by Aubrey Irons
“Like I said, just here for some barbecue, Row,” she laughs, patting my shoulder as she moves past me.
“In a church, huh?” She laughs, lingering in front of Eva before shaking her head and making a clicking sound with her tongue as she brushes past her towards the party.
Eva’s face drops to her hands, but I quickly, pull her out of sight behind the corner of the church. I cup her jaw in my hands and raise her eyes to mine.
“You okay?”
Her eyes dart side-to-side, her head shaking. “I- I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I say quietly. “If it helps, she’s not actually going to say anything. The threatening is just the sort of evil person she is.”
Eva nods, glancing up at me. “Who is she?”
“No one.” I shake my head, my eyes locked on hers. “She’s just….” I sigh. “She’s my Milton.”
Eva smiles wryly. “She’s who you’re supposed to be with.”
“I have no interest in being with someone just because everyone thinks I should be with them.”
“Same,” she whispers.
I pull her tight, and though she resists at first, she finally sinks into me, her cheek coming to my chest. And then the thought just sort of comes to me, and the words are blurting out before I can even really think about what they mean.
“Let’s go do something.”
The fuck am I saying?
“Something?”
“Yeah, like, go out and do something. You and me.”
She blushes. “Like a date?”
No.
“Yes.”
Stupid. You’re being stupid.
“We could go to another town,” I say as if appeasing my own thoughts.
She holds my eye. “I’ve never been on a date.”
“Well, you mean besides your evening of magic the other night with Milton?”
She sticks her tongue out as she punches my arm. “I am not counting that.”
“So is that a yes?”
“I…” she glances back at the party around the corner, her teeth raking over her lip.
“Say yes,” I murmur into her ear. “Don’t analyze it, don’t second guess yourself, just say-”
“Yes,” she finishes for me, glancing back at me with something sparkling in her eyes as she nods.
“Yes.”
Chapter Forty
Rowan
I’m in trouble.
The bike rumbles as I take us out of Shelter Harbor and onto the winding shore road. Eva’s sitting behind me with her hands around my waist, I’ve got the sun turning the sky crimson in front of us as we head for the breakers, and I’ve just come off of the single greatest date of my life.
And that’s why I’m in trouble.
Because it’s clear to me beyond any shadow of doubt now that what’s happening between us is much more than just “teaching her”. This is more than making her dirty, making her scream, and making her come.
This is much more than that now, and it’s frankly scaring the shit out of me.
Because I am into this girl. Hard. And that’s dangerous.
Besides that, what the fuck is the end game here? What do I get for taking Eva Ellis on dates, and driving her out to my favorite solo spots to watch fucking sunsets when in the end, she’s going to leave? In the end she’s going to be someone else’s, and this whole arrangement we’ve had turns to dust.
Best case scenario? She ends up hating me. That’s the best case. The good scenario here is her hating me for leading her astray, for turning her from her parents’ wishes and her faith and her innocence. Hating me for taking that pureness.
The worst case is worse though. Because the worst case is I break her heart.
I pull off the shore road and head down to the dunes by the breakers — the long stretch of rocky shore that stretches out into the ocean by the end of town and protects the harbor.
The air is briny out here — smelling like ocean and sand. Silas and I used to come out here and smoke cigarettes. There’s a familiarity to this place, but not with her.
She’s something new.
And I like it.
I turn off the bike and kick down the stand. This is where I took her before, actually. This is where I denied her.
…There’s no way I can imagine denying her anything now.
I grab the same blanket from the side bag, and we head down to the sand.
“Brrr,” she shivers, hooking her arm through mine.
I grin. “Brrr?”
“Hey, I’m a Southern girl, remember? This is cold.”
“Better stay close then,” I murmur as we come to a stop between two dunes, looking out at the ocean side of the breakers. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close, running my hands up and down her arms to warm her.
“I know what you’re doing.”
I grin at her. “Oh?”
“Oh yeah. You’ve turned me on to your little tricks now.”
I laugh. “So what am I doing?”
“You’re trying to seduce me.”
She turns in my arms and our eyes lock. “Maybe.”
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe yes or maybe no?”
“Depends. How am I doing on that front?”
And suddenly, she’s reaching up, pulling me down, and kissing me. She moans into my lips as I pull her tight, my hands cupping her face and the small of her back as I take that kiss and make it mine.
“I’ll take that as a ‘well’,” I murmur.
“Oh that’s definitely a ‘well’,” she moans.
She slides into my arms as I bring us down to the blanket.
She’s wearing the white sundress — the one she wore that first day I laid eyes on her. And I like that she wore that tonight. I like that she chose that one, not just knowing that I’d like it, but knowing the gravity it’d bring to this night and wearing it anyways.
I like that, and I show her how much I like it by crushing my mouth to her lips and claiming that mouth as my own. She opens her lips for me, her tongue finding mine, her moan drowning in my breath as I lay us back on the blanket.
I’m going to take my time with her.
I’m going to have her squirming, writhing, begging me for release before I’m done with her.
