Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)

by Aubrey Irons

  I can only whimper and moan in response as the roaring fire inside of me threatens to explode like a bomb at the slightest touch.

  “You’re going to come for me.”

  I moan loudly, the fire inside mounting and mounting until I’m sure it’ll consume.

  “You’re going to come on my cock, and you’re going to come now.”

  The bomb goes off.

  I scream my release out loud, not giving a single shit if I have neighbors who can hear me. The orgasm explodes through my body like hot flames, engulfing me, shattering me, and sending me reeling. Landon roars as he follows me over that edge, his cock lodging deep inside as he erupts.

  I’m dimly aware of him withdrawing, of him pulling me into his arms and pulling me against him as we sink into the cushions. He’s stroking my arm and kissing my face as he pulls the blindfold away.

  Our eyes lock, and the realization is instant.

  I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s like we’ve pushed past some sort of boundary-line or crossed a border that I never knew about.

  I lean into him, kissing his lips as my heartbeat starts to move back to something resembling normal.

  I decide not to think about what that look I can’t describe means.

  At least for now.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Landon

  Something happened last night.

  I grip the steering wheel, sipping my coffee with the other as I drive through mid-afternoon traffic to pick Emily up from her sleepover.

  Yeah, something happened last night, and I mean besides the mind-blowing, hottest, wildest sex I’ve ever had.

  Something after.

  Or maybe it was during, I’m not sure. All I know is, I pulled that blindfold away from her face, and we looked at each other as new people. That tie came away, I met those eyes, and there was something there I’d never seen before.

  Truth be told, it scared the hell out of me.

  Serena felt it too, and saw the same thing, I can tell. Except we both pushed it away. In the afterglow of sex that fucking good, we tucked it away, choosing instead to hold each other on that couch until her breathing started to get regular.

  That was my cue to leave. Crazy good sex or not, and despite the fact that Emily was at her friend’s house, of all nights, this was not the one to actually fall asleep together.

  Not after that look.

  The look I haven’t seen, or felt in a long goddamn time. The look that rips at something inside of you, and builds you up, makes you feel like you can walk on air. The kind of look that makes you invincible.

  I’ve never expected to find that look or that feeling again, and I damn sure never expected to find it in Serena Roth.

  And yet here I am, twelve hours later and it’s all I can think about. She’s all I can think about.

  I’m not sure what to make of that.

  I’m not sure what to make of the fact that calling her was the first thing I did when I got home last night. I’m not sure what to make of almost falling asleep with her doing the same on the other end of the line. The sleepy laugh, the pretending that a call like that, after what’d just happened, had anything at all to do with work.

  I’m not sure what to make of the fact that she was the first voice I wanted to hear when I woke up this morning, or that we’re meeting up later so she can come with Emily and I to the fair we’ve been planning to go to.

  Forget “no repeats”, I’m way past that. This is new ground, and I’ve got no idea what the move is here.

  A call coming through the Bluetooth of my car shakes it from me. I glance at the dash screen and frown.

  It’s Kyle, my investigative guy - the investigative guy I’m paying to dig into Serena’s life.

  I instantly feel like an asshole.

  “Hey, what’s going-”

  “I found something.”

  He sounds out of breath, and my brow furrows. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s…” he sighs. “This is big, man. You need to hear this.”

  I frown again as I pull into the Marshalls’ driveway “Can I call you later? I’m actually just picking Emily up from a friend-”

  “He’s her father, Landon.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Her father - he’s her father,” Kyle’s says, his voice shaded in urgency.

  “Kyle, slow down, who’s-”

  “Landon, listen to me.”

  I freeze, a chill suddenly creeping through me.

  “Samuel Horn is Serena Roth’s father.”

  Oh shit.

  Chapter Thirty

  Landon

  My eyes flit across the computer screen. I blink, again, trying to process all the information Kyle’s just emailed over.

  This is huge. This is enormous. This is so big, it’s going to crush her.

  It’s going to be a huge fucking deal for the board, too. I’m looking at his mountain of dirty laundry, and I know exactly how this goes. Any of those guys on the board who’re worried about the team right now?

  Yeah, wait until they find out the mysterious woman Sam Horn deeded it to along with me is his abandoned daughter from an affair with well-loved Hall of Fame defensive coach. Wait until they put two and two together that he’s giving it to her out of some sort of late life and lately discovered guilt complex. It’ll destroy any shred of confidence we’ve spent the last few weeks building up with all the work we’ve done.

  Kyle’s done a damn good job, and the grizzly details of the whole thing are spilled out like bloodlines in front of me. Sam always was a womanizer and a cad, and always did have a certain way with women - usually much younger women. But this is a little beyond even the norm.

  Sam Horn is Serena Roth’s father.

  It’s the only possible reason for Serena’s mysterious attachment to this team and Sam’s will. I’m almost amazed I never saw it before now, when it’s so damn obvious. Maybe because I was too busy kissing her. Maybe because I was too busy feeling her body shatter and shiver for me. Maybe because I was too busy breaking every single goddamn rule I had to see how clear the answer was, right in front of my damn face.

