Desirable Sin

Chapter one

What kind of man leaves a sick, gorgeous wife at home and visits a bar to lust after another woman? Declan Castor took a swig of his drink and ran a tongue over his lips. He grimaced at the rough rasp his tongue made against his mouth. His lips felt three sizes two big and he couldn’t feel his legs. With heavy-lidded eyes, he kept his eyes on the luscious woman two seats in front.

“Look at that ass,” an awed voice said beside him.

Without turning his face to confirm, Declan knew exactly who the voice referred to. There was only one woman here with a figure hot enough to draw comments and it belonged on the woman who consistently drew his attention. His reaction was not good. It said a lot about the kind of man he was, the son of his father. Worse still, the only woman who could make him feel this way was bad news. Declan lowered his eyes, and struggled to pull up an image of his Casey, his wife of six years, but couldn’t. Shame and a healthy dose of self-recrimination hurtled through him. Like his father would say, blood would always tell. Declan twisted his lips, at least he wasn’t so drunk he didn’t know he was in the wrong. He was a married man, a happily married man, and for all he knew, the luscious woman was also married.

So much for Pastor Declan. It was a good thing, he was a long way from the city and his past life as a basketball star. Those days, he couldn’t take three steps without being besieged by fans, the press or paparazzi. Now, he was supposedly a reformed family man, a farmer with a great wife and a lovely five-year-old daughter with so much joy and love in her fingertips. Casey and Esther were his whole world. He’d left the club life for a life as a farmer in the country without looking back. As cliche as it might sound, he also had the mandatory white picket fence. His friends Gavin and Nedum would and still laughed their heads off anytime they saw him.

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At the thought of Nedum, Declan sucked in his breath. He savored the pain rolling like a ball of fire inside him. Since the accident more than ten years ago he still ached when he thought of his friend and brother.

Declan was a Pastor in the local congregation and the poster boy for all that was good in the world. He’d come a long way from the son of the town drunk. With drunks and thieves for parents, he’d come a long way from the trash he grew up in. The people had forgiven him for being his parents’ son. Declan vowed as he always did never to screw it up. It was just the day, today was his moment of weakness.

Supposedly.

Declan stared hard at the back of the woman’s head. Why her? This was his third night in this bar since Casey’s illness took a turn for the worse. The alcohol provided a tiny bit of escape from the harsh reality. He wasn’t perfect. No, Declan decided, eyes on the most perfect curve he’d ever seen as his girl rose from her seat to take the hand of the man grinning widely at her.

Damn.

Declan slammed his glass on the counter, grateful for the dim lighting.

“Whoa, are you alright?” the bartender asked. With a full head of beard to rival James Harden’s, Tool was a permanent feature in the bar.

“Yeah,” he bit out, turning his head away from the piercing eyes of the other man.

When a customer staggered towards the counter demanding a drink, Declan breathed a sigh of relief. He’d chosen this bar to avoid being recognized at the more popular Tizzy’s spot close to town. No one would mistake him for Pastor Declan here. Nneka’s bar was located on the other side of Conteh. With a population of two thousand people, Ute was like a little sister to the much larger Conteh. Everything happened in Conteh while almost nothing happened in Ute.

He stared at the departing couple through narrowed eyes and gritted his teeth. Of course, she was taken. No way would she look that good, have so much curves and be single. The last woman he’d seen with such curves was Meredith Mazagli, his best friend, Brody’s wife.

He should be grateful to the other man for saving him from a night of adulterous sin. But the one emotion Declan was capable of feeling in that instant was jealousy. It stunned him and brought with it a healthy dose of reality and sobriety. He’d never felt like this towards his own wife. As Declan stared at the slight dip at the woman’s waist and the curve of her delicious looking buttocks, a bitter taste filled his mouth. True, he hadn’t married Casey out of an undying love for her. What he felt for her was…affection. He couldn’t imagine feeling the kind of senseless, irrational love that drove men to do stupid things.

Like commit adultery.

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The closest he’d come to seen such emotion was in Brody and Meredith. Those two were like fuel and fire. He loved his wife in his own way, Declan reminded himself stubbornly. But he couldn’t for the life of him drag his eyes away from the luscious blonde.

