Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)

by Aubrey Irons

  “You-” I swallow quickly. “You’re too close.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Too close like last night?”

  My eyes drag up to his. “That was a mistake.”

  “Sure about that?”

  I don’t answer.

  “I think kissing is probably something we should cover in the lessons.”

  The lessons.

  The thought makes my cheeks burn even hotter.

  Rowan growls as his eyes move over my face. “There it is,” he murmurs.

  “I’m just hot, that’s all,” I mumble.

  “I like making you hot.”

  “You’re no- oh!”

  His hand lands on my waist, and I gasp.

  I also don’t make any sort of move.

  “How about now.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  The hand slides over my hip to the small of my back, and my heart hammers in my chest.

  “Now?”

  “Stop it,” I whisper without meaning it one bit.

  “Stop what.”

  “You can’t-” I shiver under his touch. “You can’t do that.”

  “Do what,” he murmurs into my ear.

  I gasp. Literally, I gasp out loud.

  “I want you to stop it,” I say lamely.

  “You know lying is a sin, angel.”

  “So is lust.”

  “You saying you’re feeling lust right now?”

  Bite my lip. “No, I- no.”

  My head is spinning, and I’m letting him pull me closer. My hands move to his chest, and I shiver as my wide eyes drag up to his.

  “We can’t do this,” I whisper.

  “Nothing wrong with me teaching you, right?”

  I wet my lips, looking up at him. “And what are you teaching me today?”

  “This.”

  His lips crush against mine, and I moan as I melt into them.

  Hard.

  He pushes us back against the bathroom door, and I gasp as I feel him press against me. His lips sear to mine, my hands tighten on his t-shirt, and I’m lost in that kiss.

  Lost, until my senses come roaring back.

  Lost, until the moment shatters as the sharp reality of what I’m doing crashes into me.

  I shove him back, and my eyes are wild as I stare at him, my fingers coming up to brush my lips as if unable to process what we’ve just done.

  “No,” I whisper, shaking my head. I wag a finger at him, “no, that- we-”

  “Eva.”

  “Leave me alone, Rowan,” I hiss, before turning on my heel and running back to the kitchen.

  My hands are shaking, and I almost burn myself on the saucepan pouring it into the serving bowl. I take a second, taking deep breaths, trying to will the heat from my face before I round the corner back to the dining room.

  “Sorry! I had to find your serving dishes!”

  Lying.

  Another sin.

  Another notch on my road to hell.

  “Oh, you should have hollered, honey!” Irene smiles as I put the serving dish down, trying somehow to avoid all eight pairs of eyes in the room as I take a seat.

  Rowan comes back a minute later, his phone in his hand.

  “Sorry, bar stuff.”

  “Everything okay?” Jacob asks.

  “Totally.” He flashes the table an easy, quick smile before landing on me, and holding there. “Totally good.”

  I fastidiously study my couscous.

  “Just one big misunderstanding.”

  Rowan doesn’t stay for coffee, or for the cannoli’s he brought over — which are amazing. Instead, he ducks out after giving his mom a quick kiss, but not before one last lingering, smoldering, smirking look at me from the doorway.

  The sound of his motorcycle drowns down the street as I quietly eat the dessert, my heart still pounding and my lips still bruised.

  He’s sweet, sweet, sinful temptation.

  And I’m falling.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rowan

  “Thanks,” I mumble, slamming the door to Silas’s pickup shut as he hands me a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

  “You know the way to my heart.”

  He laughs, shifting the beat up old pickup into drive before flipping me off. I gratefully sip the black brew, letting it scald the inside of my mouth just enough to chase the demons from the night before away.

  “You look like shit, you know.”

  I snort into the coffee, bringing my hand up to run my fingers through my mop of hair.

  “Yeah, well, busy night.”

  “What was her name?”

  “His name was Jack Daniels, and he was not nice.”

  Silas laughs, shaking his head. “Look, you’re the guy who owns a bar, but popular opinion would be that you’re supposed to sell the booze, not drink it.”

  I groan. “Another fuckin’ bachelorette party. Had to keep the atmosphere going.”

  Silas rolls his eyes.

  “Oh, like you don’t miss being single, out there sowing your oats?” I quickly look at him. “Wait, no, don’t actually fucking answer that.”

  He snorts. “Trust me man, being married to your sister keeps me plenty occupied.”

  I groan and cover my ears. “Uuuugh. Not listening. I’m not listening to that!”

  He laughs.

  Technically, Silas and Ivy have been married for like nine years, with a prolonged break in the middle there. A misunderstanding, I guess you could call it

  After that night.

  The night of the crash, after the robbery.

  When you get older, you can look back on parts of your life where the road zigged and you zagged. That night is the biggest one in mine. Back then, Silas and I were just two young assholes looking for trouble, Silas had a way of finding it a little easier than I did, being that his family was a mess and mine was, well, TV perfect. Didn’t stop me from trying to get my hands into all sorts of the stupid shit he got into back then though.

