My heart is pounding by the time Rowan drops me off at the rental house and drives away. Hands shake as I unlock the front door, and my lip catches between my teeth as I climb the stairs to the second floor.

The door to my room closes quietly, only the sound of my telltale heart beating in the dark giving me away.

Giving away the sin I'm holding inside.

Temptation of the flesh.

Rowan Hammond is wicked.

Filthy.

No good.

And I'm trying so hard to drown out the voice inside that screams that I want something no good.

I want bad.

Don't be silly, I chide myself. It's a ridiculous thought. This is weakness, is what this is. This is me giving in to temptation - giving in to the sin of l.u.s.t.

And really, this isn't me. I don't think thoughts like this. At least, I never did with Joseph.

So why is it Rowan who's creeping into my head like this - late at night, alone in my room with my heart pounding, all manner of wicked thoughts coming up from somewhere hidden?

I dress for bed quickly and brush my teeth. I do so as fast as I can, rinsing and washing my face, avoiding making contact with my own eyes the whole time.

I can't look, because I know what I'll see on my face.

Want.

Need.

The sin, written large on my face.

Back in my room, I slip under the covers, trying to squeeze my eyes shut and squeeze the impure thoughts of him from my head. The thoughts of those arms, those eyes. Those perfect lips and that wicked tongue.

A heat begins to bloom inside of me, one that I try to stamp out, but it's too late.

There's no stopping it.

The heat grows, a fire hungry for more as it slowly consumes me from the inside out. I squeeze my legs together, clenching tight, but it only makes it worse. The heat teases through places it shouldn't. Wicked, sinful thoughts igniting fires in wicked, sinful places.

I want to resist, but I'm weak.

In my head, he's there, in my room.

In my head, he's pulling back the sheets. He's pulling his clothes off, and I'm seeing again what I saw that first day in his office - that sinful body carved from marble. The way his tattoos and his muscles ripple.

Other parts of him that I've pretended I've forgotten about, but I know that I haven't.

And I left something out tonight. I didn't tell the whole story. I told about Joseph, and about being engaged, and then it being over. I admitted to never having had a one-night stand with a stranger.

I left out the part where I've never done it at all.

I left out the part where I'm a virgin.

The thought of him knowing that only makes the fire inside grow hotter. There's something filthy about him knowing, some sort of carnal knowledge that'd be dangerous in his hands.

The best kind of dangerous.

In my head, he's slipping under the covers with me, his hands moving over my body.

Hands slip beneath cotton, fingers find my skin.

My eyes close and my lips part in sweet, sweet agony as they move lower and lower - pushing at my panties, slipping under the edge, teasing so close.

With a gasp, somehow, I break the spell.

Somehow, I yank myself back from the edge of d.a.m.nation and sin. I quickly sit up in my bed, panting, my chest heaving with the danger of how close I got. I swallow, pushing my hands up through my hair and shaking my head.

Chast.i.ty was right. Father says the devil is in the details.

Well, the devil is certainly in Rowan Hammond.

I know it's wrong. I know it's a sin. But heaven help me, he's leading me into temptation.

Sweet, sweet temptation.

And I think I might be helpless to resist.

Chapter Ten.

Rowan

"So, I'm just curious."

I glance over at Jade working the left hand side of the bar. We're busy for a Monday. That's not a bad thing.

"What's up?"

"Are we going to just ignore the giant, fist-sized bruise on the side of your skull?"

"Ideally, yeah." I glance back at the frat-boy standing in front of me - the last dregs of the summer tourists crowd. "Thirty-nine bucks."

"Cool, thanks bro, keep the change!"

He drops two twenties on the bar, and he and his buddy somehow grab the four beers and four shots of Irish whiskey and head back to their table of cronies.

"Douchebag," I mutter, snagging the cash off the bar.

"C'mon."

"Jade, leave it."

"Boyfriend?"

I shoot her a look. "I'm fairly positive my s.e.xual orientation has been made abundantly obvious by now."

She snorts. "Not yours, tool, I mean the boyfriend of whatever s.k.a.n.k you banged."

"Isn't it against your feminist code to be s.l.u.t-shaming like that?"

"If it walks like a duck and f.u.c.ks its way through the entire male population of Shelter Harbor like a duck..."

"This duck have a number?"

She grins and rolls her eyes. "Not going to tell me are you?"

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Anything to do with the huge dude who I saw you talking to out back the other night with that church girl?"

"Nope."

"Right, so who was that?"

"Jade, f.u.c.k. A beer delivery guy, I don't know."

"They deliver pretty late now, huh?"

I ignore her.

"Seemed a little past church girl's bedtime, too. Little late for her to be slumming around the backdoor of a place like this with a dude like you."

"You going to pour drinks or keep quizzing and insulting me?"

She rolls her eyes again before she turns and smiles at a couple of men who are wildly misreading her body language.

Except, Jade's at least half right. About the Eva part at least. It was too late for me to be bringing her around here. It was too late to have her out alone, just the two of us, and her looking like, well, like she does.

Because the thing is, I'm not sure how not to flirt with a girl that catches my eye like she does. However forbidden, however off-f.u.c.king-limits Evangeline Ellis is, I can't seem to just shut the f.u.c.k up and leave it be around her.

Throw in driving home side-by-side in the pickup, the windows down, the early fall breeze blowing in and tussling her blonde hair, and the moon just catching her face?

Forget it.

Throw in her literally dropping into my arms ten minutes before, her body tight against mine and her hands on my skin, and it's a lost cause.

I'd been rock hard the whole d.a.m.n drive back to the rental house. This sweet, sinfully, untouchable piece of temptation sitting in the truck next to me.

Any other situation in the world, or any other girl? Done deal. She'd have been home two hours later after I f.u.c.ked her eight different ways all over that truck.

Clearly not the case with Eva Ellis.

Not even f.u.c.king close.

Besides the fact that she's clearly not the kind of girl who goes for the c.o.c.ky, filthy-talking type like me, I'm actually curious what kind of guy she goes for.

If any.

There's also the part where my dad would kill me. Not literally, but he and I have taken years to get back to good after my whole bulls.h.i.t when I was younger. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with his friend's daughter? Not high on the good graces list.

Then there's Leonard Ellis. I don't know Eva's dad, but I do know that fanatical look in his eyes. I've never bought into religion much, not even with my dad being a minister. But he's on the tamer, "religion is humanism" side of things. Leonard? Leonard's a true believer. A bible-thumping, sulfur and brimstone and h.e.l.l-fire kinda guy.

I'm not sure if he'd actually kill me or not.

In any case, it's a moot point. Eva is not the kind of girl I go for, and I'm certainly not the kind of guy she gets with. So fantasy - a filthy, totally off-limits fantasy she remains.

"What're you drinking?"

I'm cranking through orders, and I don't even look up as I say it to whoever is next in the crowd.

"Hey stranger."

I freeze.

Now there's a voice I know - a voice, I might add, that is staggeringly appropriate to hear right now given my conversation five seconds ago with Jade concerning boyfriends of s.k.a.n.ks I banged and punches to my head.

I slowly look up, and lock eyes with Fiona.

Red lips, raven hair, t.i.ts falling out of the way-too-tiny tank top she's wearing, and that G.o.dd.a.m.ned constant look of smugness on her face. It's the look of a girl who is very used to getting her way with men.

It's the look of a girl who is very used to getting her way with me, actually.

"What are you doing here, Fiona?"

"Heard there was this hot bartender workin' here that would put out."