Saving Simon (Tarnished Saints Series Book 5) (14 page)

“What are you doing?” She held on to his shoulders as he first slipped off one of her shoes and then the other. He liked the feel of her hands on his bare skin. She almost looked like she was going to hit him when she realized she was standing in her pantyhose in the middle of an orchard with rotten fruit all around.

“Take a step up on the ladder, sweetheart. I’ll hold it for you. Trust me.”

He guessed he must have said the right words because slowly, one step at a time she climbed the ladder, making her way toward one of the biggest peaches he’d ever seen in his life.

“Grab that big one,” he said, and as she stretched toward it, her short dress rode up and showed off so much thigh he swore he was going to have a heart attack. Either that, or possibly see something else he’d been dreaming of seeing since the day he gave her mouth-to-mouth on the ship.

“This one?” he heard her say, and if he hadn’t been looking at her thighs he would have realized the ladder was tipping. “Got it,” she called out, then turned with a jerk, causing the ladder to topple. She screamed and he reached out quickly and grabbed her before she had the chance to hit the ground. The ladder fell over and he was left with Piper in his arms holding the peach. Instead of hearing her bitching next like he’d expected, she held it up proudly and started to giggle.

“What are you laughing about?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, laughing harder and that caused him to laugh as well. “Want a taste?” Although she held the peach up to his mouth, what he really wanted to taste was not the piece of fruit.

He took a bite and the peach was so juicy it squirted in his eye. He closed his eye and when he did he took a step backward, his foot coming down on the side of the ladder. He fell with Piper in his arms, but kept her from hitting the ground. Instead, she fell atop his chest in a straddling position that he’d been hoping to get her in – but without the clothes.

She was laughing again and this time held up the peach proudly from her prone position, raising up her head to take a bite from the opposite end of the peach. The juices squirted on her this time and ran down her chin.

She went to wipe it away but he grabbed her hand and stopped her. “Let me,” he said. Instead of using his hand, he reached forward with his mouth, slowly licking the juice at the corner of her lips with his tongue, then quickly covering her mouth with his before she could protest, giving her a sensuous kiss.

Piper stopped laughing as soon as she realized Simon was kissing her, and she was laying atop his gloriously hard body with her legs spread over his waist. This was the moment she’d been dreaming about, and when she felt his lips on hers she wanted to melt. He tasted like peaches and smelled like the lake, and for a minute she let down her guard and just basked in the pleasure of kissing Simon.

She didn’t protest, nor did she pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes when their lips  parted, and lifted her chin anxiously awaiting another kiss. He kissed her again, more passionately then the first time, and this time she felt his hands wander to her butt. He squeezed her cheeks and she jerked forward in surprise, feeling his whole hard length pushed up against her now. Then with one more kiss, he slid a hand upward closer to her breast. She anxiously awaited the feel of his fingers squeezing her breast the way he’d done to her bottom end, but he stopped suddenly and pulled his mouth away from hers.

To her disappointment, she heard the sound of the tractor again, and before she could get another kiss, Simon’s brother James pulled up and shut off the motor. She jumped up quickly and with one hand pulled down the hem of her dress, suddenly feeling so exposed. She dropped the peach in the excitement and then disgustingly stepped on it, feeling the pulp squish through her pantyhose and go up between her toes. She would have cried out if she hadn’t still been trying to calm her heart from that sensuous kiss and petting.

Simon followed suit by getting to his feet, and she saw his tongue shoot out and lick his lips. She instinctively found herself doing the same as if they were in the middle of a game of Simon Says. She knew his action was not to taste the peaches, but to taste the essence of her kiss. She felt the same way.

“I came as soon as I heard Old Man MacAllister dropped you off out here. I didn’t want to be late and leave you stranded,” James said with a smile. Then he looked over at her standing in her bare feet in the orchard and yanking down her dress covered with hay and his smile widened. “Then again, maybe I’m too early.”

“Your timing sucks, James,” spat Simon, and Piper said nothing but couldn’t agree with him more.

“So . . . what were you two doing on the ground? Checking out the peaches up close that fell from the tree?” James asked after an awkward moment of silence.

“No! We were just . . . . picking peaches,” she said, bending down and quickly picking up the half-eaten smashed peach, holding it high in her hand.

“It looks like you were enjoying it,” James said, lifting a brow when he noticed the bulge in his brother’s pants.

“I sure as hell was,” said Simon, and she felt very embarrassed. “Were you enjoying it too?” Simon asked her.

“Yes,” she admitted, throwing the peach down and looking at her feet. If she wasn’t still thinking about the kiss, she would have been appalled at what she was really doing just now. “It was the most fun I’ve ever had.”

“I’m glad you like it, cuz it’s not over yet,” James said, getting off the tractor and pulling out a tall stack of bushel baskets from the back.