I tease one shoulder strap off, my mouth dropping to her neck as my fingers walk across her skin. She shivers, her fingers sliding into my hair and her eyes closing with that smile on her face.
I brush the strap the rest of the way off, and my lips trail their way down to her shoulders. I tease along the collarbone, leaving goosebumps in their wake. I tease the other strap down, my mouth crossing over the tops of her breast before tasting the other shoulder too. Slowly, I peel the thin fabric of the dress down, teasing it over her nipples as she gasps.
My lips move down over the slope of her breasts, licking, sucking — tasting the sweetness of her skin as they make their way to a rosy, erect nipple. My lips fasten over it, my tongue darts out to swirl across it, and Eva cries out, her back arching.
I move to the other, my hands trailing over her sides and sliding that dress lower over her skin. I let my lips and my tongue tease across her breasts until she’s gasping, and that’s when I trail lower. I tease down, kissing one rib at a time, moving towards the middle, kissing my way down her belly, over her navel, and down lower as I push the dress to her hips. She raises them, panting, and lets me pull the dress over her ass. Her legs scissor and kick, pushing it to her feet and kicking it off as I groan and move to the waist of her white panties.
I stop for a single second and just stare at her, stretched out like that on the blanket — her skin like porcelain, her nipples pink and begging for more attention, the softness of her belly caving as she sucks in her breath.
I move my lips to the waist of her panties and breathe across her skin.
She shivers.
I skim my fingers up her thighs, making her gasp as I bite the edge of those panties. Slowly,
my eyes locked with hers, I pull them down, peeling them lower over her skin until I can smell the sweet, heavenly scent of her.
I groan, my cock throbbing rock hard as I skim those panties down her legs and feast my eyes on her.
All of her.
She cries out as I move in, my mouth leaving soft reminders up her thigh until I barely skim over her pussy, letting the heat of my breath make her shiver for me.
“God,” she breathes, her hips arching vainly for my mouth — a gesture that makes me grin as much as it makes my cock almost painfully hard.
My hands spread her legs wide, I move in, and she goes to putty under me.
Eva cries out as my tongue slides through her folds — pushing deep to tease against her entrance before dragging up through her lips to her clit. I suck it gently between my lips and swirl my tongue over her tender bud, loving the way she cries out and bucks against me.
I bring a finger to her entrance, teasing her as I lick her clit before I slip it inside and curl it forward. She moans, her hands sliding into my hair and her hips rising to meet me.
I groan as I taste her sweet honey, lapping at her hungrily — feeling the way her body coils and gets tighter and tighter as her moans get higher and higher. Her back arches, her breasts raised to the sky as she throws her head back and sucks in a gasp of air. I swirl my tongue over her clit, and she erupts under me.
Eva screams out her climax, her fingers tightly gripping my hair as her legs clamp around my head. I moan as I drink her in, my tongue moving over her through her climax until she’s gasping and pushing my head away.
I give her a single second to catch a breath before I’m moving up her body.
Her legs spread for me, her hands slide to my jaw, pulling me into her lips — tasting herself on my lips but only kissing me harder for it. I kick my jeans off as I move between her legs, and I’m reaching for them before suddenly I groan.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m an idiot,” I swear under my breath. “I forgot to bring one.”
She looks up at me, those big blue eyes shining as she runs her fingertips over my lips. “Do we need one?”
I smile. “There’s always pull and pray.”
Eva grins. “I’ve been known to be a pretty good prayer.”
I meet her eye as I ease against her, letting her feel the heat of my cock as I slip it against her lips. She moans, her eyes closing as she bites her lip and rocks her hips against mine. “Yeah, no, we don’t need one,” she gasps.
I growl and move between her legs, my abs clenching as I slowly rock my hips forward, slipping the head just inside. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” she says quietly, eyes shining as she nods at me. “I want to feel you inside of me.”
I sink in another inch, the impossibly tight heat of her gripping me and sucking me in. Eva moans as I ease forward, sliding my cock deep until every single inch of me is sheathed inside of her sweet pussy.
“Just like that,” she whispers, her eyes close and her brow furrows as she cups my face. She opens her eyes, moaning as she looks up at me and nods.
Slowly, I ease out, before driving back in to the hilt. I groan, dropping my mouth to her neck, feeling her pulse racing under my lips as she rolls her hips to meet mine. I slide out and then rock back in, loving the way she gasps and the way her hands slide up into my hair — the way one of her legs swings over me to trap me there inside of her.
We start to move like that, sprawled across that blanket with the ocean crashing on the shore behind us as I drive into her again and again. She moans into my lips, her tongue battling mine as we start to move like one, rocking in the same tempo as the waves. We build slowly, memorizing skin, memorizing breaths, memorizing the way we move together until there’s no stopping it. I grind into her, filling her to the hilt with every slow, even stroke until her sweet moans are the only sounds I ever want to hear again.
