
My legs lock.
My smile falters.
A ball of white-hot heat begins to burn inside my very body, and a shiver unlike I’ve ever felt teases over my skin.
The man standing in the baptism tank is dripping wet. Water runs in little drops and rivulets over bulging, rippling muscles—arms like the arms of Samson wielding a jawbone. A chest like Jacob, straining to wrestle God’s own angel.
But that’s where this man of God ceases to be Godly. My eyes drag over his huge form, and the white, see-through undershirt clinging to his muscles, and I feel nothing but sin. I look over the pulse-quickening swirls of tattoo ink across his chest, shoulders, and arms, and my heart skips. I look higher over his chiseled, perfect jaw, and that hard, smirking smile. I look higher, my body trembling, and my eyes finally land on his gorgeous blue ones.
…And he’s looking right at me, with the most intense, piercing, fierce gaze that I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
“You,” he growls softly. I gasp, and my heart feels like it’s creeping into my throat. A heat I’ve never known before tingles through my body in wicked, sinful, impure ways, and I swallow tightly.
“Come here.” The man stares right at me, and he raises a hand to crook two fingers, beckoning me foreword.
I falter for one moment. No shepherd should make his flock weak in the knees with just a look. No man of God should be built for sin, like he is.
…A preacher shouldn’t set the most sinful places of my body aflame with the most wicked, impure desires I’ve ever felt in my life.
His eyes blaze into mine, and he smiles. I can’t tell if it’s an innocent one, or one that says he knows damn well that he’s corrupting my mortal soul with one look. But either way, when he crooks his fingers again to beckon me forward, God help me, I do.
Co
me what may.
Chapter Three
Gabriel
“Preacher? Preacher Gabriel?”
I blink, and I realize someone is talking to me. I blink again, and slowly realize it’s a man standing next to her who’s talking to me.
“What?” I frown. Shit. I clear my throat and take a breath, and my mask goes back on. I turn and smile warmly at the older man next to the golden-haired angel. “Yes indeed, sir! At your service!”
He smiles. “Oh thank the Lord we got here in time!” He puts an arm over her shoulders, and my throbbing hard cock falters for a second. Okay, clearly her father, and this good ol’ southern boy looks like exactly the type to keep a loaded shotgun ready and waiting for exactly wolves like me that sniff to close to his little angel.
I force myself to take a breath and keep my eyes on him, not her. It might just be the single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life though.
“Preacher Gabriel!” he beams. “I was hoping me and my daughter here could be washed in His holy waters before it’s too late!”
It’s never too late for a donation to Preacher Gabriel’s whiskey fund, trust me.
I grin. “But of course! Of course brother…” I raise a brow, and he grins back.
“Oh, Jedediah, sir. Jedediah Somerset, and this is my daughter,” he turns to her, and I grit my teeth. I’ve been trying my fucking hardest not to look at her. It’s taken all of my willpower to look at him, not at the fucking stunning angel standing next to him. But, what can I say, the flesh is weak. I drag my eyes over to hers, and I grind my teeth.
Aww hell.
“This here’s Delilah,” he says.
Our eyes lock, and my pulse thunders. Shit. The girl isn’t just an angel. She puts any fucking angel shit I’ve ever seen to shame. She’s beyond beautiful—this heady mix of pure, wholesome southern charm, and a Playboy college-girl fantasy. My cock instantly hardens, painfully so. It’s a reminder that I’ve been without the touch of a woman for a very, very long time.
There was a time, years ago when I first started this little entrepreneurship, where I’d have gladly, uh, partaken of the fruits of His flock. Lonely widows, curious and bored housewives, and God bless those “good Christian” girls who think a cross around their neck somehow absolves them of all sorts of sinful shit.
But that was years ago, and that was a different me. That me realized that if I was going to succeed at this, and actually make money, and not, you know, get shot, I needed to run things like a business, not a frat party. The dalliances were never fucking worth it, anyways, and always left me empty and hating myself. Don’t get me wrong, I am only a man, and I firmly believe a man needs his vices to get through this world. But that list of vices over the last year or so has sadly not included temptations of the flesh.
Believe me, you keep enough of a whiskey habit going, and it’s the only comfort you’ll really need.
For a man who’s bullshitting his way across this great country pretending to be pious, I’ve actually kept strangely celibate for a long time. I’ve forced myself to concentrate on the showmanship, and of honing my ability to separate fools from their money. But I take one look at this girl—at Delilah—and my walls begin to crumble.
The pulsing, thick erection tenting my bathing suit under the water is a pretty clear indicator of that.
“So we’re not too late, Preacher Gabriel?”
I blink. For a moment, I want to say yes. I want to say fuck yes and blow his fucking mind and shatter all of these people’s ideas about me before I pack up my shit and blow out of town. All because of her, because I know damn well this is trouble. I know she’s trouble, not because of her, but because of what she clearly does to me. And that’s trouble I do not need if I’m going to make this whole thing work.
“Brother Jedediah—”
“I brought cash, if that’s okay?”
He raises a fistful of dollars, and I groan. Fuck me, it might as well be thirty cursed pieces of silver. But a sinner like me sees that shit, and whatever reservations I have melt away.
