Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)(75)
Hell come take me now.
Because I don’t care what happens after this.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rowan
“C’mon, I should take you home.”
She rolls towards me, hair cascading over one eye as she grins at me. “Wow, first time and you’re kicking me out?”
I grin at her, yanking her against me so hard she gasps. “Technically, first and second times. And no, I’m not kicking you out, I’m just worried about your father knocking my door down with a gun and holy fire.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m an adult you know. I’m allowed to have sleep-overs.”
“Right, and which of us wants to explain that face to face with your dad?”
She leans and kisses me softly on the lips. “Not it.”
I laugh. “Exactly.”
“I wish I could just say here,” she says with a wrinkle of her nose.
“You and me both.” I run my hand over her exposed skin, loving the heat and the ways she moves closer to me when I do.
“You’re probably right about the gun and the brimstone though, I really should get home.”
“Damn.”
“What?”
“So much for reverse psychology.”
She laughs as she slips from the bed and starts to pull on clothes. Reluctantly, I join her, yanking jeans on and pulling on a t-shirt before snatching my bike keys.
“I’ll drive you.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, no problem-”
“No, thank you.”
I stop at my door and turn back to see her looking at me quietly, her lip caught between her teeth and apprehension on her face. I drop the keys on my side table and move into her, pulling her against me and searing my mouth against those soft, perfect, heavenly lips of hers.
There’s a lance of regret — a sharp feeling that I’ve ruined her. A guy like me should have nothing to do with taking the innocence of a girl this good, this pure, this wholesome.
Except I just did, and I loved every fucking second of taking that goodness and making her mine.
I’ve got a pretty good feeling she did too.
“You okay?”
“I am very much more than okay,” she grins, kissing me again. “That was perfect, actually.” She smiles softly, her eyes looking up at me. “So, thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“Except right now.”
I grin slowly at her and she blushes. “It wasn’t a dare. I mean, I really should get home.”
I grab the keys from the side table. “Let’s go angel.”
I swing the door open and Eva gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. I whirl, but not before I get shoved off my damn feet right back into the apartment.
I growl as I sit up, scrambling to my feet and glaring at the two men in my doorway.
Rich, and his not-so-little lapdog Gus.
“The fuck are you doing in my goddamn house-”
And that’s when I notice the gleam of silver in Rich’s hand. A gleam of silver that looks a whole lot like a pistol once I stop and stare at it.
He shrugs, grinning wickedly as he fingers it in his hands. “Your house? I mean, until you’re paid up, isn’t this at least, what, sixty percent my house?”
I glower at him, shoulders heaving as I step between them and Eva.
“Just dropping by to say hello, Rich?”
The man grins. “Something like that.”
He nods past me at Eva, and I feel my hands ball into fists.
“I know you.”
“No you don’t,” I growl.
“Rowan, please, it’s my job to know who comes in and out of my town.”
“Your town.”
He rolls his eyes before narrowing them back at her. “Say, your daddy know you’re here slumming it with one of the Hammonds?”
Eva’s hand grips mine, holding tight as she moves behind me.
“You’re here for me,” I growl, my jaw clenching as I move even more in front of her. “She stays out of this, Rich, and you don’t fucking look at her.”
He grins. “Still trying to pull off the macho look, huh Hammond?” He chuckles. “This guy, I’ll tell you, sweetheart.”
He glances past me at Eva again as I narrow my eyes at him.
“He tell you much about him?”
“Why are you here, Rich.”
“He tell you about the leg?”
I advance on him, but Gus steps forward, putting a huge meaty hand on my chest. “Back. Not warning you again, Row.”
Rich chuckles. “He tell you about Johnny Doyle? He got shot. Rowan was there, he can tell you all about it. Same night as the leg, actually.”
“I’m going to ask you one more fucking time what the fuck you’re doing here, Rich,” I growl, every muscle in my body coiling.