Tempted by a Sinner (Seven Sinners Book 4)

by A G Henderson

  The light bulb went off in my head, bright with sudden clarity.

  My promotion made sense, and so did Creed doing the unthinkable: stepping away from conflict.

  He was possessive by nature. The woman he cared about more than anything on the face of this planet was carrying his child and vulnerable. Whether this incursion by the syndicate was meant as an attack or a scouting run didn’t matter.

  Their presence was a threat.

  And if that threat turned towards Caitlin?

  There wouldn’t be enough left of them to send back in pieces.

  Creed finally opened his eyes again, and it was neither monster nor king nor Prez that peered out at me from behind gray eyes burning silver with barely restrained wrath.

  The request in his gaze was from man to man. And I understood better than he might ever know.

  We had never been and would probably never be best buds cracking beers and jokes together, but that didn't matter.

  He was asking me to stand between people who would hurt what was his, even with my hands tied in how I would be able to deal with them.

  And I would do it.

  Because I knew, bone-deep, that if Katherine was still around, and I'd asked the same thing of him, he would've stepped into the line of fire without a second thought.

  So, I met his expectant stare without blinking.

  Without smiling.

  Without doing anything more than giving him a slow, purposeful nod.

  “I'll take care of it.”

  Chapter Four

  Naomi

  I was sticky with dust and sweat, exhausted to the point my arms trembled, and altogether a fairly gross mess.

  But I was happier than I could remember being in a long, long time.

  So long in fact, that I couldn't remember the last time my heart felt so light.

  It's all coming together.

  More boxes of supplies needed to go into the storage room, but they weren't going anywhere for now and the moving truck I was renting didn't need to be back until much later in the day. I had plenty of time to give myself a well-deserved pat on the back.

  So I did.

  I stood right in the middle of my shop. My. Shop. God, I was never going to get tired of that. Then I closed my eyes, reached a hand over my shoulder, and gave myself a nice, long pat on the back.

  It was too early—the sun wasn't even up—and too cold for anyone to be wandering outside. So I didn't worry about being spotted looking like a crazy person.

  But if somebody did walk by and peer through the blinds. Spotting a girl too small to threaten a chihuahua, with dark hair stuck to her face and neck, congratulating herself for opening her very own shop, and decided they wanted to take their business elsewhere?

  Too bad for them.

  They were going to miss out on pure, undiluted awesomeness.

  Sighing happily, I slid my hands into my hoodie pocket and turned a slow circle, taking it in for probably the hundredth time since I'd arrived last week.

  My. Shop.

  The paint drew my eyes first, same as always. Vibrant yellows, reds, and purples exploding from the wall. Slate gray tile covered the entire floor, matching the L-shaped countertop set up along the largest front-facing window and continuing around the far wall of the shop.

  There were enough barstools spread out beneath it to accommodate at least a dozen or so people at a time. I hadn’t been sure about the seating before seeing everything laid out, but it was perfect. There were even a couple of tables and chairs set up outside.

  Turning towards the space where the actual magic would happen, a genuine smile bloomed on my face, so wide it made my cheeks hurt.

  I made sure not to pay too much attention to my shabby appearance reflected in the row of dark monitors mounted high on the walls. Beneath them, set up in neat formations across a glossy walnut counter, were brand new blenders and juicers that had put a sizable hole in the funds I was working with but damn if they hadn’t been so incredibly worth it.

  They were already begging to be used, and I wiggled my toes inside my comfy boots while excitement danced around me in happy circles.

  The two registers were good to go, and although I doubted needing the second one anytime soon—despite Lynn’s offer to come in and help opening day—I was glad to have a backup.

  Technology and I had gone from uneasy friends to something close to enemies.

  I only bothered with owning a smartphone for the gif capability and because it synced with my watch. Still, the stupid thing decided to simply cut off on me more often than not.

  Which was why there were three standing blackboards tucked away in the back with colorful pieces of chalk.

  I planned on using one of them to advertise my go-to drink of the day. But if I somehow killed the monitors, I would have another way to tell people what was on the menu.

  Satisfied I hadn’t overlooked anything so far, I glanced back out the window towards the rolled-up door of the cargo truck. The sigh that left me that time was less happy and more holy hell there are so many boxes still.

  Great. Epic. Fantastic. This was exactly what I got for trying to save money on the last leg.

  “How hard could it be to finish up the last shipment?” my past-self had wondered.

  “Pretty freaking hard,” I muttered aloud, sweeping hair back off my face.

  And now I was talking to myself and stalling. But at least I was by myself. Not a bad silver lining.

  Law wasn’t here to jump down my throat about moving things by myself, making me feel like a child that couldn’t get from point A to point B without breaking myself or something else.

  Dad wasn’t here to pepper my skin with the buckshot of his suggestions about where something should go, or how he would’ve set it up, or the quiet disapproval he could never mask when I did any type of physical labor.

