His Saint (Forever Wilde 5)

I couldn’t finish the question. My eyes skittered here, there, everywhere but made damned sure not to catch Saint’s own gray-blue gaze.

A throaty chuckle came from his chest. “Babe. You’ve already met my family around town. Why are you being strange about this?”

I snuck a glance at him and swallowed hard. “What will they think I’m there for?”

Saint’s eyes narrowed. “Chili. They’ll think you’re there for dinner, Augie.”

I turned to punch random numbers into my cash register tablet as if I was busy ringing up twelve customers at once instead of the zero customers who were in my store at the moment.

“I’m not hungry,” I said lamely. “I never really liked chili. And also, bonfires are the leading cause of forest fires.”

My entire body broke out in a sweat, and my stomach lurched. What was I doing? And why couldn’t I shut up?

I heard him shift and stalk closer to me. Warm hands slid from my hips to my stomach, pulling me gently until my back rested against Saint’s chest and his chin nudged my hair.

“You’re not hungry because you just had lunch. This is tomorrow night’s dinner we’re talking about. You have plenty of time to get hungry for it. There will be other things there besides chili. And the forest fire thing is complete bullshit, not to mention the fact my brother Otto will be there. And he’s an actual firefighter.”

I clenched my teeth.

“Augie, if you don’t want to go out with me, you can just say so.”

The disappointment in his voice surprised me. Maybe this actually meant something to him.

“It’s not that,” I admitted, turning to look at him. “I’ve just never… um. I’ve never been introduced to a family as somebody’s something before. And I didn’t know whether you… I mean, are we… that is to say, I don’t need to be somebody’s something. I don’t want to assume that there’s anything going on that needs to be defined or… labeled. Because that’s just unnecessariness—”

Unnecessariness? Stop talking, you idiot.

I felt like I was probably going to vomit and shit myself simultaneously, which would explain Saint’s attraction to me.

If he was insane.

“I would love to introduce you to my family as someone I’m currently seeing, but if that’s uncomfortable for you, I could always introduce you as a friend. Which is silly, honestly, considering they already know you and you won’t need to be introduced to anyone anyway.”

Currently seeing.

That sounded both wonderful and temporary. I silently debated what would happen if anyone in my family found out I was officially “seeing” a man.

“Yeah, okay,” I kind of squeaked. “That’s good. Food, family, and fire. Did you know those ancient rituals have remained the same for tens of thousands of years?”

Fuck. Not historical facts. Not now.

I continued for the sake of clarification. “Longer than that, really. Evidence shows humans have been controlling fire for around a million years. Or, more accurately, 700,000 years according to evidence found in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.” I cleared my throat to continue when I saw Saint’s lips pressed together and his eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. I let out a noisy breath. “Asshole,” I muttered.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said with a sweet smile. “And that’s not easy for me to say considering you’re cute as hell when you’re nervous.”

“Shut up.”

“Even though we’ve established its unnecessariness, is it okay with you that I call you my date?”

“Why do I even give you the time of day?”

I pretended to rearrange the pair of large bronze candelabra on a nearby table. Saint stalked me again, pulling me into his embrace and bending over to nip at the spot on my neck he knew drove me crazy.

“Oh god,” I whispered as a shiver ran through me. “Cheater.”

“Holy mother of pearl, what is happening in here?” The familiar high-pitched screech of Stevie Devore shot through the room from the shop doorway. Saint and I jumped apart—me with my hand on my heart and Saint with a hand at his side where I’d sometimes seen him carrying a weapon in a holster. Today there was no weapon.

“Jesus, Stevie,” I called out. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Looks like Mr. Wilde here was scaring the spit out of you, more like,” Stevie said with a wink as he sauntered over toward me. “You two trying something on? Not that I can blame you—Saint here is hot stuff. Not that I’d notice, mind you. I have a hot fire chief at home.”

“Damned straight,” Chief Paige muttered from the doorway. “Can you stop racing ahead? I swear you move at the speed of actual speed.”

Stevie looked back over his shoulder at the older man. “Keep up, Daddy, or I’ll have to trade you in for a younger model.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Gramps?”

“Mpfh.” The sexy fire chief leaned over to scoop up Milo from his spot in an overstuffed armchair. “Hiya, cutest. Give me some love.”