For the six years they had been married, he’d never cheated on Casey. The thought had never crossed his mind. He’d been focused on their, daughter, the congregation, and his farm. As a basketball star, he had never been attracted to the partying and senseless orgies around him. Sex for Declan had always been a way to let out tension, nothing more, nothing less. Even though their sex life had been virtually non-existent since her illness, he had not so much as looked at another woman.

Until now.

He narrowed his eyes, sifting through the night, dim lighting and the blur of cigarette smoke until he could make out the woman about to shatter his well-laid plans for the future. Declan swallowed as he eyed the masculine hand draped proprietorially on the sexy dip of her waist. He imagined his hand there in place of his. His palm would rove upwards, tangle in her heavy fall of long blonde hair, twist it around his fingers and get a good grip. He’d arch her neck back exposing her neck, chest, and face to his gaze and he will finally know what she looked like.

Maybe he was just being overly fascinated with long, blonde hair in a place where short, black hair and braids were the norm?

Declan was deep into his daydream, the heady smell of second-hand cigarettes, the dull hum of low conversations and the heaviness of alcohol lulling him into a drowsy state when he noticed something was off. He sat up abruptly and narrowed his eyes at the couple who held his attention from the moment they walked into the dance floor.

The man held his luscious blonde a little too tightly, and she seemed to be struggling against his hold? Declan couldn’t tell. Without thought, he lurched from his chair and pushed his way towards the couple. He knew he was needlessly exposing himself. There was a strong chance any of the people in the bar could be one of his parishioners, a friend of Casey’s, a parent in Esther’s school, a customer in the local farmer’s market or an acquaintance. The possibilities were endless.

Declan didn’t care.

The sloshing movement of alcohol in his empty stomach made walking to his goal a herculean task. Asking five-year-old Esther to solve a differential math equation wouldn’t be this difficult. Somehow, he made it just in time to catch the blonde as the man pushed her off.

Declan’s breath left him in a whoof and they both went down in a tangle of limbs and crashing bodies. He moaned at the hard knock the body he thought numbed by alcohol took with the fall. For the few seconds, he was clearly and annoyingly sober.

“Christ.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry. I kept telling him to let me go and he refused. Are you alright?”

That voice.

With her hips pressed close exactly where he needed it, Declan could barely think. But that voice reached out to him like Casey’s arms on cold nights- familiar, old, and not always welcome. The reminder stiffened his resolve, and he focused on the woman above him.

“Angela Mazagli?”

“Declan,” she breathed.

“What are you doing here?” he gritted out.

“I should be asking you that,” she snapped. “I’m not the hot shot basketball superstar who suddenly disappeared and now lives at the end of the world.”

“Does Brody know you’re here?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t this the sort of place you’ll find an ex-addict and former party girl?”

“Ex-addict and former party girl?” he parroted stupidly.

She sighed, and the action pressed her full breasts against his chest, pulling his member upwards and hardening it to unbelievable proportions.

She licked her lips. “A lot has changed.”

“Do you need help?”

The voice cut through their conversation and the damnable connection they’d always shared, bringing with it a lick sense to an increasingly out of control situation. When he left the city, he thought he’d left his feelings for Angela behind.

Declan rose quickly, too quickly. His head knocked and the drinks in his empty stomach sloshed over the sides, nearly toppling him.

Angela grabbed his arm. “Are you alright?” she wrinkled her nose as the familiar, strong fumes of alcohol. The Declan she knew was never drunk. “You’re drunk.”

“I was on my way out,” he lied. “What are you doing here?”

She sighed and pushed those long, blonde locks off her face. “It’s been six years, Declan.”

Their eyes met and held. Declan felt himself sinking into the blue of her lovely eyes. Memories pulled at his nerve endings, and his member, giving him ideas he didn’t need. He looked away. He still couldn’t believe Angela was here right before him. Brody’s troublesome kid sister.

And he’d been lusting after her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She folded her arms, pushing those full breasts into an even more prominent position. Without thought, his eyes dropped to their tantalizing fullness and Declan forgot everything.

Casey.

Esther.

“What are you doing here?” he bit out harshly.

She dropped her arms and he burned.

She knew.

