Lucas washers. He was her gift, her salvation, and she would not lose him to some undeservingslutwho had no understanding of the plan God had for her and Lucas’s future. Delilah knew herself to be better than any woman who spread her legs for base pleasure, but one who peddled sex could do nothing but betray by sex.
Pivoting, she rushed out of the bedroom and back down the stairs, heading toward the kitchen. Stepping into it, she looked around and wanted to scream with rage.It wasn’t fair!Who was Stormy to have this beautiful home, to have this life of safety and prosperity, and still not be satisfied, still attempt to steal theoneblessing Delilah had been granted after a lifetime of duty.
She’d had to first fight to live and when that was constant, she had to fight to learn and survive her father’s teachings and use them, along with her mind and body. She was the Good Shepherd’s most trusted weapon in the battle against man’s evil, and she had killed, brought many men down for not being more.
Still, Lucas had been more, had given her more. She would fight for him, fight for their new life, for love, and in that process, Delilah would send Stormy Redmond back to hell before allowing the other woman to destroy those newfound possibilities.
Delilah closed her eyes, took a breath, settled, and opened them again, thanking God.
For too long, the Good Shepherd had ruled her. With Lucas, God had given her a choice, a man who had the strength of Samson, one who could destroy that which she could not. It was not too late. She could save him, and in turn, he would save her from a life choice that she never truly made but had come to accept.
She searched the kitchen, opening cupboards until she found a bottle of vodka and grabbed it, heading back upstairs. She opened the heavy curtains in the whore’s bedroom to banish the darkness and began to recite a passage fromthe exorcism of wateras she opened the bottle and flicked her wrist, dousing the bed with the clear liquid.
“Through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Through the…”
She continued to recite the words as she placed the bottle on the dresser and reached inside her purse and pulled out the small box of matches she used to light the candles in her room that staved off the evil lurking in the dark. Striking a match, she tossed it into the center of the bed, feeling only peace and purpose as she watched the flames slowly spread.
Without looking back, she walked out of a house that would never be hers and slid into the rental car. She would return to the house she’d usurped, gather her belongings, and if needs be, drive up to the mountain to retrieve the man who was her gift from God.
As she drove down the tree-lined street in the serene neighborhood she saw one older woman scrutinizing her from a porch two houses down. She heard the echo of sirens from a distance, but she wasn’t concerned. The black wig and large sunglasses that hid most of her face would render any description of her useless. The long black coat she wore hid her body, as the blank expression she wore as she passed the old woman hid her unspeakable need for vengeance.
Stormy sat on the cot beside Lucas, struggling to understand what was going on with the people on this mountain. Lucas’s fingers edged beneath the waistband of her yoga pants as they sat opposite the young religious man gazing at them.
Lucas was going to hell, she thought as his fingers wiggled like insistent little serpents beneath the material and stroked the upper region of her ass. She arched her back to dislodge his hand but succeeded only in giving him more access.
Yep, he was going to hell and he was taking her with him, she thought as his nimble fingers slid along the crack of her ass toward—
“Oh!” she cried out as a finger dipped. “I’m going to need you to stop!” She rounded on Lucas before turning back to Cornelius’s confused gaze, hoping she hadn’t outwardly exposed her growing arousal before she’d cried out. Lucas’s finger stilled along the seam of her ass, and Stormy released a pent-up breath of relief.
Crossing his legs at the knee, Lucas pressed against her side as if attempting to block her from Cornelius’s view while he continued his easygoing chat, commanding all of Cornelius’s attention as if she had never uttered a word.
Trying to stay relaxed, Stormy lowered her head and closed her eyes before Cornelius could see them rolling toward the back of her head. Lucas’s finger had begun to massage. She heard and felt the vibration of Lucas chuckling beside her as he made her aware of sexual nerve endings she never knew existed there.
He was the devil.
“I am so going to pay you back,” she muttered. “I swear to G—”
“Now don’t blaspheme in front of a man of God, darlin’, don’t want to endanger your immortal soul, do you?”
Stormy’s daddy had long ago taught her that sometimes a woman had to deal with sneaky people directly. Lucas thought she would quietly allow him to torment her with his covert finger-fucking, believing she would be too embarrassed to expose what was going on to a man of the cloth. He obviously had a lot to learn about her.
“Lucas, if you don’t remove your hand from beneath my pants I will find a hammer and smash every knuckle on every finger of your wandering hand.”
“Aw, come on, woman, how you gonna just put my lovin’ out in the streets like that?” he grumbled, dislodging his finger from her flesh.
She stood as Lucas snatched his hand away, heading to the front door of this isolated little jail. “Pray for him, Cornelius, I have a feeling you may be the closest thing he will get to salvation in this lifetime.”
“That I can always do, Ms. Redmond.”
“Saint, if you got a mainline to the Lord, I suggest you pray for me and Stormy both because we’re going to be raising some hell in the month to come.”
Stormy was ready to tell Lucas exactly where to shove his prayers, when she saw Cornelius nervously stroke the cross he’d donned, along with his brown robe, upon returning to the concrete room. He seemed to find comfort in the motion which meant Lucas’s antics had made Cornelius uncomfortable.
“Cornelius, do you remember the license plate of the person who brought you to the forest, maybe the make and model of the car? With that, we might be able to get you back to where you belong,” she asked, hoping to put him at ease.
“I must find my own path, and until then I cannot belong anywhere,” Cornelius said, then rattled off the license plate number and color of the Prius that had dropped him on the side of the road.
Lucas frowned and stared at Cornelius intently. “And the driver’s name?”
