everyone here calls it a highway even though it’s nothing more than a two-lane road heading out of town - and I mean to ask where we’re going exactly, but I don’t.
"Don't you know your fairytales?" I tease.
Killian laughs. "I think it's very safe to assume that the answer to that question is definitely fuck no."
"Except you know who the Beast was."
"A misunderstood loner living by himself in a castle? I empathize with him."
I snort. "So you fancy yourself misunderstood?"
"I have many layers. Like an onion,” he says, his tone indignant.
"You're smelly and you make people cry?"
"Tell me you haven't cried over me."
I sniff. "You're awfully full of yourself, aren't you? You think I've cried over you?"
"With frustration?"
I choke back a laugh. "Okay, I can imagine you drive lots of people to sob with frustration."
"Exactly."
"But not me,” I add.
"Not even when I put the rules up at the bakery?"
"Were you trying to make me cry?"
"Of course not. I'm just saying that you were probably pretty frustrated obviously because of your intense sexual attraction to me. Having to be around a man this intoxicatingly good-looking really had to be difficult."
"Yes, that was clearly the source of my frustration."
“It’s hard to lust after something you can’t have.”
I snort. “I’m pretty sure I could have had you any time I wanted, caveman.”
“Just so we’re clear, cupcake,” he says, glancing over at me with a grin, “you can have me anytime, anywhere.”
He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively before turning his attention back to the road.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Likewise, caveman.'”
31
Killian
There are a few minutes of laughing and bantering back and forth in the truck before Lily turns to ask if we're headed to my cabin.
"You said you didn't want to be seen in public with me."
"I did not say it like that," she protests, shaking her head. "Not exactly."
"It's alright. I'm not offended in the least that you want to keep me your dirty little secret." Lily punches me playfully in the arm. "Your boy toy."
"Stop," she says, laughing.
"Your sex slave."
"You wish you were my sex slave."
"Yes, ma'am, I do."
"You know, this is like the beginning of every bad thriller ever," she notes as we turn down Burnt Pine Road and begin the winding climb up the mountain.
"Bad thriller?" I ask. "I was hoping it was more like awesome porno."
"Very romantic," she says. "This is the part of the thriller where the girl goes to the remote mountain cabin with the questionable man and you scream at the screen, 'No, don't do it!'"
"Who are you calling questionable?"
She laughs, but she doesn't answer.
"I'm kidding. This isn't the start of a porno," I say, pausing. "Unless you want it to be, I mean."
"We'll see how the date goes."
"That sounds promising," I admit. "Just so you know, I do put out on dates."
She laughs. "Just the words I wanted to hear."
I cover her thigh with my palm, keeping myself from not sliding it further until it's between her legs the way I want to do. She shifts at my touch, squirming the way I know she does when she's turned on. It's all I can do to keep my eyes on the road and refrain from pulling over to the side to debauch her. But I'm determined to have a real date, the kind I think she wants. Something respectable, that shows her I'm not just trying to land her in bed.
I'm definitely trying to land her in bed, though. It's just that – and this is a surprise to me I think I want more from her.
"We're almost there." I put my hand back on the steering wheel and clear my throat.
"What made you pick a cabin way up here?" she asks.
I shrug. "I wanted to be alone, I guess. Didn't want to be bothered with people."
She nods. "Yet you decided to keep coming down to the bakery and bugging me."
"You didn't annoy me."
She laughs. "I definitely couldn't say the same thing about you."
"I only annoyed you because you were so hot for me. Just admit it."
"Fine. I was a little bit hot for you."
"I knew it."
"Don't let that knowledge go to your head." I snort, and she laughs. "Don't even say it."
"I said nothing."
"You were going to ask which head I meant."
"You have a dirty mind." I make my voice as innocent-sounding as possible, when in reality my mind is as far from innocent as it can be. I force my eyes back onto the road, and definitely not on Lily and the way her long legs look in that little floral dress. Or the way her light blue button-down sweater should make her look more conservative but somehow fails to do so, making her look sultry and sexy instead and failing to disguise the way the fitted top drops low on her breasts. Her hair falls down her shoulders, one lock across the front of her chest, the tip disappearing just inside the top of her dress. I want to follow it with my fingers, then slip that cardigan off her shoulders. . .