  I can remember the night of the truck robbery well. Hell, I’ll honestly never forget it. The night his criminal of an uncle, Declan, came to me asking if I could drive the getaway car while he and his wannabe Boston gangster friends held up an armored truck. Now, yeah, that sounds like the single dumbest idea in the world. Especially in this town when your last name is “Hammond”. Double especially when you’ve got a full ride to Boston College in the fall on a hockey scholarship.

  I knew Declan had asked Silas first, and that he’d walked from the job.

  I knew it was the dumbest idea in the world.

  But back then?

  Back then it was adventure. Back then, it was stepping outside myself, and stepping away from the path that had been laid out for me. Some kids get stupid tattoos, or get drunk in Cabo, or try hard drugs or whatever.

  Me?

  My stepping off the path was driving a getaway car for an armored truck robbery. And when I say I zigged and life zagged, I mean it fucking zagged.

  That night ended in shattered glass, an upside-down car, my leg smashed in four places, and the end of my scholarship.

  And it coulda been worse.

  It was Silas who stopped me from making the biggest mistake of my life that night. Silas who showed up at the last minute and told me what a fucking idiot I was being, and Silas who jumped in and took my place at the wheel and took off as the bullets started flying.

  Silas who went off the road when I punched him in the arm — mad somehow that he’d “taken it” from me.

  And then it was Silas who carried me on his fucking back two miles back into town to the E.R. at Sacred Heart.

  Me, and that night were a big reason shit blew up for Ivy and Silas back then. My dad had always offered him a warm home back then when we were kids, because of the shit life he had living with his uncle, and because Dad had known his parents from church.

  But dating his daughter pushed it to the line with Jacob
.

  Driving his son into a guardrail at forty miles an hour, after mixing him up with his uncle’s criminal schemes shoved it right over that line.

  Dad basically banished Silas that night, and no amount of me swearing that I hated him or telling him the full story was going to change that. In his head, Silas was the kink in the chain of his family, and it needed to be hammered out.

  Course we never knew until Silas came back to town a year ago to make things right that he and Ivy had gotten fucking married a couple days before he left town that night.

  Anyways, it’s a long and complicated story, but suffice to say, I owe Silas my life and then some.

  A whole damn lot of ‘then some’.

  “I don’t look like shit,” I mutter, looking out the window as we drive into Lynn towards the job site. Dad managed to wrangle both of us into helping out today with some of the carpentry stuff.

  “You do, trust me.”

  “Whatever dude, least I’m not letting Ivy put fucking coconut product in my hair, or wherever that shit is in yours.”

  “It’s a healthy, natural shine, dude.”

  We both snort into laughs.

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Ah shit,” Silas grumbles as we pull into the parking lot. He nods, and I glance up to see Leonard Ellis screaming at some poor worker.

  “That guy,” Silas mutters.

  “That guy needs to cool the fuck out or they’re never going to get this place done.”

  “He wanted the framing crew to take turns passing around the book of Isaiah the other day in between framing out windows. Those guys are on a deadline, they almost walked off the job. He knows it multi-denominational, right?”

  I frown. “I honestly don’t know. I’ll get Dad to simmer him down. They’ve got that divinity school connection. Besides, he scares the shit out of me.”

  “Yeah? And why’s that?”

  I turn to see Silas grinning at me.

  I swallow, shrugging. “Cause he’s intense.”

  “About?”

  “This going somewhere, man?”

  He shrugs. “Nope.”

  “No, please, speak.”

  “Rowan.”

  “Silas.”

  He grins and shakes his head, turning to look out the front of the truck. “Dude, I’ve known you for a long time.” He turns back, giving me a knowing look.

  “What.”

  “Quite a bathroom break you took the other night at dinner.”

  “Had to take care of-”

  “Right, right. Bar stuff.” He grins. “So weird that Eva had such a hard time finding a serving bowl.”

  I frown. “It’s not like she knows Mom’s kitch-“

  “They’re literally on a shelf at eye level next to the oven.”

  My mouth snaps shut.

  “You think Preacher Leonard’s calling down fire and brimstone now.” He shrugs as he opens the door and starts to step out. “That dude’s going to call down the fucking Rapture if he catches you messing around with his daughter, I hope you know that.”

  “Hey!” I jump out of the truck. “Not what you think.”

  Silas puts his hands in the air as he walks away. “Lying is a sin you know!” he calls back over his shoulder.

  “Asshole.”

  “Love you too, buddy.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Evangeline

  “You’ve never done this before, have you.”

  I stiffen at the sound of his voice, refusing to turn around. “Sure I have,” I say primly, hefting the electric drill in my hands going back to my task of trying to put this stupid bunkbed together.

  Rowan laughs. “See I thought your whole thing was that you hadn’t done a lot of screwing.”

  My face goes hot as I freeze, my hands tightening on the drill.

