32
Lily
I think he’s nervous. Hell, I’m nervous. I need something to do with my hands, so I keep taking the tiniest of sips of the scotch, nursing the drink so it lasts forever. I don’t know why this “date” seems like such a big deal. Killian worked at the bakery. He’s been to my house. Shit, he even hung out with Chloe. And we fucked.
God, did we ever fuck. In my bed. Killian Saint was in my bed. He was inside me. Yet now we’re both fumbling around awkwardly as he cooks dinner.
He’s just as nervous to talk about himself as I am to talk about me.
I wonder if he's hiding a dirty secret as big as mine.
"What?" Killian turns around, his back to the stove where he has two pans of something cooking. He hasn't given me any clue about what he's making. He's just puttering around the kitchen like he does this all the time.
I'll admit, having a man cook for me is pretty much the best thing any man's done for me in a long time.
Other than the sex.
The toe-curling sex.
Oh yeah. Killian just asked me a question.
"Huh?" I ask.
Killian chuckles. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were sitting there staring at my ass."
"I told you. There's something about a man in an apron that I find irresistible," I lie. Yep, I totally wasn't just thinking about how damn nervous I am.
"Remind me never to take this off," he says, turning back to the stove and stirring something in the pan. He's silent for a minute, the sounds of vegetables crackling over butter in a saucepan and the music on the stereo being the only sounds in the cabin.
I wonder how Chloe is doing. I should text Opal.
I pick up my phone, then set it back down on the counter, because Opal will lecture me about how I should be enjoying myself with Killian, and there's nothing worse than a text-lecture.
As if it read my mind, my phone beeps loudly and I turn it over.
"Is it about Chloe?" Killian asks over his shoulder.
I read the text message and set the phone back down on the island. "It's my mother," I say with a sigh.
"Is everything okay?"
I laugh. "Chloe ratted me out."
"About us?" Killian slides a piece of toasted flatbread in front of me. "Voila."
"Yes.” He says us like it’s official. Is there an us? Do I want there to be an us? “That was my mother texting me because I’ve been avoiding talking to her.”
“About me?” Killian says, his eyebrow arched.
“She’s used to me being single.” Nervousness rises in my chest, and I search for a way to change the subject. I take a bite of the flatbread and close my eyes, savoring it because it’s that good. “Oh my God, you can cook.”
“It’s good?” Killian asks. When I open my eyes, he’s watching me expectantly.
“It’s… orgasmic.”
Killian laughs. “Well, I was hoping to make you come during dinner.”
“Whatever you have on the stove smells so good I might be close.”
“Don’t tease a man,” he says, turning back to the stove. “This is all Luke’s doing. He’s the chef of the family. He helped me out here.”
“Luke is your brother?” I ask, even though I know the answer, because I’ve committed to memory each little piece of information he’s told me about himself, little breadcrumbs thrown out here and there.
“Yeah.” He’s silent for a long minute as he stirs stuff on the stove. “I’m taking a break.”
I don't quite follow. “Okay. . . ?”
“From working," he clarifies. "I mean, I was working the rigs – that’s all I’ve done since I was eighteen – and I came back because of… some shit that happened with my family.” He sets down the spatula with a heavy sigh. “Do you want another scotch?”
I nod mutely. The prospect of actually talking about The Thing that I’m sure he’s going to ask about – my dead husband – makes me anxious as hell. Another shot of liquid courage might be just what the doctor ordered.
When Killian returns, he takes a sip from his glass before setting it down and reaching into the refrigerator. “I hope you like trout.”
“Did you catch that yourself?” I tease.
“This morning.”
I laugh. “I was joking, but of course you caught your own meal.”
He’s silent as he pours white wine and orange juice into a saucepan. “Aren’t you going to ask me what shit happened with my family?”
“Is that what you want me to ask you?”
He turns around and leans back against the counter. “Not really.”
I shrug. “Then I won’t ask you.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, because you ought to know. If there’s going to be more of… this or whatever.” He pauses. “I’m surprised the fucking gossips in town haven’t told you my whole life story already.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly popular with the gossips.”
