Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)

by Aubrey Irons

  I glance over at Eva’s table, trying to stop myself from grinning the second I see her.

  The room applauds their table as her father nods quietly. She quickly — just for a second — turns my way, her eyes lancing into mine.

  And it just slays me. The tight lid I’ve been trying to keep on my own face breaks, and the smile spreads across it.

  Damn, do I feel good. I'm feeling…different, almost. And it's all ‘cause of her.

  Of course it's her.

  I can’t put a label on it, and I can’t put my finger on what it is about the whole thing that’s getting to me like this, but there’s no way I can pretend it's not there anymore.

  At first, it was the filthiness of it. At first it was the hot and wickedly dirty thought of laying my hands on her, and showing her all this for the first time. It was a macho sort of “claim” thing — making her mine.

  But now?

  Now I’m past that. Now I’ve grown up, or something I guess.

  Now it’s the simple fact that I can’t stop thinking of her, or of her smile, or of the way she plays with her hands when she’s nervous.

  Of the way she looks at me.

  Of how damn smart she is, and how good she is.

  She’s too good, for a guy like me. And yet somehow, I’ve got her. For now, I guess.

  She glances at me again, and I grin at her, but her face is white as she quickly turns away. I frown, but I chalk it up to the circumstances. After all, we’re not alone in my apartment this time. Or on the beach, or the confessional booth.

  I grin at that last one.

  I get that her father wouldn’t and doesn't approve of me in any conceivable way, least of all in the way I'd like him to. And I don’t know what that even means for us, or what that means for the expiration date this thing has, but…

  I shake my head and chase the thought away with a sip of my beer.

  I'm not dwelling on that right now. I'm feeling too damn good to go there, and if there's one thing life has taught me it’s this: hang the fuck on to the good parts, for as long as they last.

  The assembled families and volunteers are standing and cheering — applauding the end of my mom’s speech that I’ve missed while staring at Eva. But I stand along with them anyways, raising a toast to my mom and then to my siblings.

  “Irene, if I may?”

  Leonard stands, smiling thinly at the crowd as he takes my mom’s place at the front of the assembled tables. His eyes move over the room, dancing from one face to the other — making the connection — as I know my dad does in his own sermons.

  His eyes land on me, and they narrow.

  I swallow.

  “We have an announcement to make,” he says, beaming at the crowd.

  I turn and glance at Eva, but she’s still staring straight ahead. Still not looking at me, still white, her lips tight.

  “At long last, a day we’d prayed to our Lord and Father for has finally come.”

  Eva looks down, her eyes closed.

  “At long last,” Leonard booms, grinning maniacally. “Our daughter is going into God's good light!”

  Wait, what?

  “Ladies and gentlemen, in three days, our lovely Evangeline is getting married!”

  The bottom drops out.

  The walls come crashing down, and this time, she does turn, and the look on her face shatters something inside of me.

  What the fuck is happening.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Evangeline

  It’s like a weight, dragging me down. The whole rest of dinner, I don’t taste, I don’t eat, I just sit there.

  Chained.

  Trapped.

  Knowing he’s looking and knowing if I look back to see those eyes, I’ll break right here.

  Dinner turns into dessert — courtesy of Mrs. Wilshire’s bakery, and after that, the assembled families and volunteers begin to mingle. People hug me, and congratulate me, but I don't hear them.

  I don’t feel them.

  I don’t feel a thing, actually. I walk through the crowd in a daze until I find myself alone by the stairway that leads up to the main chapel. I glance back, seeing everyone still mulling around with coffee and their own conversations, and without thinking, I start to climb.

  The conversations fall away as I climb the stairs, and by the time I find myself in the darkness of the chapel, it’s quiet.

  I’m alone.

  I step forward, my pulse beating deep and steady until I find myself in front of the pulpit, looking up at the cross up on the wall behind it. I smile and shake my head, thinking of what now seems like ages ago, and how I went to the next town over to “confess my sins”.

  As if what I did was a sin.

  What’s worse now about being chained to this new fate is knowing that what I did — what we did — was no sin.

  Nothing that feels that good, and that real, and that true, could be a sin, I know that now.

  Now that it’s too late.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  I smile sadly before I turn at the sound of Rowan’s voice.

  “We shouldn’t be together.”

  “You mean that like, right now, or in the broader sense.”

  I look down, half-smiling ruefully. “Both.”

  “That you talking or your dad?”

  I glance up, my eyes stinging.

  “Shit, I'm sorry, I- wait, Eva.” He steps forward as my face starts to crumple.

  “Hey, c’mere,” he says quietly, and before I know it, I'm sinking into his arms and burying my face in his chest.

  “I don’t want this,” I whisper.

  “So don’t do it.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t understand, it’s not that easy.”

  “It is that easy,” he growls, his arms tightening around me.

  “I don’t have what you have okay? I don't have this perfect, wonderful, loving family, but the one I do have is all I have.” My voice rises in my chest, tightening. “I can't just run away from that.”

  “So you're going to get married.”

  “I'm- I don't know what I want.”