  I could almost hear him ranting about how Mom had never had to work another day in her life after they’d gotten married. A conversation that would eventually lead to me pointing out that I didn’t want to be kept. Followed by him getting red in the face and stalking off to some other part of the house for a while.

  I had nothing against the way their relationship had functioned. In fact, I thought the lengths he went to in order to make sure she was pampered and taken care of, especially near the end, were incredibly sweet.

  But I wasn’t Mom.

  Just because I shared her frail build and the disease that had taken her from us much, much too soon, didn’t mean I wanted to be coddled and smothered.

  So what if I had what felt like a pharmacy’s worth of prescriptions in my backpack?

  So what if I had to carefully watch what I ate, and wear a watch that constantly monitored my blood sugar levels?

  Big deal. I was working with a handicap, not a death sentence. What happened to Mom was a stroke of incredibly bad luck.

  And the tiny, sensible, fearful voice in the back of my mind whispering about the risks of being in a new town by myself could shut its freaking pie hole.

  I was doing exactly what I wanted.

  Sweating.

  Breathing.

  Living.

  Hell would freeze over before I crawled back to Raleigh and got placed back in my stifling bubble.

  A sound I’d come to be very familiar with pulled me back down to earth. The distinct rumble of motorcycles coming down the main street was impossible to miss, and I got closer to the window so I could peer out through the blinds.

  Was I being nosey? Absolutely. But as two headlights swung into view, illuminating the yellow dividers, I didn’t look away.

  I’d dated a bad boy during one of my more rebellious periods. Back when I was young and naive enough to think there was something attractive about danger.

  It had only taken a few months of being pawed at and called pet names and getting slapped on the ass for me to come to my senses. I didn’t consider myself a prude, wary of a bit of rough play.

  Bu
t I wanted to be more than a possession.

  More than a trophy to be taken down and admired for brief periods and then put back up until the next go-round or until something shinier came along.

  Eventually—when I wasn’t working on getting a business off the ground—I wanted someone to look at me and see someone special.

  Precious.

  Irreplaceable.

  I wanted someone who cared enough about me to be my partner and cheerleader and not just my man.

  I wanted my very own mythical creature who would support the dreams I hung onto to keep myself aloft when my body was hurting and so, so very tired, instead of trying to shoot them down in the name of protecting me.

  In other words, I wanted the impossible.

  So until I found a magical artifact capable of turning imagination into reality, the eye candy I had to work with would have to do.

  Hey, I never said I was a nun.

  And Lynn hadn't lied when she said the town was practically crawling with men who were stupidly good looking.

  The bikes slowed once they got closer before pulling into the parking lot. I went still, grateful I hadn't needed any of the overhead lights to work. I'd met the older, hippie couple who drove a minivan and owned the incense shop on my right already.

  If I was about to catch my first glimpse of my neighbors who ran the tattoo studio on my other side, I didn't want to be seen as the creepy, stalker girl who got caught staring out the window like...well, like a creeper.

  Even though that's exactly what I was doing.

  Maybe it was the universe’s way of telling me to mind my own business, because when they slowed to a stop and the rumble I could almost feel against the glass cut off, the two bikers were in the darkest corner of the lot where only a single distant street light could reach.

  One after another, they climbed gracefully from their mounts. In the safety of my thoughts, I chided them on not wearing proper protection.

  Didn’t they know how many vehicular related accidents claimed the lives of motorcycle riders who didn’t wear helmets each year?

  Or maybe I was the only one who frequently wound up bored enough to search for those statistics when I’d never been on a bike in my life.

  Focus on that depressing fact later, I told myself. Eyes on the prize. Candy. Man-meat?

  Ugh, I’d been spending too much time with Lynn.

  I was also going through the longest dry spell of my life. A piece of information I wish I hadn’t shared with my best friend. She didn’t know how to let things go.

  It was her fault the vibrator in my bedside drawer was seeing more action than it had in years.

  There was a tiny spark in the darkness before a lighter flared to life, briefly revealing an angular face and dark hair before it disappeared, leaving only a tiny dot of orange to hover and glow. The leather jacket and black jeans they both wore didn’t come as a surprise. That was pretty much the norm around here.

  What did surprise me was how my eyes stuck to the second biker when he started to move.

  His finer features were hidden from me, but I only needed so much light to be able to tell he was tall. Except that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the...draw for lack of a better term.

  I frowned, trying to figure out why I couldn’t look away.

  Why I spread the blinds just a little bit wider to try and get a better look.

  Why my eyes tracked his progress like he was water sliding down the side of a glass while I was dying of thirst.

  Yep, definitely the dry spell talking.

  Then the smoking biker tripped over something I couldn’t see and nearly ate pavement, while the living shadow simply stepped over the object unperturbed.

  Purpose.

  I rolled the word from side to side, inspecting it for flaws in my mind’s eye and finding none.

