Killian Read online

  "I'm glad to see you're back," one of the older ladies says as I box her up three muffins and a dozen cupcakes. "The cupcakes are for my ladies’ card group," she explains.

  "We'll see if I'm back," I grumble.

  "What you boys did to help Letty with the mining company," Opal says in a hushed tone when there's a lull in traffic in the bakery, "that made you good in my books."

  I grunt. "That was my brothers," I note. "Who's Letty?"

  "An old friend," Opal says. "She's over at the nursing home – excuse me, retirement community. That company was trying to get her property for a song. Now she's got nothing to worry about."

  I nod, even though it was really all my brothers' doing, because Opal seems like she's going somewhere with all of this.

  "I knew your mother, you know."

  And just like that, my mood goes sour. I don't want to talk about my damn parents. "Everybody knows everybody here."

  "When you were a kid, you and I had a run-in," Opal recalls.

  "What?" I don't remember ever meeting Opal.

  "You were a teenager, not really a kid, I guess," she elaborates. "My neighbor's son was Joe Martin."

  I stare at her blankly. I don't know what the hell she's talking about, or what the hell the point of this conversation is. "I've been away from West Bend a long time."

  "That's right. You might not remember him. It was probably nothing to you, but Joe was a good kid – ended up going off to college and studying aerospace something-or-other. I don't know what it is exactly, but his mother says he's a rocket scientist."

  "Huh."

  "I do have a point, sugar," Opal promises. "He was bullied a lot back in school – this would have been ninth grade or so, I think – and I walked out my door to see a fight between him and three other guys."

  I remember this – two asshole juniors were giving this nerdy kid hell – and I was walking by and jumped in. I didn’t know the kid, but if there's one thing I've never been able to stand, it's a bully. We got pushed around enough by my father when we were growing up. I was beating on the two guys who jumped him when this woman ran out of her house, brandishing a baseball bat and yelling at us to leave him alone. I took off when they scattered. The last thing I needed was word getting back to my father that I was in a brawl; I knew what kind of hell I'd pay.

  "I ran you off, but Joe told me it was you who jumped in to save him."

  "That's a long time ago, Opal," I say with a shrug. Why in the world is she dredging up old memories?

  "My point is that you were a good kid who grew up into a good man. A little rough around the edges, but that's nothing."

  I clear my throat, shuffling awkwardly. What the hell do I say to that? No one has ever just up and called me a good man. "Thanks."

  "When Lily gets involved with someone, it should be someone solid. Someone who's going to stick around." She says it casually, like she's talking about the weather and not about a relationship with Lily. I've never been a relationship kind of guy. If Opal is so sensitive to who she thinks I am, how does she not get that?

  The bell on the door jingles and a customer walks in. I take that as my cue to get the hell away from this conversation before it gets even weirder.

  When Lily walks through the door a few minutes later, her eyes meet mine and she pauses for a second. My cock twitches, pressing against the zipper of my jeans at the mere sight of her. I can taste her on my lips, and I swear I'm salivating at the mere thought of tasting her again.

  She's wearing sandals and a skirt like I asked her to wear. It's a purple and black floral thing that skims over her hips and down past her knees, an appropriate length for the store, yet all I can think about is doing very inappropriate things to her. A purple t-shirt clings to her breasts, and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, the same way she wears it every day. And I'm the only one in this place who knows how she moans when I pull her hair.

  "Mr. Saint," she says when she reaches the table, her tone crisp and business-like, as if I'm just another customer.

  Except that I'm the customer whose face was buried between her legs yesterday.

  "Ms. – I don't even know your last name," I realize. Her face colors, and I know immediately what she's thinking – she's thinking that she came on me and I don't know her last name and that means something bad about her.

  "Grant." She gives me a small smile before turning around to head straight for the front counter.

  Fuck. She's skittish. And now she feels badly about what happened.

  When she returns, she sets the glass of iced coffee on my table wordlessly, her eyes meeting mine only when I brush my fingers along the back of her hand. She does that thing where she bites her lip and she clears her throat again. "I have to work," she whispers.

  I'm not sure if she's warning me to leave or telling me to follow her to the kitchen. She sets the cream and sugar on the table and turns, placing the tray on the front counter before disappearing behind the kitchen door.

  I give her a minute before I follow her. Fuck it; even if she's working, watching the girl work is a thousand times better than anything else I was going to do today. She's not inside the kitchen. I find her in her office, filling out paperwork.

  When I reach her, she stands up. "You're like a giant trying to fit into this room," she says. I'm not sure if that's an offhanded remark or a subtle hint to get the hell out.

  "It's not that small." I stand just inside the door, inches away from her, closing it behind me. If she wanted to, she could back up – this room isn't that tiny – but she doesn't. She stands there, her face upturned, looking at me. I'm close enough to breathe her in. Her perfume makes my cock twitch immediately, like I've developed some kind of reflex reaction to her scent.

  "Why'd you come back here?" she asks softly.

  "Why did you wear a skirt?" I ask, my voice low.

  "I don't know."

  "Liar." I reach down to the hem of her skirt, my fingers trailing up the side of her thigh, raising the fabric. "What did you want me to do with this skirt?"

  "You didn't even know my last name, Killian." Her voice cracks but her eyes betray her lust for me. The rest of her fear – that we don't know anything about each other – is unspoken.

  "I do now."

  When she covers my palm with hers, she makes no move to push my hand away, or to slide it farther up her leg. The gesture doesn't feel sexual at all. It feels nice, and that catches me off-guard. Which is probably why I say what I say next.

  "I'm the oldest in my family," I tell her. "I have three brothers – Elias and Silas, twins and Luke. I'm tightest with Luke."

  "Why are you telling me this?" she whispers, her brow furrowed.

  "Because you know nothing about me." I move my hand, hers still on top of mine, higher up her leg until I pause with my fingers near the crease of her thigh. Her eyes search my face, and even though I don't know what she's thinking, I plow ahead anyway. "I like classic rock, can't stand Brussels sprouts, drink far too much coffee and eat too much steak to be good for me, and on Sundays I do the crossword in the paper. Badly."

  "How long?" she asks. The question comes from out of the blue, yet I know exactly what she's talking about. She's asking how long it's been since I've been with someone.

  "A year." My eyes don't leave hers.

  She runs her tongue over her lower lip, and I want to kiss her but I don't. I want her to want me. I want her to want me so badly she squirms.

  "Married?"

  I raise my eyebrows. "Are you really asking me if I'd be here in this office as a married man with my hand where it is right now?"

  Her cheeks turn pink. "I meant ever."

  "No."

  "Clean?" she asks.

  "I was tested a year ago. You?" She nods as I slide my hand closer to her pussy, my fingertips just brushing her cotton panties, but the look that crosses her face makes me pause. “You have a look. What do you want to ask?”

  She exhales heavily. “Have you been