Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)

by Aubrey Irons

  I snort out a laugh. “For me, or for every single person on Market Street?”

  He grins as he turns to me, leaning back against the doorframe as that smile creeps across those perfect, tempting lips.

  “Certainly the latter.”

  My face grows warm suddenly as my eyes dart to his.

  They give nothing away.

  He looks at me coolly, face neutral, eyes holding mine easily, and just the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. This is who he is - cool and calm, revealing nothing, giving nothing away.

  I’m sure my face is the exact opposite. As cool and collected as I’d like to pretend I am in that moment, I know it’s not true. I’m sure the flush on my face and the way my lip catches between my teeth gives everything away.

  Because that look is bringing everything back. That look is the same one from the street outside the bar that night in Houston. It’s that firm, iron gaze from later up on the roof of his hotel.

  It’s the look right before he pulled me against him and slid his hands over my ass.

  We’re close. Standing here in the doorway of the bathroom, we’re way too close together, and my breath is coming heavy, my heart pounding at a racing pace. My eyes land on his lips, his jaw, dragging up to those sharp green eyes of his.

  The look holds, both of us frozen as the tension mounts around us. I can feel my stomach tightening, my mouth going dry as I lose myself in that look as he moves a half-step closer.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s a weird feature isn’t it?”

  The moment shatters at the sound of Marcus’s voice as he steps around the corner from the master bedroom. Landon moves back, and I turn, quickly and fastidiously examining the hardware of the sink faucet.

  “You’d probably want some curtains there, else you’re going to give quite a show,” Marcus says with a chuckle. “Anyways, I just got off the phone with the owner of the Eleven Westlake place, and it’s free for viewing if we’d like to move locales?

  I turn back, shooting a quick, flashing glance at Landon before smiling at Marcus. “Lead the way!”

  I breeze past Landon as I follow the realtor back through the condo, ignoring the shiver that teases up my spine.

  Ignoring the fact that I can feel his eyes on me as I walk away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Serena

  “Wow,” I whistle as I glance over the preliminary player contract in my hands before looking back up at Landon. “Dalton Cole, huh?”

  “You know him?”

  I roll my eyes at the skeptical tone in Landon’s voice.

  “You know, I might not know what half the contractual terms in this binder mean, but you’re going to have to get used to the fact that I do actually know football pretty well.”

  Landon smirks, leaning back in his office chair and crossing his arms across his chest.

  “So you’re all read up on the best arm to come out of Notre Dame in two decades?”

  “Georgia,” I shoot back. “But nice try.”

  He grins.

  “He’s good,” I say with a slow nod, looking back over the quarterback contract in my hands. “That’s a pretty good pickup this late in the pre-season.”

  “Yeah, well, not as good as the quarterback we had,” Landon says thinly, his brow furrowing. “But it’s a start.”

  He’s talking about Holden Cade, the golden-armed QB that was employed by Denver until about a month ago when London stole him over to Houston.

  “Heard he and your friend London are a bit of an item now.”

  “That’s certainly one way of putting it. They’re engaged, you know.”

  “Hell of a contract,” Landon says with a chuckle. He holds my eye and grins at me. “What do you think about this Cole kid? Think we can promise him Serena Roth’s hand in marriage to sweeten the deal?”

  “Cute,” I say flatly as he grins and shakes his head. “Very cute.”

  “Oh you think he’s cute? That’s great, Serena. Thanks for being a team player about thi-”

  “Keep it up,” I mutter, bringing a laugh to his lips.

  I shake my head and bury it back into the contract in front of me to hide the grin.

  We’ve been fastidiously pretending the frozen moment in the condo showing the other day didn’t happen. We’ve been meticulously avoiding the subject of real estate altogether, actually.

  Which is fine, really. Because whatever that moment was, it’s a slip up. It’s a step in the wrong, the impossible, and very inappropriate direction, and that’s not a place either of us need to go.

  “Look, why don’t we call it a night.” Landon stands from his desk and stretches, his crisp white button-down stretching tautly over his hard chest and broad shoulders.

  “Should we grab some food?”

  I shrug. “Sure, but we’re not going to your skank spot again.”

  He raises a brow. “My skank spot?”

  “Yeah, that place we went before where you bring all your booty calls.”

  “Pardon?”

  I snort. The man is not nearly as opaque as he thinks he is.

  “Please, I saw right through that. The bartender knowing your drink? The hostess knowing your name? Your ‘usual table’ being the one in the corner with all the candles?”

  He frowns. “I go there a lot.”

  “Oh, all by yourself, huh?”

  Landon says nothing, and the grin spreads across my face.

  “Knew it.”

  “Knew what,” he says, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He nods at the door, and I’m shouldering my bag and following him, without even really thinking about it.

  “Nothing, I just know a player when I see one,” I say as we step into the elevator.

  “I’m not a player.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. A player suggests someone who’s playing a game. There’s no games with me. I don’t have time for them.”

  “So it is the place you bring dates.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t deny it either.”

