Killian: A West Bend Saints Romance (18 page)

T
here are
a few minutes of laughing and bantering back and forth in the truck before Lily turns to ask if we're headed to my cabin.

"You said you didn't want to be seen in public with me."

"I did
not
say it like that," she protests, shaking her head. "Not
exactly
."

"It's alright. I'm not offended in the least that you want to keep me your dirty little secret." Lily punches me playfully in the arm. "Your boy toy."

"Stop," she says, laughing.

"Your sex slave."

"You wish you were my sex slave."

"Yes, ma'am, I do."

"You know, this is like the beginning of every bad thriller ever," she notes as we turn down Burnt Pine Road and begin the winding climb up the mountain.

"Bad thriller?" I ask. "I was hoping it was more like awesome porno."

"Very romantic," she says. "This is the part of the thriller where the girl goes to the remote mountain cabin with the questionable man and you scream at the screen, 'No, don't do it!'"

"Who are you calling questionable?"

She laughs, but she doesn't answer.

"I'm kidding. This isn't the start of a porno," I say, pausing. "Unless you want it to be, I mean."

"We'll see how the date goes."

"That sounds promising," I admit. "Just so you know, I
do
put out on dates."

She laughs. "Just the words I wanted to hear."

I cover her thigh with my palm, keeping myself from not sliding it further until it's between her legs the way I want to do. She shifts at my touch, squirming the way I know she does when she's turned on. It's all I can do to keep my eyes on the road and refrain from pulling over to the side to debauch her. But I'm determined to have a real date, the kind I think she wants. Something respectable, that shows her I'm not just trying to land her in bed.

I'm definitely trying to land her in bed, though. It's just that – and this is a surprise to me — I think I want more from her.

"We're almost there." I put my hand back on the steering wheel and clear my throat.

"What made you pick a cabin way up here?" she asks.

I shrug. "I wanted to be alone, I guess. Didn't want to be bothered with people."

She nods. "Yet you decided to keep coming down to the bakery and bugging me."

"You didn't annoy me."

She laughs. "I definitely couldn't say the same thing about you."

"I only annoyed you because you were so hot for me. Just admit it."

"Fine. I was a little bit hot for you."

"I knew it."

"Don't let that knowledge go to your head." I snort, and she laughs. "Don't even say it."

"I said nothing."

"You were going to ask which head I meant."

"You have a dirty mind." I make my voice as innocent-sounding as possible, when in reality my mind is as far from innocent as it can be. I force my eyes back onto the road, and definitely not on Lily and the way her long legs look in that little floral dress. Or the way her light blue button-down sweater should make her look more conservative but somehow fails to do so, making her look sultry and sexy instead and failing to disguise the way the fitted top drops low on her breasts. Her hair falls down her shoulders, one lock across the front of her chest, the tip disappearing just inside the top of her dress. I want to follow it with my fingers, then slip that cardigan off her shoulders. . .

I clear my throat, shifting in the seat to disguise the fact that I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about undressing her. I'm trying to behave myself, to show her that I'm not a complete and total Neanderthal.

I'm completely screwed.

We pull into the driveway. "Your cabin looks really nice."

I spent yesterday finishing up all my of unfinished projects and cleaning up the cabin so it would be suitable for a date -- at least, the kind of date I think a woman like Lily should have. I lined the driveway with solar lights and strung lighting over the back deck.

Luke helped me create a dinner menu today and prep all of the ingredients. That's right. A fucking dinner menu. One that doesn't include something I hunted. All right, but it
does
include fish I caught from the river early this morning.

Can't take the mountain out of the man entirely.

Opening the passenger side of the truck, I take Lily's hand as she steps out, my heart suddenly starting to thump faster. Shit, I'm nervous more nervous than when I showed up at her house. I'm definitely more nervous than when I was fucking her.

Why the hell am I so nervous all of a sudden?

She pauses in the middle of the driveway, looking up. "The sky is just so. . .
big
out here."

"Yep. I like to sit on the deck at night." Standing behind her, I draw her against me, my hand sliding to her abdomen, and she shivers. My cock twitches and I try to focus on anything except the way she smells when I breathe her in something just barely floral, lilac I think.

"I bet the view of the stars out here is just fantastic at night."

"It is. You'll see as soon as it gets dark. There are so few lights out here, they're perfect. It was a selling point of the cabin. Come on."

I walk to the cabin with her, only because I'm afraid if I stand there with my arms around Lily much longer I'll be stripping her down right there in the driveway. She stops just inside the cabin door, unmoving as she looks around, her hands clutched together. Shit, she's just as nervous as I am.

"You can come inside, you know," I tease. "I'll even give you the ten-dollar tour if you want. It's not much, but I made it, so I'm proud of it."

"You made this?" She shrugs off her sweater and I take it from her hands, laying it across the top of my leather armchair when we reach the living room.

"Not entirely," I explain. "I bought it off this guy Bill Dunham, this older guy. His wife died a few years ago and his kids came to take him to move in with them. The mountain was just too harsh for him anymore, and this place was too much for him to take care of. It had really gone to rot, but the bones of it were still here. I tore out a lot of it and reworked it myself."

She still stands, rooted in place, her hands still clutched together. "It's. . ." She exhales heavily. "Thanks for bringing me up here."

"Do you want a drink?" I blurt out the question. "I have wine."

