Sins of Sevin Read online

  SINS OF SEVIN

  Penelope Ward

  First Edition, September 2015

  Copyright© 2015 by

  Penelope Ward

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced nor used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Photographer: Scott Hoover

  Cover Model: Zeb Ringle

  Cover Design: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs

  Table of Contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  PART TWO:

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  More from Penelope Ward

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  He was more painfully handsome than I’d remembered. Sevin hadn’t noticed me yet as I stood in the doorway taking in the sight of him while he sat there amongst the crowd.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  There was no place for me in Dodge City anymore. But the one thing that I knew would force me back happened. Now, there was no choice but to face him. His gaze moved to the floor as he twiddled his large thumbs, and that bought me more time to look at him.

  Someone called my name, and just like that, his head full of shiny black hair lifted to meet my frightened expression.

  No smile.

  No warmth shone through his gorgeous face.

  His eyes instead met mine with an almost vicious-looking stare.

  The adrenaline running through me only solidified what I always knew; that even after all this time, my feelings for him hadn’t wavered. Despite the fact that he hated me, I was still staring into the eyes of the only man I’d ever loved.

  My sister’s husband.

  CHAPTER 1

  SEVIN

  Her warm breath tickled my ear. “Sevin, I’m gonna need a strong set of hands to set up the hall for the after-service breakfast.”

  That was code for something else. My strong set of hands would be doing a lot more than just setting up tables and chairs, and we both knew it. But it amazed me that no one else seemed to know. She’d come around to the end of my pew at the same time every Sunday, about forty minutes before church ended. We’d leave together and yet, no one seemed to figure out what was really going on.

  Sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows shined around her blonde updo. Candace curled her index finger for me to follow her into the building adjacent to the church.

  As I walked behind her down the long hallway, the sound of the sermon faded away. My dick hardened at the sight of her ass wiggling through her long conservative pencil skirt. I was most definitely going straight to hell.

  If these people only knew.

  Upon entering the hall, the smell of coffee percolating hit me. We passed the table of baked goods that were already set up. The utility closet door creaked as she opened it, and my cock twitched in anticipation.

  I pressed my body against her chest in the dark, enclosed space as the door clicked shut.

  Candace pulled a string above us, turning on a small overhead light. She smiled and wasted no time unbuttoning my shirt.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I’m all dressed in my Sunday best, and you’re messing it up,” I teased as I removed the pin holding up her hair and watched the tresses unravel down into a sexy mess.

  “Naked is your Sunday best, baby. The light is gonna stay on this time. I need to see your body, Sevin. I’ve been waiting all week for this. God, I missed you. Seven days is too long.” She pulled my shirt off of my arms and threw it on the ground. “You’re so beautiful, baby,” she whispered. “So beautiful.”

  I closed my eyes as she kissed down my chest. “Feels good,” I muttered.

  She spoke over my skin, “I hate the way they look at you. All those teenage girls in church. They all want you, Sevin. And I’m the only one that gets to have you like this, the only one who gets to see what lies beneath those clothes, the only one who gets to see this body that looks cut from stone…made for sin. I am the only one, right?”

  “Yeah. Of course you are,” I lied. Some of those girls had seen me.

  As she undid my pants and took my engorged cock out, a familiar feeling of guilt started to creep in, but it passed in a fleeting moment.

  She lifted off her shirt and took a condom out of her black lace bra before ripping the package open with her teeth. Candace looked up into my eyes as she slid the ribbed rubber onto me carefully. She looked at me like she owned me. It made me uncomfortable but not enough to stop.

  “Turn around,” I said so that I didn’t have to see her face.

  She placed her hands against the closet wall as her skirt fell to the ground.

  Faint organ music in the distance was the only sound until the loud gasp she released as I buried myself inside of her.

  “Shhh,” I warned.

  What was she fucking crazy, letting out a noise like that? I couldn’t imagine the repercussions if someone found us in here.

  With each thrust, though, I was reminded of why I kept coming back for more with Candace. In the small time we were in here, I could close my eyes and pretend that she was someone else, someone that meant something. I liked pretending that I was wanted, that I was loved by someone important. In reality, she was using me just as much as I was using her. But for someone who grew up without any kind of affection, sex was the closest thing I had to love, the closest thing to a connection with another human being. Unlike real love, which usually ended in pain, no one had to get hurt in this situation. When we walked out of here, it was like it never happened.

  The other reason I kept doing this: it was simply exhilarating. Doing something I knew was wrong was addicting. That was the problem with me. Acting badly always gave me a high even from a very young age. At twenty, you’d think I would have had the highest morals given my sheltered upbringing. But with me, it all backfired.