“Yeah, well, neither is the Saint family. I guess maybe we’re more acceptable now, to some people here anyway mostly on account of the fact that we helped bring down the town sheriff and got the mining company out of here. Luke’s girl, Autumn – she owns a cider orchard on the other side of town – she shot the sheriff.”
I take another sip of scotch, butterflies dancing in my stomach. His brother’s girlfriend shot the town sheriff? What the hell am I getting myself into here?
My face must be pale, because Killian shakes his head. “Shit, this sounds worse than it is. I’m not very good at this.”
“You're not very good at talking about how your brother’s girlfriend shot the sheriff?” I tease.
“Hell, talking about any of it.” He pauses to put trout filets into the pan, sending up a plume of steam from the stovetop.
I shrug. “I’m not really good at talking about shit in general.” He turns around, stirring the pans on the stove and turning off the burners for everything except the fish, which he focuses on intently. “I want to tell you this, though. It’s – something I want you to know.”
I take a gulp of the scotch in the tumbler this time, waiting for him to drop a bombshell. He's about to confess he's shot someone, too. Or that he’s been married fifteen times.
Killian’s voice interrupts my panicked thoughts. “People in this town hate us. Not necessarily hate us, I guess. They look down on us. A lot of them still do, I think – even after Elias married River Andrews and everything –“
“River Andrews?” I interrupt.
Killian’s back is still turned to me as he slides food onto two plates. “Yeah, the movie star,” he says nonchalantly. Like it’s no big deal that one of the biggest actresses in Hollywood is married to his brother.
I can’t choke back my laugh.
“That’s funny?” he asks. He sets the plates down on the island. “I present to you Rainbow Trout with an Orange Saffron sauce, lemon jasmine rice, and… vegetables with some kind of fancy butter shit on them."
“Are you sure you’re not a cook? This looks amazing.”
Then he whisks the plates from under my nose, which is good, because in another second I’d have probably drooled on them. “Come on, I set us up outside.”
“Let me grab my sweater.” On the way back through the kitchen with my cardigan, I grab the phone, double-checking to make sure there are no text messages from Opal. Even though I know that Chloe is having fun, a nagging pang of guilt races through me. When I text Opal to make sure everything’s okay, she replies almost immediately.
I’m surprised by your restraint. I expected a frantic text an hour ago.
I text her back.
Haha. How’s Chloe?
She responds by sending a photo of Chloe in the backyard with a huge grin on her face and a watering can in her hand.
She’s just fine. We're about to eat pizza and watch a movie. Get back to your date. I’ll text you before she falls asleep so you can talk to her.
> I reassure myself that I can do this. I can spend a grown-up evening away from my child and it doesn’t make me a bad parent.
Then I go outside and see what exactly Killian set up, and I forget the mom guilt.
“Killian.” I stand there, taking it all in, disbelief painted across my face. The deck behind the house is now bathed in soft light by the strings of bulbs that crisscross back and forth over the deck. In the middle is a wooden table and chairs with place settings and the dinner Killian cooked. Heaters on the corners warm the rapidly cooling early evening air, and music from inside the house softly wafts outside.
“I told you I was going to take you on a proper date.”
“This is… more than a proper date.” The butterflies in my stomach that had been erased by the scotch seem to have made their way right back to their place again, and I sit down wordlessly, still taking it all in. But once I'm sitting there with him, I begin to relax as Killian and I go back and forth with easy banter.
I'm still relaxed even when he starts talking about his family. It helps that dinner is probably the most amazing meal I've had in years, probably ever – mouth-watering, nearly toe-curling, a prelude that only whets my appetite for dessert.
“The details are sordid,” he warns me.
I choke back a laugh. “I know sordid.”
You have no idea.
“Really?” he asks. I don’t think anyone else would notice that he was nervous, not on the outside. But I can tell by the way his muscles twitch around his temple and by the wariness that crosses his face.
“You don’t have to tell me, you know.” When I speak the words, I know they’re true. I think I just might be starting to trust him, and trust from me is a hard thing to come by.
