Killian: A West Bend Saints Romance Read online

  "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.”

  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