  Growing up, I was the kid who collected the money in church only to take a handful for myself out of the donation basket to go buy cigarettes. I was the boy who would go back to my room after a Bible lesson about lust only to jerk off to the Playboy magazine hidden under my bed. I guess I’ve always been a sinner by nature. But these encounters with Candace were definitely a new low.

  “Shit. Sevin. Harder!” she moaned.

  The sound of police sirens on the street outside the hall vaguely registered. I pumped into her with all my might until she let out a familiar muffled scream, her mouth against the wall. That was when I let myself come.

  Soon after, the coldness of reality would slowly seep in as we rushed to put on our clothes in order to get back to the church service before it ended. Soon enough, people would be filling this room faster than I’d filled Candace.

  She fastened her last button, licked her lips and
said, “My beautiful boy. Thank you so much. That was amazing.”

  What had felt so good just seconds ago now made me feel sick.

  The next fifteen minutes were spent doing what we were supposedly here for, setting up the tables and chairs.

  The commotion in the church upon our return was a shock to my system. People were rushing around flustered. Bright red lights from emergency vehicles flashed through the stained glass windows.

  My stepmother was wailing in a corner while my half-brothers attempted to hold her limp body up.

  What was happening?

  I spotted paramedics hovered over someone. It took me a few seconds to realize it was my father.

  Preacher Thomas rushed toward me, stopping me from moving any further. “Sevin…son. I’m so sorry. Your father…he collapsed in the middle of service. The paramedics just confirmed that they couldn’t save him. He’s no longer breathing. He’s gone to be with the Heavenly Father.”

  No.

  No.

  No.

  My father was gone?

  It felt surreal. Amidst my shock, all I could think about was the fact that eventually your sins catch up with you. Bad things happen to bad people. Dad was a good person. He didn’t deserve this. But I did. This was my punishment, and it was a long time coming.

  Candace stood frozen with her hands over her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry,” the preacher repeated.

  I looked him in the eyes and stood there speechless. I wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t be sorry for me. I was the sorry one. This was my fault. Because while my father lay dying, I was next door fucking the preacher’s wife.

  CHAPTER 2

  SEVIN

  The month that followed my father’s death was torturous. Being left alone in the house with my stepmother and half-brothers became a situation I needed to get myself out of. I just didn’t have an exit strategy yet. I’d been saving the wages I’d earned from working a maintenance job at the town stables, hoping to put myself through college and had planned to move away as soon as I had a little money in the bank. Now, with Dad gone, the need to get away from here seemed urgent.

  My father, Brent, had been the only voice of reason, the only person I could somewhat relate to, even though he was pretty much brainwashed by my stepmother. At least he cared about me. My stepmother was cold, close-minded and never a true replacement for my own mother. Dad’s main fault was that he was weak and didn’t know how to stand up to Lillian.

  My father married her five years after my mother died. Religion hadn’t even been a small part of our lives until Lillian came into the picture. She convinced my father to pull me out of public school so that she could homeschool me. She felt that being around public school children would have a negative impact on me because they came from families that hadn’t yet accepted Christ. Sheltering me was her way of making sure I was taught everything the way she wanted without outside influences. She’d teach us that life was about living in fear of God and that the Bible was meant to be taken literally. We had very little interaction with other children unless they came from strict Christian families. I had to get very creative, often sneaking away to hang out with the “regular” kids in the middle of the night or during detours taken on the way to run an errand for Stepmommy Dearest. My father went along with everything Lillian wanted. He was lost after losing my mother—his one true love—and fell easily into my stepmother’s web.

  Dad and Lillian had three sons together, my younger brothers, Luke, Isaiah and John. They were the spitting images of their mother, blond clones of each other that resembled the Children of the Corn. On the other hand, with my black hair, dark blue eyes and high cheekbones, I looked exactly like a male version of my dead hippie mother, Rose. I stuck out like a sore thumb and never felt a bond with my brothers.

  Feeling like I owed it to my father, I pretended to go along with all of Lillian’s rules. By all appearances, that made me the perfect Christian boy. In reality, behind closed doors, I was the antithesis of that. Lillian always taught me I could go to hell just for having inappropriate thoughts. She didn’t realize that very warning was what convinced me to act out in secret. If merely having impure thoughts would guarantee me a ticket to hell, I might as well have been gaining the satisfaction that came from acting on them.

  A light knock on the door prompted me to shove the sketch I’d been working on under the bed.

  Lillian pushed her way into my room. “Sevin, we have guests, and I’d like you to meet them. Do something with that hair please, put a clean shirt on and come downstairs.” She slammed the door shut.