“Well I want to." Then he opens his mouth and words spill out like he can't seem to stop himself once he starts. He tells me about his father, the town drunk who beat his mother – and him, I think, even though he doesn't say as much. He tells me about growing up in West Bend as pariahs in a town so small that the residents decided who you were before you could even walk – and the residents of West Bend had decided a long time ago that the Saint brothers were no good. He tells me about his mother killing his father, and then being murdered because of a corrupt town and a mining company that tried to defraud West Bend residents out of their property.
Judging from the nastiness of the old ladies gossiping outside of my store that day, I'd wager that many of the residents of West Bend hadn't changed their minds about the Saints, either, not even after Killian and his brothers basically saved residents in the town from ruin.
I listen and listen and when he finally finishes telling me everything, he gives me a sheepish look. “So, you know, that’s all of my shit. Pretty much. In case you hear the old ladies in town gossiping about what a no-good son-of-a-bitch I am.”
I shrug. “I’m perfectly capable of deciding you’re a no good son-of-a-bitch on my own.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Besides, even if you’re an ass, you’re a good cook.”
“And I have a big dick.”
I choke on the sip of water I was in the process of taking, and sputter as it goes down the wrong pipe.
“Something funny about that, cupcake?”
“I vaguely recall it being adequate.”
“Vaguely?” he asks, standing and crossing the table until he's in front of me. “Well, maybe I should refresh your memory.”
33
Killian
Lily tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, giving me a look that's a mix of lust and self-consciousness. "Oh?" she asks.
Pushing the side of her chair back, I turn her to face me, dropping to the ground on my knees. I pause for a moment, just because I want to freeze this image in my brain forever Lily, looking at me the way she does right now, her face bathed in the soft glow of the lights that dance across her skin. I just told this woman things no one else in this world knows, other than my brothers, and she didn't even flinch. She didn't get that look in her eyes, the one so many of the people in this town get when they look at me – a mixture of pity and disdain.
In fact, I don't think telling her any of that changed a damn thing.
That makes me like her even more.
I slide my palm over her leg until I reach the inside of her thigh, and she looks down at me, pulling her lower lip between her teeth the way she always does when she's anticipating what I'm going to do next.
I don't think I could ever get tired of seeing that lip between her teeth.
When I spread her legs, sliding her skirt over her thighs, she's bare underneath and the light glistens off her wetness. "You're soaked."
"You cooked for me and gave me scotch," she whispers.
"That's all it takes?" I ask, pulling her to the edge of her seat. I touch my tongue to her, tasting her wetness, but softly, carefully teasing her. She lets out a soft whimper.
"No," she whispers. "I've been wet since you picked me up at my house."
That's it. My self-control goes to shit. I have to have her.
Burying my face between her legs, I fucking devour her. I can't get enough of her, my tongue flicking over her clit, teasing her as I suck it into my mouth until her breathing begins to come in shallow bursts. She runs her hands over my head, pulling me tighter, and when I slide my tongue inside her, she moans so loudly that for a second, I think she might be coming already.
So I stop, pulling away, because I don't want her to come so soon, and she looks at me with hooded eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her short breath. She pulls at my shirt, so I slip it off and toss it to the ground. "Better?"
Lily nods. "I want you in my mouth." She pauses, and her cheeks flush a deep shade of red. "When I come."
I can't help the growl that comes out of my mouth when I hear her speak like that to me. Standing, I unbuckle my belt and drop it to the ground. "Keep touching yourself, Lily," I order. "Rub your clit with your finger. Don’t stop."
Her eyes are on mine, her mouth falling open as she touches herself for me. "Like this?" When she speaks, her voice is breathy.
I unzip my jeans and peel off my boxers, kicking them to the side. My cock throbs as I watch her roll her finger over her clit, her little floral dress hitched up around her. "Just like that," I coach her. I run my hand down my shaft, the pre-cum already dripping in a long strand from the tip. I've been thinking about being inside this woman all night, but watching her touch herself in front of me is a special kind of torture.
The best kind of torture on Earth.
"Undo the top of your dress. I want to see your breasts." I continue to stroke myself as she unbuttons the top of the dress, revealing a lacy white bra that's entirely see-through. Holy fuck.