Luke reaches around me with his other hand, shutting off the water. His arm grazes my shoulder and sends a jolt of electricity runs through my body. "This is nowhere near inappropriate, Red," he whispers, his voice quiet, his words barely even audible with his lips pressed against my ear. "Inappropriate would be if I cooked you breakfast in the morning, after you came on my tongue the night before."
I swallow hard, my heart beating so fast I swear it's going to beat right out of my chest. Then he walks back to the counter, nonchalant like he didn't just talk about me coming on his tongue, and busies himself with preparing breakfast. I stand at the sink for a moment, my hand gripping the edge tightly, and when I glance over at him, he looks at me and winks.
Damn it, I think. Hiring him is a very bad idea.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Luke
"Good morning, Autumn!" The front door slams and Olivia squeals, tottering headlong down the hallway. "Hey Liv-livs!"
"In here," Autumn calls.
The girl arrives in the kitchen, with Olivia perched on her hip, and stops short when she looks at me, not even bothering to hide her raised eyebrows. "Oh," she says, smiling. "I didn't know you had company."
"He's not company," Autumn says, shaking her head. Autumn's face flushes nearly as red as her hair, and she looks guilty as sin, like we were caught with our pants down around our ankles or something.
Not that I haven't been thinking about what that would be like with this woman.
There's just something about that uptight, haughty attitude that makes me want to get her to let loose. She's not even my type – too straight-laced for my taste – yet all I could think about after I left her place last night was running my hands down her sweet curves, covering my mouth with hers.
"Greta Hayward, meet Luke Saint," Autumn is saying, her voice interrupting my thoughts. "He's the new foreman," Autumn says. "I think. He helped with the fire."
"I'm a smoke jumper."
Autumn turns toward me. "You are?"
Greta clears her throat. "It looks like you have some business to take care of," she says. She gives Autumn a wide-eyed look that I definitely don't mistake. She's giving us space because she thinks there's something going on between us.
Autumn apparently doesn't notice that look. "You're a smoke jumper," she says.
"Yup."
"So you already have a job," she says. "You don't need this one."
I shrug. "I do and I don't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks. "God, you're infuriating."
"I'm infuriating because I have a job?"
"No, you're infuriating because you don't give a straight answer to any question."
"Maybe you should stop being nosy, and I'll stop being evasive."
Autumn exhales heavily, and gives me a look out of the corner of her eye – pure irritation --that just makes me laugh. "You're already the worst employee ever."
"I can be a better one," I say softly, not bothering to disguise the innuendo evident in my tone.
What the hell is wrong with me? She's older, has a kid, and is completely not the kind of woman I need to be fucking around with.
Autumn's eyes widen, and when she stands up, I do something stupid. Reckless. I reach out and take hold of her wrist to stop her.
"What are you doing?" she asks, looking down at me. I'd think she was pissed, except the way she looks at me with big eyes, the sharp inhale of breath, makes me absolutely sure she's not angry at all.
I turn her hand over, slowly tracing the inside of her wrist with my finger, and then running it across her palm. By the time I reach the middle of her hand, her eyes close softly, just for a second, like she's blinking except it's just a moment too long to be that innocuous. She's enjoying my touch. Savoring it.
Her lips part, just slightly, and I think I hear her moan, so softly I'm not quite sure. The fact that she's so turned on by my touching her hand makes me want to fucking explode, my cock rigid against the zipper of my jeans.
It's been a long time since she's been touched by anyone, I can tell that immediately. That fact makes her vulnerable. She's been burned.
That fact makes her the kind of girl I shouldn't be putting my hands on, not at all. That fact makes her the kind of girl I shouldn't be thinking about the way I'm thinking right now.
I'm not the kind of guy a girl like her needs.
I pull my hands away from hers and clear my throat. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
***
"Are you sure you want this job?" Autumn walks ahead of me through the orchard, between the rows of apple trees.
"Temporarily," I note. "Until you find someone more permanent."
"Why?" She pauses to look at me, shielding her eyes from the sun.
"Because there's no sense in you winding up burning down this damn property on account of a no good foreman."
"You sure you've got nowhere else to be?" she asks.
She asks like she's interested, like she wants to know the answer to why I'm hanging around West Bend. She has no idea what a complicated fucking answer that is. Shit, it's more than complicated. It's just plain ol' fucked up.