Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)

by Aubrey Irons

  He’s on his stomach, thank the Lord, but it doesn’t stop my eyes from being pulled into the sight of him. His shoulders and his arms are covered in swirls of tattoo ink over thick muscles. Brown hair flops over part of his face — turned towards me but with his eyes closed. One hand dangled off the sofa, still half-clutching a mostly empty bottle of something.

  I swallow the thick lump in my throat, feeling my heart thump scandalously in my breast. My eyes ignore what my brain is telling them, and start to trail down over his muscled back, down lower, and lower still to the hard curve of his-

  Heaven help me.

  I suddenly regain control of my senses and force myself to look elsewhere before my eyes can really focus on his bare bottom.

  I pointedly look away as I loudly clear my throat.

  He mumbles something, stirring a little, but it quickly turns back into even breathing.

  I bite my lip, still adamantly looking away.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  This is Rowan Hammond? This is the man I need to get the spare key to the rental house from? I chance another look, but immediately regret the decision as my eyes drop scandalously back to his backside.

  His very muscled, very perfect, very naked-

  Stop that!

  I quickly turn away, facing the door and admonishing myself for giving in to the wicked temptation of the flesh.

  Just get the key. Get the key and get out of this place.

  I cough again, louder this time, but it only gets the same mumbled snore as before. I square my shoulders, take a deep breath, reach for the doorknob, and quickly open and slam the door shut.

  “Fuck!”

  The deep, gritty voice from the man behind me startles me, even if I’m the cause of waking him.

  “Who the fuck?”

  I chance a glance behind me, and his mouth snaps shut.

  He grins.

  “Well a good morning to you too, angel,” he says in a smooth baritone.

  I freeze, head turned toward the man now sitting up on the couch with a sheet over his lap. “I, uh, I need-”

  “Didn’t see you here last night.”

  “Oh, no,” I shake my head as I turn towards him. “No, I’m just here for-”

  “Shoulda stuck around for last call,” he chuckles, bringing a hand up and pushing his fingers through his thick brown hair. Dark eyes pierce up into me, standing there frozen in place.

  “Man, things got a little crazy last night.” He clears his throat, bringing the bottle in his hand up and squinting at it before grimacing and placing it on the floor at his feet. He glances back at me as he lounges back on the sofa, and I swallow again, forcing myself to look up at the wall above his head instead of the way his lean body coils and ripples as he eases his hands behind his head.

  “You and me?” He grins, nodding his chin at me. “I think you and me could’ve had a good time.”

  I lose the battle to avert my eyes from him, and when I do cave and glance back at him, my face immediately turns bright red. “Oh, no, I don’t think so,” I say with a frown. “I’m-”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  “I’m Evangeline.”

  There’s zero recognition on his face. “Sounds good to me,” he says with a roguish grin. His dark eyes slide down over me, sending a shiver through my body I try to ignore and I hate that I can’t.

  “No,” I shake my head, not sure if I’m saying it in response to him or to myself. “No, I mean… I think you were expecting me?”

  He grins widely. “I wasn’t, but let’s call this a pleasant surprise.”

  His eyes move back down over me, and I’m immediately regretting my choice in sundress.

  “I’m just here for-”

  He chuckles. “I think we both know why you’re here, angel.”

  Suddenly, he stands, and the sheet drops away.

  Oh Lord!

  I force myself to look away, but it’s too late.

  I clutch my hands in front of myself, swallowing again and wrinkling my brow as I stare at the ceiling.

  I can feel him move towards me, and it’s everything I can muster not to turn and flee from the room.

  I just need the key. Besides, what exactly would I say to father if I got back without it? ‘Sorry, I couldn’t get the key to the rental house because the naked man wouldn’t give it to me?’

  ‘That’s how you go to hell. That way leads to wickedness’, is what father would say.

  And he’d be right.

  “So, I’ve got an idea,” Rowan purrs.

  “Look,” I say pointedly. “I just-”

  “What’d you do, sweetheart? Left your card here last night? Forget to pay your tab?” He chuckles. “You girls threw one hell of a bachelorette party, I’ll tell ya.”

  “No,” I shake my head. “No, I-”

  “Well whatever it is, don’t you worry your pretty head about it.” I can feel him lean close, and even though I’m still pointedly looking away, I can feel the heat of him tingling across my skin. His hand is suddenly on my arm, and I shiver as I feel his fingers walk their way up. My breath catches as he walks them higher, all the way to my shoulder, where they linger on the strap of my sundress.

  Lord give me strength.

  “So,” he purrs. “What say you and I go back to bed, huh?”

  I close my eyes, shivering as the nearness of him and forcing the words to come to my lips. “My name is Evangeline,” I say pointedly. I gasp as he takes my hand, and suddenly brings it to his lips. He kisses it, and I can feel traitorous, wicked heat that blooms in places it should not be at the feel of his stubble and his soft lips across the skin of my hand.

  “Well it’s a pleasure to met you, I’m-”

  “Evangeline Ellis.”

  He freezes, and then suddenly takes a big step back from me.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  The sharpness and the crassness of his words, drags my eyes down, and suddenly, they lock onto his.