  I was in no mood to put on an act right now for her guests. Grabbing the sketch from under the bed, I took my sweet time finishing what I was working on before heading down.

  With small circular strokes, I carefully shaded in the nipples of the breasts I’d drawn. This would be one of dozens of nudes I had stashed away in a box hidden inside a hole in the wall I’d drilled into the back of my closet. It seemed like I’d been drawing naked women since the beginning of time, but I knew the exact moment it started. In fact, a shrink would have a field day with it.

  One day when I was thirteen, I’d been left alone in the house, which was a rarity. I’d decided to start rummaging through my father’s things to try to find something of my mother’s. I was desperately looking for pictures or any memento. I was fairly certain Lillian had either hidden all traces of Rose or had her things destroyed. To Lillian, my mother—a non-religious free spirit—was a sinner who deserved no respect.

  Searching my father’s office, I’d come up empty-handed with the exception of one small box that was hidden inside a larger one. The outside box was the packaging of a Craftsman drill and was clearly meant to deter people from snooping.

  Inside the smaller box was some jewelry and a nude sketch of a woman with a small waist, large hips and perfectly round breasts. Lillian would have blown a gasket if she knew my father had it. It took me a few seconds to confirm that the woman was my mother. The thing is, it should have grossed me out, but knowing that my father was keeping it in secret made me happy. I assumed he’d been the artist.

  That night in my room, I started to draw my first female body. I wasn’t in any way trying to recreate the naked image of my mother. But I think I fell in love with the idea of creating something that was so forbidden, so intimate. I loved the idea of imagining what my father was feeling when he drew it, an intense love and appreciation. Sketching nudes became a pastime, an escape. Each one I’d create was different and more beautiful to me than the last. While some might have seen it as fucked up, over the years, I came to the conclusion that the process of drawing a naked woman was more fulfilling to me than being inside of an actual woman who was just using me.

  “Sevin, what’s taking you so long?” I heard Lillian yell from the bottom of the stairs.

  I slipped the drawing under my bed. “Coming,” I yelled.

  Running a comb through my hair, a deep sigh escaped me. There was nothing I hated more than putting on a show for houseguests. My brothers were innately sweet and respectful. For me, it was always a fucking performance.

  I threw on some khakis and a blue button-down shirt, rolling up the sleeves. I ran down the stairs and stopped short at the sight of a girl around my age. She had long medium brown hair and was wearing a flowy skirt down to her ankles. She was cute. Not exactly the houseguest I was expecting.

  I coughed. “Hi.”

  “Hi. I was just looking for a bathroom,” she said shyly.

  “I’m Sevin. Who are you?”

  Blushing, she said, “I’m Elle.”

  I reached out my hand and just as she extended hers, a man appeared and pushed her arm down to stop us from touching.

  “I see you’ve met my daughter, Elle.”

  Turning to him, I replied, “Yes, sir. And you are?”

  “I’m one of your father’s oldest friends, son. We’ve never met.” He offered me his hand. “Lance Sutton.
”

  I shook it. “Sevin.” Glancing over at the girl then back at him, I said, “Yeah…my father mentioned your name once or twice. Where are you living now?”

  “We’ve come a long way, actually…from Kansas. Your father and I grew up together there. He and I were practically like brothers at one time. He moved away when he met your mother. Rose was a drifter and took your father with her. He lost his way for a bit back then. But we reconnected a couple of years ago, started keeping in touch again.”

  “What brings you all this way?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you and I could sit down and talk.”

  Lillian was standing in the corner and gave me a slight nod of approval, which meant I probably should have been worried. Whatever this was, she was in on it.

  “Okay…yeah. Sure.”

  Lillian placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Elle, honey, why don’t you come help me prepare lunch for everyone?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Montgomery.”

  When Lillian and Elle were out of sight, Mr. Sutton nudged his head toward the sliding glass door leading out to our backyard. “Why don’t we go outside.”

  “Alright,” I said, squinting my eyes suspiciously.

  After a few seconds of silence, we stood facing each other on the deck as a breeze blew moss around in the air.

  I was the first to speak. “What’s this all about, Mr. Sutton?”

  “Please…call me Lance.”

  “Alright. Lance. What’s going on?”

  “Brent and I had been discussing some things before he passed away.”

  “Things?”

  “Yes. Your father was concerned about you, that you might be getting into some situations…certain temptations…that would not befit a good Christian life.”

  “Okay…”

  “He told me you were saving up for college on your own, and I respect that. But I have a proposition for you.”

  I crossed my arms. “A proposition…”

  “Yes. See, your father really did want the best for you. He knew that I had been looking for someone who I could groom, mentor and train to take over my business.”