  “Well, you know, or any as the case may be.”

  I purse my lips as I turn.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “I was about to ask you that.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  I turn back, gritting my teeth and revving the drill.

  “Stop, stop.”

  I sigh heavily and stop the drill as his hands wave in front of my face. I turn again. “What?”

  “You’re stripping the screws.”

  “I am not.”

  He grins. “You are. You’re using the wrong bit, see? Here.” He reaches past me, his arm brushing mine as he grabs the drill case and opens it up.

  “Use this one.”

  He takes the drill from my hand, unclipping the front part and putting the new attachment on. “Try it.”

  I take the drill from his hands and glare at him. “Are you going to watch?”

  “Gotta make sure you’re screwing the right way, don’t I?”

  I roll my eyes, willing the heat from my face.

  “Oh, hey, I brought a peace offering.”

  “A peace offering?”

  “It’s even religious, you’ll love it.” He holds up a brown paper bag and shakes it. “Here.”

  I put the drill down and take it from him. “Thanks?” My brow furrows as I open it up. “Donuts?” I glance up at him. “How are donuts religious?”

  “Because they’re hole-y.”

  I groan as he laughs. “That’s awful.”

  “That is comedy.”

  “So what’s the peace offering for?”

  “For the other night. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Which part.”

  I snap my lips shut but the words are already out there, and I glance up to see him grinning with a brow raised.

  “Forget I said that.”

  He shrugs. “Well for what it’s worth, I meant I was sorry for giving you a hard time and making you uncomfortable.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  “I’m not actually all that sorry about the other part.”

  I blink quickly. “What other part.”

  “The part where I kissed you.”

  I shiver at the memory, heat blooming up inside.

  “Well, you should be,” I say with snap.

  “Maybe, but I’m not and you know what?” He leans in, getting close.

  I swallow quickly.

  “I don’t think you’re all that sorry either.”

  His lips brush my ear as he moves away, and I can barely breathe with my heart this high in my chest.

  “So, when’s the next lesson?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Nope, no way. No more lessons.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, no, that was…” I shake my head. “That was a bad idea.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  His eyes trace over mine, and I’m lost in them for a second before I somehow find myself and drag what’s left of my ability to think out of that gaze.

  “I have to get back to- to…”

  I’m losing my words. I blink again, looking away and taking a deep breath.

  “I need to get back to-”

  “Screwing?”

  I suck my bottom lip between my teeth as he grins.

  “Well, you know where to find me.”

  “I don’t want to find you.”

  “Just saying, if you do.”

  “That won’t be happening.”

  His eyes glint at me as he smiles. “If you say so.”

  “I do!”

  “Whatever you say.”

  He turns and starts to walk away.

  “Stop doing that!”

  “What?”

  “Trying to get the last word. We’re done here.”

  “You got it.”

  I glare at him, and he just chuckles and starts to walk away.

  “I won’t be looking for you!” I call after him.

  “If you say so!” he calls back over his shoulder before he rounds the corner and disappears.

  “I do,” I say lamely to no one.<
br />
  My heart’s still pounding as I sit there, glaring at the donuts and the drill.

  “Gotta make sure you’re screwing the right way.”

  My skin tingles at the memory of that second kiss. That illicit, forbidden kiss in the freaking hallway of his parents’ house while both our families sat in the next room. Or the way his fingers teased my knee under the table.

  Or the way I haven’t stopped thinking about either of those things since then.

  Or worse?

  How I don’t want to stop at just kissing him twice.

  Because the devil is at the gates.

  And I’m about to let him inside.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Evangeline

  Give us this day our daily bread.

  Gravel crunches under my feet as I walk up the sidewalk. It’s dark out, and drizzling — the moon low, the clouds growing thicker across the stars, and the town of Shelter Harbor growing dimmer down below by the water as doors close and neon signs turn off.

  Forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.

  My heart beats like a drum inside my chest, and my hands clench into fists over and over by my sides until my wrists hurt.

  I don’t know why I’m here.

  Well, I do, but I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what devil or sin or wickedness possesses me that I’d come here at this hour.

  And lead us not into temptation.

  Temptation.

  I swallow as I look up at the glowing sign to O’Donnell’s.

  The lights are low inside, and I watch as the door opens. A man stumbles out, and I catch the quickest glimpse of him shutting the door after the drunk patron.

  The neon sign turns off.

  Lead us not into temptation.

  The only leading here though is my feet, taking me one foot in front of the other across the rain-slicked street.

  I stop outside the door, closing my eyes and trying one last time to tell myself to go home, or go back to the Congregationalist church where my parents and Chastity are having an impromptu Grace Church of Salvation and Divine Retribution service for anyone who could possibly know what that is in coastal Massachusetts.

  The point is though, there are a hundred very very good reasons for me not to be here — a hundred reasons why I should turn and run right now.

  Except I don’t. I put my hand on the doorknob and turn it instead.