  “Fuck me fucking sideways.”

  His eyes burn into me as the clarity washes over his face. “You’re the fucking preacher’s daughter.”

  “That is what I have been trying to tell you,” I spit back.

  But then suddenly, the shock drops from his face.

  His arms comes up again, his muscles rippling as he shoves his hair back with his fingers.

  And he grins at me.

  “Well damn,” he says with that cocksure, arrogant look on his face.

  Damn indeed.

  Damnation.

  Chapter Two

  Rowan

  Well fuck.

  There’s a vague recollection that comes filtering back into my foggy brain of my dad calling me at some fucking ungodly hour this morning — something about the rental house of his I’ve been fixing up for the Ellis family — something about someone stopping by for the key to the place.

  The “someone” I was expecting was sure as hell not her.

  Soft blue eyes, light blonde hair, just a smattering of freckles across her nose. The white dress, the silver cross on the chain around her neck.

  A damn angel, and yet, the last angel in the world to pull shit like this with.

  Evangeline Ellis — preacher’s daughter.

  And I’m fucking standing in front of her buck-naked with my cock out.

  Master of first impressions that I am.

  “You’re here for the key.”

  “Yes,” she says exasperatedly.

  She looks uncomfortable. Well, no, that’s putting it lightly. She looks like something between a scared church mouse and someone who just saw blood for the first time.

  “You gonna be okay?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  “Clothes. Please,” she says, wrinkling her brow crossly and pointedly looking away from me.

  Oh this is good.

  This is real good.

  You know how they always say people will surprise you in wa
ys you don’t expect? Well, what I love is when someone is exactly who you think they’re going to be. And Ms. Holy Roller here is every fucking inch what I expected when Dad let me know she and her folks were coming to town.

  Prim, proper, high-strung. A little fucking cross around her neck, because of course there is.

  But then, that’s where the expected stops, and the unexpected comes up to slap me in the face. The uptightness? The prudish behavior? Yeah, those I expected from the daughter of the deep-south Georgia preacher.

  The rest of it, I was not.

  There’s the fact that she’s stunning. There’s the fact that her white sundress fits probably a bit too well — more than I’m betting she thinks it does. There’s that long blonde hair, glowing around her face from the sun coming in through the dingy hallway window. Pouty lips, big blue eyes that I’m sure are pretty when they aren’t scowling.

  Shit.

  On the one hand, preacher girl is everything I expected. But on the other?

  On the other hand, she’s fucking hot, and that I was not expecting.

  Not by a damn mile.

  She whirls back away from me, crossing her hands over her chest. But that sunlight coming in also happens to be shining right through that white dress, giving me more of a glimpse than I’m betting she wants to.

  I decide to keep the little gem to myself.

  “Um, please?”

  I shake my head, dragging my eyes up from checking out the way the light comes through that dress between her thighs to the back of her I’m sure still scowling face.

  “Yes?”

  “Look, I just need the key, and could you please put some clothes on?!” she says with a shrillness to her voice.

  I grin. “What’s that? Sorry, you know it’s impolite to talk looking away from someone when you’re addressing them.”

  “You aren’t wearing pants,” she says, her voice quavering.

  She actually sounds upset.

  “It’s just a dick, sweetheart.”

  “Mr. Hammond! Please!” she says tightly.

  I grin, shaking my head. “Okay, okay, chill.”

  I frown, turning and grabbing a pair of jeans off the back of my office chair.

  Jesus, fuck.

  The pounding in my head that’s been momentarily forgotten by opening my eyes to this angel standing over me comes roaring back. For a minute, I scrunch my face up, trying to remember why the hell I’m naked, and sleeping it off on my damn office sofa instead of my apartment upstairs.

  The still-beer-damp jeans remind me as I yank them on.

  Right, the bar fight.

  The boiling point of townies, the insanely drunk bachelorette party of out-of-towners, and the even more drunk groom that showed up to see his fiancée slow dancing to Whitesnake with Mikey Sullivan who works down on the docks.

  Somehow this led to me getting punched in the face, and after that, it’s a bit of a blur.

  I vaguely remember the close up of the bar, saying fuck it to cleaning up the place post-fight, and getting rip-shit drunk with Jade instead.

  Jade, who’s probably still crashed upstairs in my place actually. One, because no wasted employee of mine is going to take the shitty sofa while I sleep upstairs, and two, because I’m pretty positive I couldn’t make it up the stairs last night if I fucking tried.

  “Are you decent yet?”

  I roll my eyes as I button my jeans. “It is my house you know.”

  “It’s a bar.”

  “Well it’s my bar.”

  Church girl is starting to get annoying and I decide I’m not done messing with her.

  “Sure you don’t want to look?”

  I turn and pointedly reach out and poke her ass with a rigid finger.

  She shrieks, and I start to laugh before I wince and grab my forehead.

  Fucking hangover.

  “Okay, fine. I’m decent.”

  She turns, cautiously, her face bright red and her eyes wild as she glares daggers at me.