  Glancing over the old files and the reports Kyle and Silas have put together, I can trace the whole thing back through the years of hidden drama. It looks like Sam probably linked up with Serena’s mother Celia back when Billy Roth was just starting to make his mark with the Bulls down in Houston. They probably met at some bullshit league conference or something, but however it is fate got them together, there was an affair. Knowing Sam, I doubt it lasted longer than a week.

  Long story short, Celia got knocked up, pretended it was her husband’s, and went ahead and had the baby. And for his entire life, Billy Roth thought Serena was his biological daughter.

  Jesus.

  But there’s damning evidence here that I’m sure Sam paid well to bury. Kyle and Silas are just that good, though. The paternity test I’m sure Celia demanded. The monthly transfers to a hidden account opened in her name. The single letter - handwritten - where she tells Sam the baby’s name, demands a monthly fee to keep quiet, and tells him she never wants her daughter to know who he is.

  I blow air through my lips as I drop my head into my hands.

  Fucking hell.

  I don’t know what the hell I was expecting to find looking into the past like this, but this is way bigger than anything I could have imagined.

  This is more than I ever wanted to know, and it sours inside of me as I sit in the silence of my home office.

  Sam Horn, the man who took me in and was more of a father to me than my real one? Well, turns out he was exactly like my actual father, who left his wife and his only kid to go off and do his own shit. The man I looked up to, and the man I modeled my adult life after was every bit the abandoning prick I never wanted to be, or be around.

  “Are you ready yet?”

  I glance up at Emily, sticking her freckle-faced head into my office.

  Scratch that.
Not Emily - Lady Emily. Lady Emily, master swordsman and dragon-hunter with whom I’ve spent the better part of this week after work helping to turn plywood and silver paint into a shield and a sword. Because that fair Serena’s coming along with us to today? Yeah, it’s a renaissance fair.

  Find a time machine and go back to tell twenty-one year old, cockier than all hell, super-jock me that in ten years I’ll be going to freaking renaissance fairs and see how hard I laugh.

  I frown as I close the laptop and stand. “Yeah, are you?”

  “Duh?”

  Emily hefts her wooden sword, and I grin. “Hey, I got a surprise for you, by the way?”

  “What?”

  “Guess who’s coming with us.”

  Her brow furrows for a split second before her eyes suddenly fly open. “Serena?! Are you serious?”

  “Totally serious. We’re picking her up, so go throw your shoes on.”

  Emily whoops as she races back through the house, and I smile as I listen to her until my face falls again.

  Serena.

  I need to tell her about the shit I’ve just had dug up. I don’t know how, and I can’t even begin to image the ways it’s going to destroy her, but I need to. She deserves to know.

  I think.

  I grab my jacket before heading out to the car and hoisting Emily into the back seat.

  Does she deserve to know? Because knowing is going to come with a whole heaping dose of pain, betrayal, and heartbreak, and I’m just not sure I can sentence her to that.

  “See? I told you that you should have dressed up.”

  “What? Hey, I dressed up!”

  Emily gives me a look. “Daaaad. I mean like them.”

  She points at the flocks of actually dressed-up renaissance fair-goers - jesters juggling fire, knights in legit suits of armor, serving wenches in bustiers with their tits practically falling out as they sling pints of beer.

  I’m in black jeans and a hoodie.

  “You really should have dressed up,” Serena grins, needling me.

  “For the record, I’m dressed as the famous knight Sir Weekend.”

  Serena snorts and Emily sighs.

  “Serena didn’t dress up either, and you’re not giving her a hard time.”

  “Hey, I didn’t know it was an awesome renaissance fair until the Lady Emily and Sir Weekend picked me up, or I would have ditched the shorts and t-shirt for my royal robes.”

  “Yeah, Dad. She has an excuse.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Oh, you could wear that!” Emily tugs on Serena’s arm and points to a stall selling flower garland festooned silver crowns.

  “I’m totally wearing that.”

  Emily giggles as she and Serena wander off to the stall and start trying on flower-adorned princess crowns.

  Fuck. How the hell am I going to go up to a woman that’s smiling like that, who’s having a perfectly great Saturday afternoon, and shatter her world. How the hell am I going to tell her that everything she knows is a lie, and that her real father is an asshole, abandoning philanderer currently lying in a coma.

  She looks over and catches my eye, doing a little curtsy with the garland of silver and white flowers perched on her head. I grin, nodding and giving a thumbs up from where I’m standing. She beams, her eyes lingering on me for another second before she turns back to help Emily with a crown of her own.

  Goddamn she’s beautiful. And I mean that beyond the obvious physical. Beyond the sable hair that falls like a ribbon across her shoulders, beyond the wide, gorgeous smile that lights up her whole face. Besides the soft curve of her neck, the sparkling emerald in her eyes, or the way every inch of her body makes me crave her like nothing I’ve ever felt, she’s just beautiful.

  She’s beautiful in the way she interacts with the world, or the way she stands her ground.