It had always been this way between them. Only her relationship with Brody, her parent’s murder at the hands of their old suppliant, Henry Zanos and her eventual downward spiral into drug addiction had checked the flames of their attraction. She was his best friend’s kid sister for God’s sake.

And he was married.

Ex-addict, she’d said.

“I need answers.” Declan grabbed her by the elbow and matched her to the door. Angela dug her heels in and refused to move.

He glanced down at her achingly beautiful profile. She’d always been the light to Brody’s darkness, a perfect replica of the late Mrs. Mazagli and the picture of his nightmares and dreams.

“You walked right into my turf. Now, move.”

She scoffed and raised her chin. “I came here to grab a drink and have a little fun.” His hand tightened on her arm. “Didn’t know I’ll meet you here. You’re the last person I want or expected to see Declan. What are you doing here? You disappeared after…” She trailed off at the cutting glance he speared her with.

“Coming?” he asked, ignoring her pointed questions.

She flushed and swallowed. “Ah, no.”

Damn.

Declan watched the tide of color flood her face, and the heat of sexual desire darken her blue eyes. His next words came out husky and gruff with his reaction, “I will throw you over my shoulders if I have to.”

She firmed her lips, eyes sparkling in anger. “Alright.”

They walked out of the Nneka’s bar together and straight into the reality of the slightly chilly air, and a rundown farmer’s truck.

Angela's eyes went from the truck to Declan. The town bar was small, dinghy and tucked right by the side of the road. There was virtually no parking lot, just a little space in front with a sign announcing the bar’s presence to travelers. It was the perfect spot for tired travelers and residents who wanted a few minutes out of the heat of prying eyes. Unless Declan was on the road, Angela couldn’t imagine the man she’d always loved on this road and in that truck he was heading unerringly towards, and in his current drunken state.

She started after him. “Declan, you're drunk--”

“Get in.” He pulled open the passenger door.

Angela eyed the rundown truck. It looked like it had gone twelve rounds with an untarred, mountain road, and lost.

“That’s your car?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible,” she breathed. Angela glanced around, feeling like she was in some kind of alternate universe. Nothing was adding up. “That can’t be your car.”

“Why?” his lips curled. “Not good enough for the Mazaglis princess tastes?”

She glanced away. “Don’t call me that.”

He stalked towards her. “But that’s what you are-- the Mazagli Princess. Rich, beautiful and untouchable. Or do you prefer Conteh Princess? Since your brother owns the town that title might be right.”

Her eyes darkened, and she shivered. “You of all people know the truth about me, Declan.”

He looked away. “Get in the car.”

Angela licked her lips, the chill of the night, the weight of years gone by and the pain of unrequited love settled on her shoulders like a wet blanket-- annoying and irritating. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Declan nodded. “Maybe not, but there’s no way I’m leaving you here.”

Angela shook her head. “What are you doing here? In this town, that bar, and in that car.”

“Don’t look down on that bar. If you know how much Nneka makes every night you’ll show some respect.”

He smirked, looking a bit like the old Declan every woman lusted after and only a select few got the chance to actually grace his bed. Some only dreamed about it, wishing he’d be a little more than kind and ungentlemanly.

Angela fell into the latter group. She stared up, savoring his great basketballer height-- over six feet four inches of rippling male. Whatever he was doing now kept him in shape because she couldn’t imagine this small town having a gym that would meet Declan’s standards. Angela's eyes snagged on his corded arms and heavily muscled chest. Yeah, Declan was still everything she’d always wanted.

“Why did you retire so quick?” she asked a question that had always nagged at her. In between one of her drunken binges, she’d heard the shocking news of his retirement. It came soon after Nedum’s death. He obviously took it hard. He must have been twenty-nine or thirty at the time, more than seven years ago.

“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” he asked, pointedly ignoring her questions.

Angela waved an airy hand. “This is nothing new for me. I will get something, I always do.”

A muscle jumped along his jaw, and his face hardened. “A one night stand, you mean?”

Angela’s breath caught in her throat at the emotion swirling in his familiar grey eyes. Her nipples hardened under her top, and her heart pounded beneath her breasts. “Yeah,” she cleared her throat, “maybe something like that.”

“Get in,” the words were deep, quiet and filled with warning. Angela didn’t wait to be told twice. She got in and slipped on her seat belt with shaky hands.

(To be continued)
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