  He moved with the kind of precise determination that said him making it to his destination was a foregone conclusion.

  Each controlled step confirmed that it was only a matter of time before he got where he was going.

  And his long stride said, get in my way at your own peril.

  Then they reached the door to the tattoo studio and strode inside, leaving me with the uncomfortable awareness that I had part of my face pressed against the blinds to track their progress.

  Thank God no one saw that, I thought, leaning back from my perch and rubbing the indentations on my cheek.

  With my mystery neighbors out of sight, I shook myself from my daze and groaned. Just what I needed. A tall, attention-grabbing distraction right next door. I briefly crossed my fingers in the hopes that when I finally saw the face attached to the silhouette, he would be hideously ugly.

  Temptation was seriously the last thing I needed right now.

  Even though I knew that when day eventually lapsed into night and I grabbed my second best friend from the bedside drawer and pressed it between my legs, it would be his walk I pictured striding across the bedroom towards me.

  His shadow I imagined hovering right over the bed before descending on me with that same determination.

  My neck felt flushed and it had nothing to do with my earlier activity.

  Although it did remind me of another issue.

  The last few boxes.

  The ones that were still outside, in the truck.

  The ones I was going to have to retrieve while looking like I’d just rolled out of bed this morning and came straight here.

  Though to be fair, that’s exactly what I’d done.

  Not the point.

  The point was I probably looked like a strung-out, malnourished rat that had been caught in the rain.

  I’d made worse first impressions in my life. Like the time I snuck out of the house to go on a blind date and Law had tracked me down and dragged me literally kicking and screaming from the restaurant. But that was then, and this was now.

  The success of my future might very well rely on me continuing to make a good impression on the close-knit community I’d stepped into.

  A future currently at risk because my laziness had seen me leaving the house in comfy, wool leggings, beat-up, fur-lined boots, and a hoodie with the kind of pocket room I dreamed about when I was wearing jeans.

  Absently running the pad of my finger over the nail I’d broken earlier, I set about deciding on my plan of attack.

  There were only three boxes. If I put my big girl pants back on, I was sure I could carry them all at once, which would reduce the chance of one of them catching me outside.

  Once the boxes were in the door and I’d locked up, I was home free. I could climb back in the truck and ride into the sunset—err, sunrise—before anyone noticed the difference.

  Another day where I was more presentable, I would deliver a tray of smoothies that would knock their socks off and have them singing my praises to their clients.

  Win. Win.

  Channeling the stealth that let me creep around the house past Dad and Law without making a floorboard creak, I carefully unlocked the door and stuck my head out. I got a face full of a freezing gust of air, but I blinked against the onslaught and looked both ways.

  No one else was around, and whatever they were doing next door left their shop dark and motionless.

  Here we go.

  I stepped outside and immediately regretted not wrapping my scarf back around my neck and grabbing my hat. Did it ever get this cold back in Raleigh? By the time I took a few short steps to the truck, I was shivering.

  Grabbing the handhold on one side, I climbed in and started towards the back. It only took a minute or two to stack the remaining boxes at the lift-gate where I could get them easily and I congratulated myself on how quick this was going.

  In hindsight, that was basically begging the universe to screw with me.

  But it waited, giving me enough time to get down from the truck and taste the beginnings of victory. Because life was a total and complete jerk.

  So it wasn’t until I was pulling the boxe
s towards me, grunting and mumbling under my breath while my nose started to run from the cold, that disaster finally decided to strike.

  I was just shifting my weight, getting ready to take the entire load into my arms.

  Which was when a shadow to my left spoke.

  Yeah.

  I freaking screamed.

  Chapter Five

  Naomi

  My heart grew giant feet attached to a three-hundred-pound body and tried to dropkick its way out of my ribcage, making my pulse throb in my head and the world lurch as I got lightheaded.

  That was how it felt to suddenly find a six-foot-plus, imposing shape all up in my personal space.

  I lunged backwards, almost knocking the stack of boxes from the truck as my hand went to my chest like I could physically make my heart abort the evacuation cycle it was in the midst of.

  My first coherent thought when no chloroform-soaked gag covered my mouth was, Thank God my brother isn't here to see this.

  He'd sent me to several self-defense courses. Sat in on more than a few of them to make sure I was paying attention and learning.

  Waste of money, Law.

  My fight or flight instincts were stuck in deer-in-the-headlights mode.

  And I apparently had the observation skills of a brick, because the man across from me was leaning against the side of the truck. Hands in his pockets, like he'd been there for a fair amount of time. Watching me without my knowledge.

  Who even did that?

  My outrage was slightly blunted by the whole...pot and kettle situation, but not enough to stop the hateful glare I sent his way.

  “Didn't mean to startle you,” he lied in a voice I could hear laughter in.

  My pulse throbbed again, this time for a completely different reason. As soon as I could get enough air in my lungs again to speak, oh he was going to get it.