  She’s beautiful in a way that slays me, and in a way that has me questioning every absolute and every fucking rule I’ve lived by for the last six years.

  I watch as she scoops my daughter up, laughing as she sets her on a stool so she can see into the mirror. Emily beams at the dais on her head, bouncing up and down and giggling at something Serena says to her.

  And I’m smiling. I’m smiling like I haven’t in years, because this feels like...I don’t know.

  It feels like family.

  There was a time where I’d have felt guilt about thinking something like that. There was a time when looking at another woman sent a pang of something like betrayal slicing through me. But this isn’t like any of the other women I saw over the years and tried to bury my loss in. In fact, there’s nothing about Serena that’s like the others, and somehow, I know without a doubt that Sarah would approve.

  Somewhere, she’s laughing and pointing a finger at me and saying something like “about fucking time.”

  Mourning her for the rest of my life is the very last thing Sarah would have wanted, and somewhere, I know she’d be happy for me.

  For us.

  “Where’s Serena?”

  It’s later, and we’re back at our house after the fair.

  All three of us.

  Me, wrapping up some stuff on my laptop in the living room, Emily getting ready for bed, and Serena using my shower to get the smashed blackberry pie off of her face, neck, hands, and arms.

  Casualties of the “ye olde pie-eating contest” she and Emily insisted on participating in.

  I’ve given up even trying to rationalize any of this anymore. I’m not just ignoring the warning bells about bringing a woman into my home and into my daughter’s life, I’ve flat out turned them off.

  I think I’m pretty okay with that decision.

  I glance up from my laptop at Emily, standing in her PJs in the living room doorway.

  “She’s taking a shower. Apparently she didn’t want to go to bed smelling like blackberries. Crazy, huh?”

  Emily rolls her eyes and grins impishly at me. “I told her it’d be delicious if she did.”

  I chuckle. “Yeah I bet it would. But a pain in the butt for the poor dad who has to wash your sheets and pillowcase though.”

  Emily giggles.

  “Will you tell her I said goodnight?”

  “Definitely. Do I get a goodnight too?”

  She smiles as she comes over and gives me a hug. “Night, Dad.”

  “Night, kiddo. Want me to tuck you in?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  A wry grin crosses my face. Shit, she’s growing up.

  “You sure?”

  She nods, as she turns and heads out of the room, and I glance back at my laptop.

  “Are you and Serena in love?”

  My head jerks back up to see Emily still standing there in the doorway, and my heart does a flip at the question before I start to chuckle.

  Her brow wrinkles. “I’m not joking, Dad.”

  I wipe the smile from my face, clearing my throat seriously. “Right, right, no of course. I know you’re not.”

  “Well? Are you?”

  I nod pensively before answering. “We’re really good friends and I like her a lot. Is that what you mean?”

  “I guess. Is liking someone a lot the same thing as loving them?”

  I close the laptop and push it aside. “Man, that’s a tough question. Sometimes, I guess? What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. But I like her a lot too.”

  “I know you do, kiddo.”

  She smiles at me before she turns and heads for the stairs again. “Goodnight, Dad.”

  “Night, Lady Emily.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Serena

  “Did I miss her?”

  Landon glances up and cracks a grin.

  “Nice outfit.”

  “Hey, it’s your robe, don’t knock it too hard.”

  His robe that I’m swimming in. The ensemble is topped off with the big fluffy towel my hair is wrapped up in, perched like a turban on my head. Landon’s sitting on the couch i
n sweats and an undershirt that on him somehow look criminally good instead of couch-potato-ish.

  “You did miss her, she went out like a light.”

  “Shoot. I tried to make it a quick shower.”

  “Hope I didn’t use up the hot water on you.”

  I shake my head.

  “She did say to tell you goodnight, and-”

  He stops, his mouth shutting as he shakes his head. “She said goodnight.” His eyes drag over me as a hungry look flits across his face. “I hope that’s all you’re wearing.”

  I wag my brows, doing a little sexy sashay as I step towards him, undo the tie, and dramatically yank open the robe.

  Landon sighs as I snort a laugh, gesturing down at the t-shirt and pair of his boxers I’m wearing. “Need I remind you that you live with an impressionable young girl who does not need me prancing around your house in just bathrobes?”

  He grins as he stands from the couch and moves towards me. “No, you don’t. But aforementioned impressionable offspring is currently way into dreamland.”

  He reaches out and snags the robe, pulling it and me along with it into him. I mold against him, my hands somehow landing on his hard, grooved stomach and slowly sliding over to his hips. He’s warm, and smells like soap and shampoo, his hair still slightly wet from the shower he took right before me. His arms circle around me, pulling me tight against him, molding my body to his.

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t smell like blackberries anymore.”

  I grin widely, before I shake my head. “I should go home,” I whisper, and I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, but the argument is falling very, very flat.

  His hand slips under the robe and around to the small of my back, his touch firm and possessive in a way that has my pulse throbbing and my body arching against his.

  “I want you,” he husks, his eyes flashing. I can feel him start to harden against me under his sweats, and the idea of his cock growing for me like that sends a pulse of heat between my own legs.