  “Just that it isn't me.”

  I freeze in his arms, swallowing. “I didn't say that.”

  “Then what, angel.”

  “I don't know, Rowan.”

  “Yes, you do,” he growls into my ear, and I shiver against him.

  And I'm pretty sure he knows what I can't say, even if he makes me want to say it anyways.

  “You remember that book you were reading the night I knocked on your window?”

  I glance up at him. “Abelard and Heloise.”

  He nods. “They weren’t supposed to be together either, because of religion, and family, and the powers that told them they couldn’t? But they were.”

  “Is that what we are?” I say softly. “Are we supposed to be together?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I thought we were just practicing,” I look up at him. “I thought this was all just-”

  “Whatever this was,” he shakes his head. “I know I'm not the only one that knows we left that behind a long time ago.”

  I drop my face into his chest, squeezing my eyes shut.

  “Tell me what you want,” he croons into my ear.

  “I can't,” I whisper.

  “Yes you can, angel. Just tell me what-”

  “I want you,” I husk against his chest.

  He freezes. “Say it again.”

  This time, I look up. This time, I drag my eyes up to meet his as the words tumble from my lips again. “I want you.”

  I whimper as his lips sear to mine, kissing me fiercely, taking my breath away, and taking me away from all of this as I go spinning right into that kiss.

  “C’mon,” he whispers as he pulls away from me and takes my hand.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away from this,” he says, mirroring my thoughts.

  We walk hand in hand up the aisle of the c
hurch, and out the front doors. His fingers lock with mine as we walk up the tree-lined streets, past houses lit for the evening.

  I feel lighter and more alive — more unchained — with every step we take away from the church and my father's announcement in the basement.

  I squeeze Rowan's hand tighter. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We turn a corner, and suddenly, I smile as the unfamiliarity of the streets turns familiar at the sight of his parents’ house. He smiles when he sees the recognition on my face, leading me up the lawn to the house.

  “People will look for us,” I say as he leads me around to the back of the house. A wooden staircase covered in flowered vines zig-zags up to a small landing by the door to the third floor.

  “Let them.”

  He leads me up the staircase, climbing the three flights until we get to the small porch and door. Rowan opens it up and ushers me inside.

  “This was my room,” he says as he flicks on the overhead light. And suddenly, I'm peeking back in time. Suddenly, I'm looking at seventeen-year old Rowan. I glance around at the bare wood rafters draped with Red Sox and Bruins flags, the hockey sticks against one wall, the electric guitar against another. I roll my eyes at the pinup posters of girls in bikinis, the collection of beer-bottles on one shelf like some sort of teenage trophies. A set of stairs leads down to a door, presumably to the rest of the house.

  “You had this all to yourself?”

  He grins. “Well, to myself, the Christmas decorations, and Grandma's old stuff. It is the attic. But yeah, all mine.”

  I glance around the room again before turning back to him, “Why are you showing me this?”

  “’Cause we all come from something, Eva,” he says quietly. “And we all turn into something.” He looks around at the room and shakes his head. “This was me. I was this plucky kid, and I got knocked down a peg or five that night of the crash. Now, I own a dive bar.”

  “Rowan-”

  “No, I'm not-” he shakes his head. “I’m not mad at that. I like that, and I like what I've got and what I've become. But I like me a whole lot more since you.”

  I blush as he turns towards me. “And you,” he takes my hands, “you've been kept up in this tower, and you have a shot to get out of there. You don't have to do this, Eva.”

  “What else is there?”

  “There’s this,” he growls as he pulls me tight against him. His eyes flash as they dart over my face. “There's me.”

  And then he's kissing me, and I'm melting right into him. I moan, my hands sliding over his chest, gripping at his shirt as he pulls me against him. Hands pull at clothes, letting them drop around us like reservations as we go toppling over onto the knit comforter of his bed. We’re giggling as we shove down the covers and burrow under. But laughter turns to whimpered moans as his hands begin their tracing path over my body.

  He reaches over and flicks off the bedside light before turning his attentions back to me. His fingers dip between my legs, finding me wet and slippery for him. I run my hands over his abs, down the grooves of his hips until I can feel the throbbing hardness of his cock in my fingers. I stroke him, and he groans into my lips as he curls a finger inside of me.

  We're panting faster, hands and fingers and mouths moving against the other with more need, more urgency. We spin, and I moan as he moves on top of me, my legs spreading for him — my hips rising to meet him.

  “Oh, God,” I whisper, a hushed prayer in the darkness around us. My eyes fluttering shut as I feel the head of him graze across my lips.

  I moan, fingers digging into the skin of his back, my legs slipping around his hips and pulling him in — willing him to take me. His lips fall to my neck, kissing, nipping, sucking gently at the skin there and making me melt for him. My chest rises against his, chain of my cross slipped across one breast.

  If this is wrong, I don't know what's right.

  If this is evil, then I have to question everything I think I know about goodness.

  And if this is sin, take me to hell.

  “Rowan,” I whisper, his name dripping from my lips as his hands, his body, his cock, his breath, all tease across my skin and draw the pleasure from my body.

