Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)(87)

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 church, 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.