  So this is the Evangeline Ellis I’m going to be working with over the next few months. Working with, because of course Dad roped me into working on this outreach center project he’s putting up in some of the old factory spaces over in Lynn.

  Evangeline’s eyes dip to my bare chest as she fingers the cross on her neck, her cheeks getting redder before she looks pointedly at my face and sticks her open hand out.

  “Key, please?”

  “Sure you don’t want a peek?” I grin, nodding down at my jeans.

  “Quite,” she says icily.

  “Suit yourself.” I make a point of making sure my arm brushes hers as I move past her out of the office, grinning when she flinches away from me.

  “Um, where are you going?”

  “You want the key?”

  She says nothing as she follows me down the hallway. I wince as I step out into the bar area and glance at the place.

  Jesus fuck, what a wreck. No wonder I got drunk instead of cleaning this place up last night. That is the last time I let Mikey Sullivan and his shithead cousin drink Jägermeister in here.

  I glance back at Evangeline as I step behind the bar. Jesus she looks out of place. The blonde hair, the white dress, the silver cross. With that dim light from the hallway window still hitting her from behind, she almost looks angelic.

  There’s no place for angels in a place like this.

  She’s young, too. Not like, young young, but younger than me, that’s for sure. Or maybe that’s a perspective thing. Turning thirty was a bitch, I’ll say that.

  The other thing is, she might be all church-mousy in those furtive movements, all piss and vinegar with that uptight attitude, but it’s doing a real bad job of hiding the obvious.

  Church girl is hot.

  “Shouldn’t you be dressed differently?”

  She frowns. “How should I be dressed?”

  “I dunno, ankle-length skirts, a bonnet maybe?”

  “You know I’m not Amish, right?”

  “You’re not?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No.”

  “Remind me what you guys are again? Some kind of cult thing?”

  “Grace Church of Salvation and Divine Retribution is not a cult.”

  I scratch the stubble of my chin as I stare at her. “Right, yeah, no, that sounds totally on the level.”

  She narrows her eyes at me and I grin. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect you to be dressed like that I guess.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hot.”

  The word catches her off-guard, and her eyes go wide, her face blushing just like it did back in my office when I gave her the full monty.

  “I am not.”

  “Trust me, you are. You look hot in that dress.”

  Her face going a bright red pink color as she huffs.

  “That’s a compliment, you know.”

  “I know you’re trying to be crude, not complimentary.”

  I whistle. “Huh, so you’re going to dress hot, but you’re not going to be okay with a guy telling you you look hot.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “Stop dressing hot.”

  She glares at me again, and I grin right back, savoring the moment. The light from the hallway window is still coming in from behind her, so truth be told, I’m also still savoring taking in the clean outline of her legs underneath that sundress, too.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m kind of in a rush.”

  “All in good time, all in good time.” I wave her off as I step behind the bar. “Don’t worry, the house’ll still be there when you get there. Probably.”

  I reach behind the register for the familiar bottle of Tylenol. I do want to keep ogling this chick, but I also sort of want to die with this hangover ripping through me. I pop four pills into my mouth and reach for the low-boy fridge behind the bar, grabbing a beer.

  Thank God for hair of the dog.

  Evangeline makes this disgusted scoffing noise as she sees what I’m doing,
and I grin.

  “You want one?” I turn to see her scowling at me.

  “What? No!”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “It’s nine in the morning!”

  “Tell me about it.” I swig back the beer, swallowing the Tylenol. I glance back and see that she’s looking at me expectantly.

  “Right, right. The key.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Jeez, you just had to ask.”

  Her eyes narrow, and I grin, stretching one arm across my bare chest and then the other and cracking my neck. I open the register and grab the key to Dad’s rental place from the side drawer before turning and holding it out to her across the bar.

  She sighs heavily as she steps forward and reaches for it, but I yank it back right before she does.

  “Sure I can’t convince you to come back to bed with me?”

  “I know what you’re doing, Mr. Hammond,” she says with a huff.

  “Oh yeah?”

  She swallows, putting on a mean face, but her cheeks are still blushing bright red. “I know what you see in me.”

  I grin. “I know what I’d like to see in you.”

  Her face gets even redder, if that was even possible, before she swallows it back. She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders.

  “I can promise you, Mr. Hammond-”

  “Mr. Hammond is my dad.”

  “Your dad is Reverend Hammond.”

  “Rowan is fine.”

  Her mouth goes tight. “Fine, Rowan. I know what you’re doing.”

  “Well don’t leave me hanging.”

  Her mouth tightens. “Well, I just want to let you know you’re wasting your time.”

  “Doing?”

  “Doing your darnedest to try and tease me.”

  I grin, the beer halfway to my lips. “Did you honestly just use the word ‘darnedest’?”

  “It is not going to work, Mr- Rowan.”

  “Oh it’s not?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “I’m not the sheltered little church girl you think I am,” she says tightly, eyeing me.

  “Oh, of course not.”

  I step out from under the bar and move to lean against the side of it in front of her, dangling the key.

  “I’m not some sheltered little-”

  “No, of course not you’re not, which is why you look so comfortable in a place like this.”