I reassure myself that I can do this. I can spend a grown-up evening away from my child and it doesn’t make me a bad parent.
Then I go outside and see what exactly Killian set up, and I forget the mom guilt.
“Killian.” I stand there, taking it all in, disbelief painted across my face. The deck behind the house is now bathed in soft light by the strings of bulbs that crisscross back and forth over the deck. In the middle is a wooden table and chairs with place settings and the dinner Killian cooked. Heaters on the corners warm the rapidly cooling early evening air, and music from inside the house softly wafts outside.
“I told you I was going to take you on a proper date.”
“This is… more than a proper date.” The butterflies in my stomach that had been erased by the scotch seem to have made their way right back to their place again, and I sit down wordlessly, still taking it all in. But once I'm sitting there with him, I begin to relax as Killian and I go back and forth with easy banter.
I'm still relaxed even when he starts talking about his family. It helps that dinner is probably the most amazing meal I've had in years, probably ever – mouth-watering, nearly toe-curling, a prelude that only whets my appetite for dessert.
“The details are sordid,” he warns me.
I choke back a laugh. “I know sordid.”
You have no idea.
“Really?” he asks. I don’t think anyone else would notice that he was nervous, not on the outside. But I can tell by the way his muscles twitch around his temple and by the wariness that crosses his face.
“You don’t have to tell me, you know.” When I speak the words, I know they’re true. I think I just might be starting to trust him, and trust from me is a hard thing to come by.
“Well I want to." Then he opens his mouth and words spill out like he can't seem to stop himself once he starts. He tells me about his father, the town drunk who beat his mother – and him, I think, even though he doesn't say as much. He tells me about growing up in West Bend as pariahs in a town so small that the residents decided who you were before you could even walk – and the residents of West Bend had decided a long time ago that the Saint brothers were no good. He tells me about his mother killing his father, and then being murdered because of a corrupt town and a mining company that tried to defraud West Bend residents out of their property.
Judging from the nastiness of the old ladies gossiping outside of my store that day, I'd wager that many of the residents of West Bend hadn't changed their minds about the Saints, either, not even after Killian and his brothers basically saved residents in the town from ruin.
I listen and listen and when he finally finishes telling me everything, he gives me a sheepish look. “So, you know, that’s all of my shit. Pretty much. In case you hear the old ladies in town gossiping about what a no-good son-of-a-bitch I am.”
I shrug. “I’m perfectly capable of deciding you’re a no good son-of-a-bitch on my own.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Besides, even if you’re an ass, you’re a good cook.”
“And I have a big dick.”
I choke on the sip of water I was in the process of taking, and sputter as it goes down the wrong pipe.
“Something funny about that, cupcake?”
“I vaguely recall it being adequate.”
“Vaguely?” he asks, standing and crossing the table until he's in front of me. “Well, maybe I should refresh your memory.”
33
Killian
Lily tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, giving me a look that's a mix of lust and self-consciousness. "Oh?" she asks.
Pushing the side of her chair back, I turn her to face me, dropping to the ground on my knees. I pause for a moment, just because I want to freeze this image in my brain forever Lily, looking at me the way she does right now, her face bathed in the soft glow of the lights that dance across her skin. I just told this woman things no one else in this world knows, other than my brothers, and she didn't even flinch. She didn't get that look in her eyes, the one so many of the people in this town get when they look at me – a mixture of pity and disdain.
In fact, I don't think telling her any of that changed a damn thing.
That makes me like her even more.
I slide my palm over her leg until I reach the inside of her thigh, and she looks down at me, pulling her lower lip between her teeth the way she always does when she's anticipating what I'm going to do next.
I don't think I could ever get tired of seeing that lip between her teeth.
When I spread her legs, sliding her skirt over her thighs, she's bare underneath and the light glistens off her wetness. "You're soaked."
"You cooked for me and gave me scotch," she whispers.