I clear my throat, shifting in the seat to disguise the fact that I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about undressing her. I'm trying to behave myself, to show her that I'm not a complete and total Neanderthal.
I'm completely screwed.
We pull into the driveway. "Your cabin looks really nice."
I spent yesterday finishing up all my of unfinished projects and cleaning up the cabin so it would be suitable for a date -- at least, the kind of date I think a woman like Lily should have. I lined the driveway with solar lights and strung lighting over the back deck.
Luke helped me create a dinner menu today and prep all of the ingredients. That's right. A fucking dinner menu. One that doesn't include something I hunted. All right, but it does include fish I caught from the river early this morning.
Can't take the mountain out of the man entirely.
Opening the passenger side of the truck, I take Lily's hand as she steps out, my heart suddenly starting to thump faster. Shit, I'm nervous more nervous than when I showed up at her house. I'm definitely more nervous than when I was fucking her.
Why the hell am I so nervous all of a sudden?
She pauses in the middle of the driveway, looking up. "The sky is just so. . . big out here."
"Yep. I like to sit on the deck at night." Standing behind her, I draw her against me, my hand sliding to her abdomen, and she shivers. My cock twitches and I try to focus on anything except the way she smells when I breathe her in something just barely floral, lilac I think.
"I bet the view of the stars out here is just fantastic at night."
"It is. You'll see as soon as it gets dark. There are so few lights out here, they're perfect. It was a selling point of the cabin. Come on."
I walk to the cabin with her, only because I'm afraid if I stand there with my arms around Lily much longer I'll be stripping her down right there in the driveway. She stops just inside the cabin door, unmoving as she looks around, her hands clutched together. Shit, she's just as nervous as I am.
"You can come inside, you know," I tease. "I'll even give you the ten-dollar tour if you want. It's not much, but I made it, so I'm proud of it."
"You made this?" She shrugs off her sweater and I take it from her hands, laying it across the top of my leather armchair when we reach the living room.
"Not entirely," I explain. "I bought it off this guy Bill Dunham, this older guy. His wife died a few years ago and his kids came to take him to move in with them. The mountain was just too harsh for him anymore, and this place was too much for him to take care of. It had really gone to rot, but the bones of it were still here. I tore out a lot of it and reworked it myself."
She still stand
s, rooted in place, her hands still clutched together. "It's. . ." She exhales heavily. "Thanks for bringing me up here."
"Do you want a drink?" I blurt out the question. "I have wine."
Lily raises her eyebrows. "Do you drink wine?"
I can feel my face warm. "Not really."
She laughs. "You bought wine for me?"
I shrug. "I drink beer. Or scotch."
"Scotch sounds great."
I turn to pour a finger from my good bottle into two glasses and hand one to her. "Shit, if you tell me you smoke cigars, I'm just going to marry you right now."
Oh, hell. Why did I just say that? I sound like a babbling idiot.
"Luckily for you, I don't smoke cigars," she says, bringing the glass to her lips. "This is good. You have good taste, caveman."
"I know." My eyes lock on hers, and my nervousness begins to subside as the scotch warms my stomach. I clear my throat because I'm in grave danger of ripping this girl's clothes off right now and taking her up against the wall.
Dinner. I'm supposed to cook her dinner. "Dinner. Or I can show you the cabin."
She laughs. "You mean, show me your bedroom?"
"Okay, we'll save the tour for later. For the record, though, I have no intention of taking you to my bedroom."
She sips from her glass. "I thought you put out on dates."
“I do. But what would be the fun of taking you straight to my bedroom?” Standing close to her, I look down into those big eyes of hers. Her lips fall open slightly, and I can't resist the urge to kiss the fuck out of her.
Hey, I'm only human.