I smile, and I nod. “Of course, brother!” I crow. My eyes dart back to Delilah, and I groan when I see the blush on her face, and the odd spark in her eyes. I want to tell myself there’s something wicked there—that this pretty little southern belle in the chaste white dress is hiding some very impure thoughts about yours truly. But I know that’s just my own imagination. No, not a chance. This girl is way too pure looking, and this town is way too bible-thumping for that to be real.
I make a mental note that I should probably start jerking off more to keep my head focused, and I smile once again.
“Well then, brother Jedediah. Which of you would like to be bathed in His cleansing waters first?”
“You go, papa,” Delilah whispers quietly. She swallows thickly and turns to smile at her father. “Please, you go first.”
Jedediah beams from ear-to-ear, and he turns to look at me. “Just step right in?”
As soon as I can get my fucking rock-hard cock to go down, yeah, knock yourself out, buddy.
“But of course, brother Jedediah,” I say gently, thinking of the most gruesome shit I can think of to will my dick down. I start going over baseball stats in my head as he kicks his shoes off. He’s wearing a bathing suit and a long-sleeved black shirt with “Canaan Auto Repair” on the front of it over his rounded belly, and he starts to climb the steps. Luckily, by the time he’s easing his big frame into the water, my cock is no longer in danger of starting some very awkward conversations.
“Brother Jedediah!” I bellow, more to the crowd than to him. “Do you renounce Satan and his wicked ways!”
“I do!” he bellows so loudly it takes me back a little. They’ve all screamed it, but Jeb here has the performance of the day, by far. Shit, he’s even getting a little misty-eyed.
“Then come and be cleansed!” I roar. I grab him, and I grunt, my muscles straining to lower him back into the water. Jeb here might have a beer-gut, but the guy is pure bear muscle. It’s just the final reminder I need to get my hungry fucking eyes off his goddamn daughter.
Jeb goes under, and I grunt again to drag him back out. He comes out sputtering and actually crying, and before I can stop him, the guy’s got me in big, wet, manly bear hug.
“Bless you, Gabriel,” he chokes against my shoulder. “Bless you for reminding this sinner that we can all share in His light.”
I nod stiffly. Once again, if I did still have a soul, I might even feel a little guilty about this one. Good thing I don’t, though.
Jedediah climbs the steps and steps down from the tub. Some of the other townspeople come forward to shake his hand and embrace him warmly, and I just smile down over the whole thing, hoping to God he gets her out of here before she fucks with my head any longer. Besides, now I really need to start drinking.
“Well, folks,” I drawl in my best southern twang. “I’ll be here for the week, with daily sermons, offerings, and Holy healings available to all—”
“What about me?”
Her voice is so soft and gentle that it takes me back. I blink, and even though I try, I can’t stop myself. My eyes slide over to her, and I instantly groan. My muscles tighten, my jaw clenches, and that fierce hunger explodes through me again. I look at her—at that long blonde hair, those pretty blue eyes, that tight little body cloaked in the soft white dress—and I want to devour her.
“Sorry, I—”
“Do you have time for her, preacher?” Jedediah says eagerly. “Please? We can pay.”
No. No no no, fuck no. No fucking way am I putting hands on—
“Is this enough?”
Fuck. He waves that green in my face, and I’m helpless to resist.
“Yeah, uh…” I swallow, and I take a deep breath to try and get my shit together. “Of course, brother!” I beam. My eyes swivel back to hers, and my jaw clenches.
“Please, won’t you step right up…”
“Delilah,” she says softly, startin
g into my eyes.
“Delilah,” I smile back. “Come,” I beckon with my fingers again, and she blushes. She starts to climb the stairs to the tub, and my cock is already thickening. Baseball stats, and multiplication tables, and pictures of car wrecks flit through my head. But goddamit, none of it helps. None of it does a damn thing to stop my cock from swelling to full thickness in my bathing suit.
Delilah gasps quietly as she steps into the water. The dress begins to billow out around her, and she blushes and pushes it back down. The water soaks it, and she steps all the way in until the water is just above her waist.
“Like this?” she whispers, standing next to me.
“Like, yeah…” I growl, fumbling. “Stand this way.”
I reach out before I can stop myself, and my hands circle her waist. She tenses for a second, and my cock just fucking throbs. Shit, this is going to be bad. I turn her to face the right way, and my hands assume the position of holding the small of her back and the back of her head. Her long silken blonde hair teases my arm, and I grit my teeth.
I’m so fuckin’ hard, but I’m also straining to stand a bit back from her than I normally would. The last thing I need is this girl coming up from her baptism sputtering that the preacher’s got a boner.
“Delilah.”
Her name tumbles quietly from my lips, and I groan. Fucking hell, it’s like a switch getting flipped. My hands tighten on her just a little, and my pulse thunders a little louder in my ears. Her soft, tight body melts against my big hands, and she smiles and closes her eyes. I start to dip her back, and my eyes sweep over her.
Fuck.
I want to scream at whoever the fuck thought it was a good idea to let a girl who looks like this wear a white fucking cotton dress to a goddamn baptizing. She’s clearly wearing underwear, but as the water soaks through her thin dress, I could almost tell you the fucking brand name of them. My eyes look hungrily through the water, and I swear I can almost see a little shadow between her legs, through the soaked dress and panties.
Get ahold of yourself, dumb ass, I growl to myself.