  His eyes flash with something hungry, and I feel a shiver run down my back. In the confined space of the elevator, the nearness of him and the subtle scent of his cologne wash over me. I swallow quickly, taking a shaky breath as I turn away from him towards the doors as we drop floor after floor.

  I can’t be thinking like this. I can’t be getting flustered around him, and thinking the way he looks at me is “hungry”, or thinking about how damn attractive he is.

  “Well maybe it is,” he says evenly.

  I blink quickly before turning back to him. “So why’d you bring me there?”

  His shoulders stiffen, and I grin. “I’m just teasing you, you know. You should lighten up a little bit.”

  He holds my eyes, the faintest hint of a smile on his face as the elevator doors open.

  “Anyways, I’ve changed my mind, I’m not having dinner with you again at your skank spot.”

  He smirks. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope, no thank you. I’m new in town, I don’t need that sort of reputation.”

  He grins.

  “I will have a drink with you though.”

  “At my skank spot.”

  “Three conditions.”

  What are you doing.

  Landon gets the door of the office front lobby for me, and we step onto the street.

  “A week on the job and you’re a contract wiz, huh?”

  I flip him off and he grins. “Fine, I’m all ears.”

  “One, we’re not sitting at that uber-romantic corner booth. We’re sitting at the bar.”

  He raises his brows. “Deal. What else.”

  “Two, we’re splitting the bill. I’m buying my own drinks, thank you very much.”

  “I was sort of hoping you’d pick up the whole tab, actually.”

  I grin.

  “Is there a third condition to what was just going to be a casual bite to eat?”


  I shake my head. “Nope, I guess that’s it; terms agreed upon. Lead the way.”

  “You drive a hard bargain you know,” he mutters as we round the corner to the bar.

  But there is a third condition, one that I’m not even saying out loud. The third condition is more for me, and it’s simple: I will be having exactly one drink, and then I’m going home.

  Because rules or not, with the way he looked at me in that elevator, I don’t trust myself with more than one drink.

  Even still, this is a terrible idea.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Landon

  I sip the old fashioned in my hand, letting the subtle blend of whiskey and bitters and orange roll across my tongue. Casual drinks, a night out - this isn’t anything new for me. In fact, this is the usual for me with women.

  I shouldn’t be doing it with her, though. I shouldn’t be watching her over the low flicker of the candles on the bar, sipping drinks with her.

  This is tempting fate. This is playing with fire. I’m getting too close to her, letting too many of my guards down. And I’ve been excusing myself for it entirely too much. I have rules, and I live by those rules.

  And here I am, for all intents and purposes having a date with Serena Roth.

  “So, Sam Horn is not your uncle?”

  I shake my head as I swallow the whiskey. “No, not technically. It’s just easier to say that instead of ‘mentor figure’.”

  “Especially since we’re not living in a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.”

  I grin. “Exactly. Sam took me in when I was a young hothead. I was cocky, I was arrogant.”

  She’s nodding with the world’s most sarcastic smile on her face.

  “What.”

  “Oh, nothing, I just like your use of the word ‘was’.”

  “Cute”

  “Oh, why thank you. It’s a new top.”

  A smirk draws across my face. “You done?”

  She grins. “Continue, please.”

  I shrug and take another sip of whiskey. “That’s basically it. No team wanted me out of college, but Sam took a long shot.”

  “No team wanted you? You had an insane college career.”

  I raise a brow. “Someone’s done their homework.”

  She says nothing, just a coy smile as she sips her wine.

  “I had some…” I shrug. “I was a little wild when I was younger.”

  “You? Wild?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  She snorts. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. What’d you do, cross against the light? Wear blue socks with black dress pants?”

  I grin, letting her have that one. “I was a different guy back then, and Sam sort of became my benefactor. He gave me a team to play on, told me shape the hell up, and got me to get my act together. He basically gave me everything I have today.”

  “Jay Gatsby to your Nick Caraway.”

  I raise my glass. “Exactly.”

  “I know you still don’t believe me, but I honestly don’t know how he knows me.”

  I hold the sip of whiskey in my mouth for a moment, savoring it before the swallow. “No, I believe you, I’m just still mystified by it. You’re sure? No one your dad knew through the league?”

  She raises a brow. “You know who my dad was?”

  “I also did my homework. Billy Roth, huh?”

  She smiles. “The one and only.”

  “Hell of defensive strategist.”

  “Hell of a dad.” She toasts again. “Raised me by himself.”

  I freeze for a second. This is a storyline I’m more than familiar with.

  “Where was your mom?”

  “Drunk driver.”

  I tense up inside.

  “I’m sorry, Serena.”

  She shrugs. “I was pretty young, I don’t really remember her.”

  I frown. “You also must have been pretty young when your dad passed.”

  She nods. “Junior in high school. My aunt came and took care of me, but I basically moved in with the Jacobs.”

  “London?”

  “The London you tried to steal last month in Houston?” Her face instantly goes red at the mention of that night.

