Killian: A West Bend Saints Romance Read online

I groan, reaching into the bedside table to pull out my vibrator. Two years of pent-up frustration is obviously making me crazy.

  Sliding my hand underneath my soft cotton nightshirt, I cover my breast with my palm, trying to bring to mind the image of… someone else, anyone else except Luke Saint. I run through a litany of sexy male movie stars in my head, but all I can see when I close my eyes is that smug, self-assured grin of Luke's.

  I imagine his lips moving across the tops of my breasts, then down lower as he takes my breast in his mouth. I run my fingers over my breast, playing with my nipple, mimicking the way his tongue moves around in circles in my fantasy. When I slide my fingers between my legs, I picture his fingers doing the work that mine are doing on my clit.

  I can practically taste him on my lips as I picture myself taking his cock in my mouth and wrapping my lips around it. His cock is the last thing in the world I should be thinking about, and yet it's the only thing I can think about.

  A small moan escapes my lips as I press my vibrator between my legs against my entrance. I'm wet, a bundle of need and want and ache, and the vibrator isn't what I need or want or ache for.

  When I slip it inside me, I'm imagining Luke between my legs, Luke's cock inside me. I imagine him riding me, my hands on his hard chest as he thrusts inside of me, harder and harder until I'm close to the edge.

  "Come for me, baby," he encourages me, and I come harder and faster than I have in a long time. But when I lie back against the pillow in my bed, the ache between my legs is still there. I'm still not satisfied.

  Damn it, I think. I really need to get laid. But definitely not by Luke Saint.

  He's walking up to the house, his Labrador trailing behind him, and he’s wearing a light blue t-shirt under his jacket that somehow makes his blue eyes look even bluer. The dog runs up onto the porch and Olivia squeals as the dog brushes up alongside her and then licks the side of her face.

  "Olivia," I warn.

  "She's fine," Luke says. "Lucy is real tolerant."

  "Olivia might not be," I say, eyeing her warily. "I'm waiting for her to reach out and grab a handful of fur and yank it. Toddlers can't be trusted, you know. Or… well, I guess you don't know."

  Luke shrugs. "I imagine they're a lot like dogs. Except you're not allowed to kennel the kid, right?" I give him a look and he laughs. "Don't look at me like that. I do know that much about kids, Red."

  "Are you seriously going to come out here and be my foreman?"

  "I've been looking over the orchard."

  "Right now?"

  "Sweetheart, you're up late."

  "It's eight in the morning."

  "I've been here since six. I couldn't sleep."

  "So you just thought you'd come over here and walk around my property?"

  He shrugs. "I needed to take a look around, see what I was up against. Nice piece of land you've got here."

  "Glad you approve."

  "The cidery was too easy to get into, you know," he says. "You've got a lot of expensive equipment sitting out there."

  "It should be locked up," I say, suddenly defensive.

  "Let me guess. That was your foreman's job?"

  "Are you going to keep lecturing me?" I ask. "It was part of his job, as a matter of fact. We had a problem, a couple weeks back, some guys poking around the property."

  "What kind of guys?"

  I wave my hand dismissively. "No big deal. Some guys from that mining company, the one buying up property in town. They came around here wanting to do some surveying. I wasn't here when it happened, and the foreman said he didn't let them on the place."

  "Are you thinking about selling?" Luke asks. "A lot of people around here are, I've heard."

  "So some mining company can come in and tear down the orchard I've just gotten started?" I ask. "Screw that."

  "Alright, then." He walks down the porch steps toward his truck. His dog perks her head up and follows after her owner, leaving Olivia sobbing with disappointment at the fact that her living plaything just trotted off.

  For a second, I think Luke is leaving, but instead he brings two paper bags from his truck and hands me one.

  I look inside. "You brought groceries?"

  "By your cranky-ass demeanor, I'm going to assume you didn't eat breakfast yet. I think they call that haaangry."

  "I was planning on having coffee."

  Luke snorts. "That ain't breakfast. What's wrong with you? Doesn't your kid eat breakfast?"

  A surge of irritation rushes through me, and I take Olivia's hand in my empty one. "Yes, she eats breakfast. She just had oatmeal. Wait, are you just letting yourself inside my house again?"

  Luke holds open the door for me. "Has anyone ever told you that you need a lesson in accepting help?"

  I bristle at his words. "I don't need help, Luke Saint." I follow him into the kitchen. Olivia walks with me, babbling happily: "Saint, Saint."

  "Hah, she's like a little parrot." Luke sets a bag on the kitchen counter and starts removing food items one by one.

  "Which is why you should watch your mouth," I warn him.

  "Me?" He turns around and takes the bag out of my hands. "I think you're just as foulmouthed as I am, and that kid of yours is going to wind up talking filthier than a sailor because of it."

  "I am not!"

  He raises his eyebrows. "If you say so, Red. You've got a naughty side."

  "Wait, is that what all of this is?" I ask, gesturing at the bags on the counter. "This ‘accepting help’ nonsense? Is this your attempt to flirt with me?"

  The corner of his mouth pulls up, and he looks at me with a crooked smile that somehow makes him look more arrogant than before. When he leans in close to me, he speaks low and graveled, and his voice sends a shiver of arousal ricocheting through my body. "Trust me, Red," he says. "When I try to flirt with you, you'll know it."

  I swear that everything that comes out of this man's mouth sounds like it's dripping with sex. I remind myself that this kind of guy is exactly the opposite of what I should be looking for in a man. I should be looking for stable, not oozing-sex-from-every-pore-of-his-body.

  Clearing my throat, I pause before I speak, trying to shake off the lust that I fear will cloud my voice. "Good," I say. "Because if you were flirting, I'd remind you that I'm practically old enough to be your mother."

  Luke chortles, and when Olivia hears him laugh, she claps loudly. "Saint! Saint!" she yells before darting across the tile floor to the other side of the kitchen where she parks herself at the refrigerator, rearranging letter-shaped magnets.

  "See? She thinks that's just as ridiculous as I do," he says. "My mother. You're not that much older than me."

  "Well, I'm too old to have some jock barging into my kitchen and telling me I don't know how to cook or run my orchard."

  Luke looks down at me, his blue eyes flashing. "You're damn uppity for someone who needs something from me."

  Someone who needs something from me. My mind goes immediately to sex and I hate myself for it. "Uppity? I didn't ask you to come in here and cook. Or poke around my orchard."

  He leans in close to me. Too close. I can smell him, soap and aftershave, clean and masculine. "I wasn't poking around," he murmurs, his voice low. "And if I did, you wouldn't be complaining."

  Warmth rushes through me at the thought of Luke poking around anywhere, and I force the thought out of my head. "I don't need you, for the record."

  The way he looks at me makes me blush even harder. "We both know that's not true, Red."

  "I don't," I insist, unable to hide the irritation in my voice. "And this charming little flirting act of yours might work on girls your own age, but it doesn’t work on me."

  Luke grins. "So you admit it's charming, then?"

  "I said it was an act."

  "You said charming." He pulls coffee from his bag. "Now, can you make coffee, or is your coffee just as crap as your food?"

  I take the bag of coffee from his hand, groaning in frustration. "You