Tilting her chin up, I bring my lips to hers, intending to kiss her softly, chastely, the way a man kisses a girl he respects. Except that the second I touch my lips against hers, she lets out this small moan, arching so her hips press against mine, and I can't help it. My tongue finds hers and before I know it, I'm kissing the hell out of her, the way a man kisses a girl he wants to rip the panties off of and bend over the nearest flat surface.
I pull away, my cock throbbing in my jeans, before I do just that. When I stop, Lily brings her fingertips to her lips. "Well," she says.
"So. Dinner?" I ask, stepping back from her, making no attempt to disguise my hardness.
Her gaze falls to my pants, then she looks up at me again. "I know what I want to eat."
"Shit, Lily."
She laughs nervously. "Too much?"
I slide my hand around her back, pulling her against me again. "Definitely not too much. But I'm cooking you dinner."
"You made dinner?"
"I told you," I say, stepping back from her and putting a good foot of distance between us. "I have to be wined and dined before I put out."
Lily laughs. "Okay. No means no. I'll respect your boundaries."
"Thank you." I grin. Screw boundaries. "And don't be impressed yet. I haven't actually cooked dinner. There's still enough time to fuck it up."
"Who said I was impressed?" she teases. At least, I think she's teasing.
I reach for the remote and hit 'play.' Music comes over the speakers, the Allman Brothers singing about sweet Melissa. I look at Lily with my eyebrows raised and she laughs. "You're really working it."
I pause in the kitchen. "You can hang out in the living room if you want."
"Hang out and put my feet up while a hot guy cooks for me?" she asks. "It's very tempting. But I'll follow you into the kitchen and ogle you instead."
"I look damn good in an apron, if I do say so myself."
"Lazy is the last word that comes to mind when I think of you, you know," she says. "Although you haven't told me what it is that you do, exactly."
"I already told you. I bring unsuspecting women to the cabin and chop them into pieces." I turn on the oven to preheat, then pull the flatbread topped with rosemary and honey from the refrigerator and set it on the counter beside the stove before turning around.
"Funny. I meant, for work." She pauses, running her hand along the top of the island in the center of the kitchen. “Wow, this island is really beautiful.”
“I made it.”
“You made the island, too?”
I shrug. “It’s pretty easy when you’re already building a cabin. What’s one more project?”
“I guess so.” Lily pulls out one of the tall stools and sits down. “How long did it take you to do all of this?”
“A couple of months. Since I came back.” I turn to slide the flatbread into the oven because it needs to go in, but also because I’m not sure what I want to tell her. Or how much of my fucked up life and my fucked up family she’ll be able to handle before she high-tails it right the hell out of here. I'm enjoying having her here; I'd rather not have her go running just yet.
“You did all of this in a few months? That’s incredible. I mean, I don’t know how long it takes to build a cabin, so maybe that’s just par for the course. But it seems pretty awesome.”
I take the pre-prepped ingredients for the two side dishes – jasmine rice with lemon and sautéed vegetables with a butter something-or-other sauce – from the refrigerator, followed by everything I’ve prepped for the main dish – rainbow trout with an orange saffron sauce. I set it all out on the counter. Luke gave me specific instructions for which order to make all of this stuff in, and I’m trying to be sly about not relying on the notes I scratched on a piece of paper that’s folded in my back pocket. I’m trying to impress her with my culinary skills.
I’m trying to impress her with a lot of things.
“Nah, it’s pretty awesome,” I joke. I pause for a minute, surveying the ingredients, but really gathering up the courage to actually talk about myself. I don’t talk about myself. The last time I talked to anyone about anything significant was telling Silas why I left West Bend when I did. “I worked the rigs out in Texas. I’m an oil rigger. That’s what I do. Or did, anyway.”
Why is it so hard to say that? I’ve never cared one whit about what anyone thought about me, but I’m suddenly holding my breath, expecting her to wrinkle her nose and call me a white trash hillbilly or something.
Instead, she takes a sip from her glass. “Cool.”