  I know why.

  She takes a big sip of wine and clears her throat. “He was a great guy though, my dad.”

  “Sounds like it. Raising you all by himself after that?”

  She nods, but her look definitely says, “what do you know”. That glance, those eyes lingering over my dress shirt and my watch, the hint of tattoo peeking out from my rolled up sleeve.

  She sees me as exactly who she thinks I am. The jock turned stuffy suit guy. The tough boardroom negotiator. The player.

  Single widower dad raising a kid alone? Yeah, she doesn’t see me for that, which is fine by me. But it also means I can relate to her story more than she even knows.

  “Well, cheers to your dad.”

  She clinks my glass with hers. “Thanks.”

  “Another drink?”

  She hesitates.

  “No, forget it. That’s probably a bad-”

  “Sure,” she says it quickly, and for a moment, I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince me or herself more.

  A second turns into a third, and with each drink comes a certain closeness. We’re opening up more, talking about family, and cracking jokes.

  Moving closer.

  And this is quickly moving further than it should. Way further. This is rapidly smashing past after work drinks and heading right for that same place we found together in Houston.

  The problem is, it comes easy with her. That comforting closeness, that ability to just sort of open up and just talk to her. The problem is, there’s no bullshit with this girl. That’s something I’m not used to. The women I usually date are full of bullshit, and drama, and hidden meanings, which is usually just fine with me, since I don’t need or want to know them.

  Not longer than a night, anyways.

  There’s something refreshing about Serena though, as much as I know it’s a problem.

  She laughs at something, her whole face lighting up as she leans and puts a hand on my arm.

  Fuck.

  It’s nothing intended, I know that. It’s just her laughing and having a good time. But it lingers for a second, blazing heat into the skin beneath her soft fingers. She moves back, still smiling and still seemingly oblivious to the effect she’s having on me - totally ignorant of the roaring storm of duty clashing with raw desire she’s shaking up inside of me.

  She pushes her hair back from her face, and for a moment, I smell the jasmine and orange of her shampoo. Her full lips pull back in a smile - and however innocent she means it, there’s nothing innocent about its effect on me.

  There’s nothing innocent about the way it gets my blood pumping and my cock throbbing within the confines of my suit pants.

  We’re laughing, and having fun, and joking around, but there is nothing joking about the way this evening has taken a very sudden turn towards something deeper and something darker.

  I want her.

  I can’t, and I shouldn’t, but it’s there, lingering beneath the surface. It’s a thirst, a hunger, a raw need - the need to taste her skin again, to feel her writhe under me, to feel her breath hot on my neck and her lips soft against my own.

  I blink, clenching my fist and shaking my head before quickly downing the rest of my drink.

  I need to get ahold of myself. I need to get ahold of this, because this isn’t me.

  ****

  “You really didn’t have to walk me here, you know.”

  We’re standing outside the door to the lobby of Serena’s hotel. I shrug. “It’s fine, your hotel is on the way back to my car anyways.”

  We stand like that, clearly neither of us knowing how to sign off from whatever this night was. Another non-date date.

  “So, that wasn’t so bad, huh?”

  I smile curiously at her. “What.”

  “Ac
tually letting loose and having some fun.” She winks at me. “See, we can have fun together.”

  My pulse jumps.

  I know we can have fun together, that’s the problem. The problem is, I can’t stop thinking about the fun we had together back in Houston. The problem is, I can’t seem to get any work done with her sitting ten feet away from me in that office, like this fiery, blazing reminder of that night.

  The problem is “having fun” with Serena Roth is on my brain basically one hundred percent of the time I’m around her.

  Including right now.

  She looks up at me, blinking those big green eyes, and I’m falling before I know it. Before I can stop myself, I’m moving closer, my hand drifting to her hip.

  She doesn’t stop me. I can feel my pulse pounding in my ears as I pull her against me, her hands falling against my chest. She gasps, and the sound of that little soft intake of breath across her lips makes my cock throb. She tilts her head up, her chest rising and falling against me as her eyes lock on mine.

  This can’t happen.

  Yes, I want to come upstairs. Yes, I want to come up and drink the kisses from her lips, the sweat from her skin and that honey from between her legs. I want to pull her on top of me and hold her by the hips while she rides my cock like she did before.

  Except I don’t say any of that, because instead, reason takes over.

  Remembering that we have a job to do takes over.

  Remembering that making this complicated could seriously jeopardize everything I’ve worked for takes over.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  She swallows. “What’s not?”

  “You know what.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” she whispers.

  “Serena-”

  I shake my head as I look down and hold her eyes with mine. In another situation, this could be just teasing. If she wasn’t who she was and I wasn’t me, and we weren’t involved in this bizarre situation with the team, I might even be tempted to break my own rules.

  But we are these people, and this is the situation. And this isn’t easy, flirty teasing, not when she’s this close and not when I’m this hard. Not when it’s taking everything in my power not to pull her against me and kiss her right here on the street.