Eva cries out when she comes, her nails leaving scratches down my back and her thighs going tight on my hips as her whole body arches to meet me. Her mouth opens in a silent scream, her eyes shooting open and looking towards the sky as the pure bliss rolls across her face.
And it’s more than I can stand.
I rock into her sweet, honeyed heat once more before I pull out. I roar as I stroke myself through the orgasm, groaning as the cum streaks across her belly before rolling onto my side and gasping for air. We’re silent, panting and grinning as I reach down and pull the blanket up over us, scooping her into the crook of my arm as her head goes to my chest.
We lay there, my lips against the top of her head and just wanting nothing else but to stay there in that moment with the beat of her heart against my skin.
And yeah, I’m in trouble.
But ask me if I care.
Chapter Forty-One
Evangeline
I’m glowing.
There’s a fire inside of me, something that burns fiercer than anything I’ve ever felt and something that makes me feel more alive than I’ve felt in my entire life.
I can feel the buzzing of my own heart, the shivers on my skin as the bike roars back through Shelter Harbor. There are a million thoughts racing through my head, and I might not be sure what to think, but I do know one thing.
This feels real.
This feels more real than anything I’ve ever felt.
This feels holy — spiritual, divine light. This is stirring something big inside of me.
And I don’t know what happens next.
Well, next is going back home — out of this light and back into the shadows. Back to my parents, and back to the being “engaged” to a man I don’t even know.
I squeeze my arms around Rowan tighter, shaking my head, smiling, and letting the wind catch my hair as we drive through the night.
And I decide that none of the rest of that matters right now. None of it can break the perfect of this night and the sweet escape of this man.
The lingers of his kiss are still tingling on my lips as he drives away into the night. I stand there outside the house for a good minute or two, just smiling like a complete dork and letting my fingertips trace the ghost of his kiss on my mouth, before I turn to head inside.
The house is dark. I let the kitchen door shut quietly behind me, and I’m turning for the staircase when the lights flick on.
“You!”
I gasp, jumping back at the zealous ferocity in my father’s face as he advances on me.
“Dad, I-”
“I’ve tried, Evangeline!” he snarls, his face red and his eyes blazing something fierce. Behind him, my mother stands quietly, her eyes half downcast as she just shakes her head.
“I have tried with you, Eva!” he roars. “Lord knows I’ve tried, but you have tested my patience with your un-Godly behavior one time too many!!”
I gasp again as he grabs me by the arm and shoves me against the wall. I flinch as he brings a bible to bear, shoving it into my face.
“You forget yourself, Eva!” He spits. “You forget your place in this household, and you forget yourself in God’s plans for you!!”
I shake his arm off angrily, suddenly no longer scared and more just furious at him for marring this perfect night with his zealotry.
“Dad!”
“NO!” he booms, and instantly, the fight goes out of me as I flinch.
“No, Eva,” he growls. “No more. No more of your wicked and willful insistence on flaunting my rules and flaunting your sinful behavior in front of our Lord.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “You’ve left me no other option, daughter.”
His jaw tightens, and his eyes flare dangerously as he looks down into my eyes. “In three days time, you will no longer be mine to deal with.”
I frown. “What are you saying?”
“Because in three days time, you will be marrying Milton Thomas.”
My heart drops out of my chest.
“What?”
“You’ve left me no othe
r option,” he snarls, shaking his head.
“Dad! You can’t just-”
“Point my wayward daughter back into the direction of God’s holy love and light?!” he roars. “You are GODDAMN RIGHT I can!”
I gasp at the fierceness in his words, and my eyes dart over his shoulder to my mother, but she only shakes her head and looks at the floor. “Listen to your father, Eva.”
The room goes cold.
Numbness.
The heart’s refusal to accept what the mind is hearing.
My father’s face softens slightly as he presses the Bible into my hands.
“I will pray for you, Evangeline,” he says quietly. “But test me not. God help me, in three days time, you will be marrying Milton, and we’ll forget this whole visit to this obscene, wicked little town ever happened.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Rowan
“Attention, attention!”
My mother beams across the function space in the basement of Dad's church, clinking her wine glass with a spoon.
“Quiet, if you could, everyone!” She grins and looks at clusters of round tables around the room before she lands on the one Ivy and Silas, Kyle and Vivian, Sierra, my other sister Stella and my nephew Carter, and myself are sitting around.
“Hammonds, I’m looking at you.”
The crowd laughs as a chuckle erupts from our table of siblings and significant others.
My mom turns back to the rest of the room. “My husband and I just want to thank you all for being here. For dedicating your time, your efforts, your hearts, and in some cases your baked goods,” she winks at Mrs. Wilshire as another laugh ripples through the room.
“But honestly, we couldn’t have even begun this project without all of your help, and for that, we sincerely thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
That's why we’re all here, at this dinner here at the church — a sort of congratulations now that final permits have been signed and final fundraising for the remainder of the construction has been secured.
Mom turns to the other table towards the front of the room. “And to Pastor Ellis and his family, we want to thank you so much for coming up here and lending your support. Thank you, Leonard.”
