Killian: A West Bend Saints Romance Read online

  Autumn flushes, pink on her cheeks the way she does when she’s self-conscious. Or when she’s… underneath me, her lips slightly parted. I shake off the image that immediately springs to mind. “Thanks,” she says, her voice uncertain.

  Crossing the room, I brush my lips against her cheek as I slide my hand around her waist. “You’re breathtaking,” I say. “Sorry, I lost my words there for a minute.”

  “You?” she asks, a hint of a smile on her lips. “At a loss for words?”

  Autumn plays with Olivia, and I cook for them – grilled chicken and linguini for Olivia, pork chops set aside for us, but only wine right now, until after Olivia eats and plays and has her bath and falls asleep. It’s seven-thirty when Autumn comes downstairs from Olivia’s bedroom. “You didn’t have to do all this,” she says.

  “Pork chops?” I ask, my back toward her while I sear them. “They’re really easy to do, you know. I could show you how.”

  “Oh?” She leans with her elbows back on the counter beside me, her back arching up, pushing her breasts up higher in the air.

  My dick hardens just looking at her. “Not if you keep standing there looking like that,” I say. “I won’t be able to focus on teaching you anything.”

  “Well, not about food, anyway,” she says, smiling.

  “I’m not sure you need help in any other department.”

  “It smells wonderful,” she says. She picks up a bottle on the counter. “Are you cooking with my cider?”

  “I'm using it in a glaze,” I tell her.

  “That’s so cool. I’ve thought about talking to one of the restaurants downtown about doing a seasonal menu with my ciders or something, like a tasting thing.”

  “You should,” I encourage her. “I’m sure one of the restaurants could feature them really well.”

  When we sit down, she takes a mouthful of food and moans. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

  “Nowhere special,” I tell her. “It’s really relaxing.”

  “You should be a chef, you know.”

  I laugh. “You’re the first person to tell me that.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second. I’m sure you’ve been told that a thousand times.”

  I shrug. “I don’t really cook for anyone. Guys I work with, sometimes, but they’re not exactly connoisseurs. And it's never anything fancy. Venison chili, that kind of thing.”

  “When do you have to go back to the smoke jumping?”

  I give a nonchalant shrug. “It’s on and off, you know? I take contracts, work when I can find it, or when I want to.”

  “You don’t ever stay in the same place?”

  “Not… ever,” I answer.

  Shit. Not yet, is what I almost say. What I nearly say, but not quite.

  I never really wanted to before.

  It’s the thought that pops into my head, except I don’t say it.

  25

  Autumn

  “You brought cheesecake?” I watch, dumbfounded as he carries a plate to the living room. “You know you’re already getting laid tonight, right?”

  “Oh, am I?” Luke asks, grinning as he sits beside me. “And here I was, trying to impress the pants off you.”

  “I’m not going to be able to fit in my pants if you keep cooking,” I say as he takes a forkful of the decadent dessert and feeds me a bite. Eyes closed, I savor it. The dessert alone is practically orgasmic – forget about the eye candy sitting inches away from me or how the air between us practically crackles with electricity.

  No one’s ever fed me before. Hell, no man has ever cooked for me before.

  “Salted caramel pecan cheesecake,” he says. “I used your cider for the sauce. What do you think?”

  I open my eyes to look into Luke’s, and heat rushes through me. “I think you’re spoiling me.”

  “Oh, you think this is spoiling? You ain’t seen nothing yet, Red.”

  “I should date younger men more often,” I joke.

  He slides his fingers up my thigh. “No one else,” he says, his hand paused on my thigh.

  “No one else what?” I’m confused, distracted by the fact that his hand is on my thigh, paused, unmoving, radiating warmth through my body, heat that pools between my legs. I want him to keep moving his hand farther up my body. I want his fingers inside me.

  I want more than his fingers inside me.

  I’ve been craving him since the first time he touched me.

  Hell, I’ve been craving him for years before I even met him. I just didn’t know it yet.

  He squeezes my thigh. “You shouldn’t date anyone else,” he says, his voice thick.

  “You shouldn’t tell me what to do.” My voice cracks as his hand inches up further until his thumb reaches the crease between my thigh and pussy.

  “Oh?” His blue eyes train on mine as he grazes my pussy lips lightly with his thumb, so lightly that it’s like a whisper, and it nearly makes me lose my mind. “I think you like me telling you what to do.”

  “You’re crazy,” I whisper. But he finds my clit with his finger, literally pushing my button, and arousal courses through me so intensely that I swear I could come right here, right now, just from his touch.

  “You’re not seeing anyone else.” His finger presses against me, unmoving.

  “You’re the one who’s a player,” I whisper back as he slides his fingers lower. I’m slick between my legs, soaking wet for him.

  “You think this is a game, Red?” He doesn’t wait for a response, plunging two fingers deeply inside me, covering my mouth with his as I moan my answer. I don’t know what my answer is. I’m too drunk with lust to even think about it. I don’t know if it’s a game or not – seducing the single mom – but if it is, I don’t care. I want to play it, if it means he keeps doing what he's doing with his fingers.

  When he pulls his mouth away from mine, my lips are swollen, bruised by his kiss. He continues to stroke me steadily with his fingers until I’m at the brink, driven to the edge by him. “You’re mine.”

  “Oh, God,” I moan. I’m sliding my hands under his shirt, pulling at the fabric, trying to touch his chest, trying to touch all of him, but he won’t let me.

  “Say it,” he demands.

  “I’m yours.” I choke out the words, drunk with lust, but feeling so vulnerable that the words break as I speak them.

  “Fuck.” He utters the word like an exhale, as if he’s been holding it in forever, waiting for me to say the words. “This is mine.”

  “Yes,” I breathe as he strokes me inside, his fingers pressing against the textured part of me, bringing me close to the edge so quickly. I run my hands down his hard chest, feeling his chest muscles flex underneath my fingertips, then down his abdomen and lower, palming his hardness over his jeans. When I reach for his belt buckle, clumsily fumbling with it, desperately wanting him inside me, he pushes my hand away and strokes me harder.

  “I’m yours,” he says, not the least bit hesitating, and the words push me over the edge, immediately and unexpectedly. Luke covers my mouth with his, his tongue finding mine, silencing my moans.

  He doesn’t give me a moment’s reprieve. I’m still throbbing, still fluttering tightly around his fingers when he takes them away, and pulls me on top of him as he falls back to the sofa. Before I can object, before I can say anything, Luke slides his hands underneath my dress and pulls me across his chest. “On my face,” he orders.

  I try to protest, but he doesn’t let me, his response even more insistent as he guides me to straddle him, still trembling from my orgasm. My black dress bunches up around my waist in little piles of silk.

  I'm self-conscious. What the hell am I doing, sitting on this man’s face in the middle of my living room? But once he pulls me down against him, his tongue pressing against my clit and licking me mercilessly, I begin to lose my inhibitions. Slowly, as he fucks me with his tongue, I start to ride him, losing myself in the waves of pleasure that wash over me.

  When