  He moves from my neck to my lips, and I whimper at the ferocity in that kiss — the hard, punishing, sweet, sweet agony of it.

  His hand slides up to cup my jaw, and I gasp, my lip catching between my teeth as he growls — the raw need for me etched over his face.

  And I recognize it, because it's the only thought in my head and in my heart right then. It's the thought that says come what may and come whatever happens next, this is real.

  This is just the two of us, and we both want this.

  Consequences be damned.

  “Please,” I whisper, begging him. I whimper as he groans, moving against me, his hand slipping into my hair and pulling just tight enough to make me gasp.

  “Last chance, angel,” he growls into my ear.

  I gasp, arching my hips against him, feeling him just teasing me, his cock barely slipping against my entrance.

  I nod, my fingers tightening against his skin, my body arching to meet his, and my eyes burning into his.

  “I need you to fuck me, not give me a lecture.”

  My eyes glint fiercely, mischievously up at him.

  He grins.

  “So, are you going to? Or are you just going to keep talk- oh…”

  The words catch in my throat, falling broken on my lips as he slips inside. I gasp, swallowing, my eyes going wide as they lock on his.

  “Do it,” I moan. “Oh God, Rowan,” I breathe into the darkness, like a whispered prayer. I can feel him tense, and I start to cry out as I feel him start to push inside the wet heat between my legs.

  Suddenly, there’s a click.

  Suddenly, he freezes.

  And suddenly, the whole world shatters around us.

  I’m aware of screaming, of the lights flicking on, of my mother almost fainting against the wall and of Rowan whirling around, covering me with the blankets.

  I’m aware of my father.

  I’m aware of him screaming words like “whore” and “heathen” and “damnation.”

  But most of all, as everything else drops away to blackness, I’m aware of the gun in his hand.

  And it’s pointed right at Rowan’s head.

  Oh, God…

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Rowan

  You know how in the movies, everything goes into slow motion when there's a gun involved?

  Yeah, well, that's all bullshit.

  Because there in my childhood bedroom, with Eva screaming behind me, Ruth screaming by the door to the outside staircase, and Leonard bellowing scripture and holy fire at me as he levels that gun at the center of my forehead, I can tell you without question that all that shit happens fast.

  It’s like I don't even know where to look, or what the fuck to focus on as the chaos of the moment just fucking explodes around me. I'm staring up the barrel of the gun as Leonard roars at me about being a sinner, and a filthy heathen, and a blasphemer destined for the fires of hell. I'm yanking my head towards the stairs at the sound of Ruth screeching and looking like she's literally tearing her hair out.

  But mostly, I'm just turning around to look at Eva.

  Because last moments or not, she's the only thing that matters and the only one I want to see in that sea of chaos.

  “Don't you dare look at her!” Leonard roars, his hand grabbing me by the back of the neck with way more strength than I'd have given him credit for as he yanks me out of the bed. I stumble to the floor, half wrapped in one of the sheets as the back of his hand comes whipping across my mouth.

  I roar, spitting blood and starting to lunge for my feet when that cold steel comes up to poke me right between the eyes again.

  I freeze.

  I look up, and my eyes lock on Leonard.

  “On your knees,” he says quietly.

/>   “Dad!” Eva screams and goes to lunge out of bed, but she freezes — the whole room freezes, actually — when he brings the gun up and points it at her.

  “Back, Evangeline,” he says with ice in his voice.

  Ruth gasps from across the room. “Leonard.”

  “Back!” he roars again, his eyes wild and the gun shaking in his hand as he levels it at his daughter.

  “Jesus, Leonard-” I make a move to stand again, but he whirls back to me.

  “On your knees, blasphemer!” he bellows at me, his face turning downright demonic as he turns the gun to me and brings the hammer back.

  Okay, I lied. That’s when it all goes into slow motion. That’s when suddenly everything else around me drowns away as I slowly turn and narrow on one single light.

  One single point of focus.

  Eva.

  I'm tuning the rest of it out — the gun, her father, her mother, all of it. All I can see is her — wrapped in a blanket, crying. Her father screams something at her, shoving her back on the bed before the gun presses sharply against my head.

  “You,” he seethes. “You are a Godless man. And now?”

  He takes a breath, looking skyward, murmuring something to God or himself, or whoever, before he looks down and meets my eye. “And now I'm going to send you straight to he-”

  “THAT'S ENOUGH!”

  My father's voice booms across the attic, and we all turn to see him standing there at the stairway to the second floor like a goddamn grizzly bear.

  Well, a goddamn grizzly bear with a shotgun in his hands leveled right at Leonard.

  “I said that's enough, Leonard,” he says fiercely, training the shotgun right at him.

  The attic goes still, and I notice Silas and Kyle standing on the steps behind my father, Silas with a baseball bat in his hands.

  Leonard's eyes narrow, his fingers twitching on the pistol in his hand as he whirls on my father. “Stay back, Jacob!” he spits, brandishing the gun. “Do you know what your heathen of a son-”

  “Put. The gun. Down,” my father says evenly.