Lily raises her eyebrows. "Do you drink wine?"

I can feel my face warm. "Not really."

She laughs. "You bought wine for me?"

I shrug. "I drink beer. Or scotch."

"Scotch sounds great."

I turn to pour a finger from my good bottle into two glasses and hand one to her. "Shit, if you tell me you smoke cigars, I'm just going to marry you right now."

Oh, hell.
Why did I just say that? I sound like a babbling idiot.

"Luckily for you, I don't smoke cigars," she says, bringing the glass to her lips. "This is good. You have good taste, caveman."

"I know." My eyes lock on hers, and my nervousness begins to subside as the scotch warms my stomach. I clear my throat because I'm in grave danger of ripping this girl's clothes off right now and taking her up against the wall.

Dinner. I'm supposed to cook her dinner.
"Dinner. Or I can show you the cabin."

She laughs. "You mean, show me your bedroom?"

"Okay, we'll save the tour for later. For the record, though, I have no intention of taking you to my bedroom."

She sips from her glass. "I thought you put out on dates."

“I do. But what would be the fun of taking you straight to my bedroom?” Standing close to her, I look down into those big eyes of hers. Her lips fall open slightly, and I can't resist the urge to kiss the fuck out of her.

Hey, I'm only human.

Tilting her chin up, I bring my lips to hers, intending to kiss her softly, chastely, the way a man kisses a girl he respects. Except that the second I touch my lips against hers, she lets out this small moan, arching so her hips press against mine, and I can't help it. My tongue finds hers and before I know it, I'm kissing the hell out of her, the way a man kisses a girl he wants to rip the panties off of and bend over the nearest flat surface.

I pull away, my cock throbbing in my jeans, before I do just that. When I stop, Lily brings her fingertips to her lips. "Well," she says.

"So. Dinner?" I ask, stepping back from her, making no attempt to disguise my hardness.

Her gaze falls to my pants, then she looks up at me again. "I know what I want to eat."

"Shit, Lily."

She laughs nervously. "Too much?"

I slide my hand around her back, pulling her against me again. "Definitely not too much. But I'm cooking you dinner."

"You made dinner?"

"I told you," I say, stepping back from her and putting a good foot of distance between us. "I have to be wined and dined before I put out."

Lily laughs. "Okay. No means no. I'll respect your boundaries."

"Thank you." I grin.
Screw boundaries.
"And don't be impressed yet. I haven't actually cooked dinner. There's still enough time to fuck it up."

"Who said I was impressed?" she teases. At least, I think she's teasing.

I reach for the remote and hit 'play.' Music comes over the speakers, the Allman Brothers singing about sweet Melissa. I look at Lily with my eyebrows raised and she laughs. "You're really working it."

I pause in the kitchen. "You can hang out in the living room if you want."

"Hang out and put my feet up while a hot guy cooks for me?" she asks. "It's very tempting. But I'll follow you into the kitchen and ogle you instead."

"I look damn good in an apron, if I do say so myself."

"
Lazy
is the last word that comes to mind when I think of you, you know," she says. "Although you haven't told me what it is that you
do
, exactly."

"I already told you. I bring unsuspecting women to the cabin and chop them into pieces." I turn on the oven to preheat, then pull the flatbread topped with rosemary and honey from the refrigerator and set it on the counter beside the stove before turning around.

"Funny. I meant, for work." She pauses, running her hand along the top of the island in the center of the kitchen. “Wow, this island is really beautiful.”

“I made it.”

“You made the island, too?”

I shrug. “It’s pretty easy when you’re already building a cabin. What’s one more project?”

“I guess so.” Lily pulls out one of the tall stools and sits down. “How long did it take you to do all of this?”

“A couple of months. Since I came back.” I turn to slide the flatbread into the oven because it needs to go in, but also because I’m not sure what I want to tell her. Or how much of my fucked up life and my fucked up family she’ll be able to handle before she high-tails it right the hell out of here. I'm enjoying having her here; I'd rather not have her go running just yet.

“You did all of this in a few months? That’s incredible. I mean, I don’t know how long it takes to build a cabin, so maybe that’s just par for the course. But it seems pretty awesome.”

I take the pre-prepped ingredients for the two side dishes – jasmine rice with lemon and sautéed vegetables with a butter
something-or-other
sauce – from the refrigerator, followed by everything I’ve prepped for the main dish – rainbow trout with an orange saffron sauce. I set it all out on the counter. Luke gave me specific instructions for which order to make all of this stuff in, and I’m trying to be sly about not relying on the notes I scratched on a piece of paper that’s folded in my back pocket. I’m trying to impress her with my culinary skills.

I’m trying to impress her with a lot of things.

“Nah, it’s pretty awesome,” I joke. I pause for a minute, surveying the ingredients, but really gathering up the courage to actually talk about myself. I don’t talk about myself. The last time I talked to anyone about anything significant was telling Silas why I left West Bend when I did. “I worked the rigs out in Texas. I’m an oil rigger. That’s what I do. Or
did
, anyway.”

Why is it so hard to say that? I’ve never cared one whit about what anyone thought about me, but I’m suddenly holding my breath, expecting her to wrinkle her nose and call me a white trash hillbilly or something.

Instead, she takes a sip from her glass. “Cool.”

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 text her back.

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.

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.”