“What do you mean?” she asked, secretly hoping her intimate time with Simon was far from over.

“Thomas phoned and asked if you could pick an extra dozen bushels. He’s going to teach Angel how he cans his peach preserves, and Levi wants a shitload of peaches to use at the restaurant as well.”

“A dozen bushels?” Piper gasped. “It took us nearly an hour to pick just two.”

“I can see why.” James cocked a smile. “It’ll go a lot faster with the three of us and if you two stop laying down on the job. Besides, you just don’t know how to do it, that’s all. I’ll show you how.”

“Believe me, brother, I know how to do it, and sure as hell don’t need you to show me anything,” grumbled Simon. Piper knew by that comment they were no longer talking about picking peaches.

James picked up the ladder and set it back up. “Well, what are you two waiting for? These peaches aren’t going to pick themselves.”

Piper slowly picked up a basket and headed barefoot to a tree, all the while feeling like she wanted to vomit from the way the ground felt under her feet and the way the peaches were smashed between her toes. Suddenly this wasn’t so fun after all, but the last thing she wanted to do was complain after the intimate moments she’d just shared with Simon. She didn’t want to push him away, she wanted to pull him closer and hopefully continue where they left off. Then she heard Simon complaining to James when he thought she wasn’t listening and her face lit up in a smile when she heard what he said.

“Dammit, James,” he said under his breath. “I finally got her to kiss me and you had to show up and ruin everything.”

“I did you a favor, Simon. If it wasn’t for me you might have done something you’d regret in the morning.”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t have regretted it. It was something I’d been looking forward to for a while now. So just remind me to kill you later, will you?”

Chapter 12

By the time they finished picking all those peaches and taking them off the wagon and loading them into Thomas’s truck, it was late in the afternoon. Piper had gone into the cab of the truck and removed her soiled hose and wiped off her feet and put her shoes back on hours ago. It wasn’t easy walking on that ground with her heels sinking down into the earth, but it was better than going barefoot – something she would never do again if she could help it.

Thomas had showed up near the end and helped them finish. He’d brought two of his sons with him, the twins that Piper remembered were named Josh and Jake.

“So there’s a lot of twins in your family aren’t there?” she asked the boys who looked to be about nine or ten years old.

“Nope, just us,” said one of them, biting into a peach and crawling up into the back of the truck in between the bushels of peaches.

“That’s not true, Josh,” said the other one following suit and getting into the back of the truck as well. “She means that Uncle Zeb and Uncle James are twins too.”

“Don’t forget about Levi’s kids also,” she said. “I’m sorry but I can’t remember their names nor the name of his wife.”

“Levi’s wife’s name is Candace and their kids are Val and Vance,” Thomas told her, closing up the back of the truck and making sure it was secure. Then he turned around and smiled. “If you’d all like to come by the house, everyone is coming over for dessert a little later on.”

“What are you having? Peach pie?” she asked sarcastically, so tired she was feeling slap happy.

“Actually, that’s right.”

“Sorry, I can’t make it,” said James. “I promised to take Mr. MacAllister into town for dinner at the Three Billy Goat’s Diner. It’s his birthday today and he’s all alone.”

“All alone on his birthday? That’s awful,” said Piper, her heart going out to the man. She remembered spending too many birthdays alone and how terribly lonely she’d felt. No one should have to feel that way. “Simon,” she said, turning to look at him. “I haven’t seen the town yet since I’ve been here, only the lake. Can we go with them?”

Simon was surprised that Piper wanted to tag along and even more surprised that she turned to him and basically asked his permission. Almost like they were a couple. He wanted more than anything to do just that, but he knew that he needed to get back to the marina since it was Friday night and vacationers would be rolling in until they closed at sunset.

He also had a lot to do to get his boat ready for tomorrow, because he hadn’t told Piper yet, but he wanted to take her on a sailboat ride.

He’d seen the way she’d turned her nose up at the inside of the cabin, and he couldn’t blame her. It needed a good cleaning and some freshening up. He figured if she could experience it under different conditions, she might actually enjoy it. After all, he’d taken a chance on the peach picking and she ended up liking that. Or at least he thought she did, he wasn’t really sure.

“You go ahead, Piper. I need to get back to the marina. I’ve already imposed enough on Thad and I know Nate needs to get back to his bar.”

“No, you don’t need to be there,” said Thomas. “I’ve already taken care of it. I sent Dan and Sam over to help him so Nate could get to the bar, and I’m going over there as soon as I drop off these peaches to fix that boat motor for Mr. Parsons. So you can take the night off and relax.”

“Really?” he asked, looking up to his older brother.

“Really. Now get your ass over to my place and take a shower so you don’t scare away Piper with the smell you’re emitting right now that could even make one of James’s horses drop dead on contact.”

“Thanks, Thomas. Pippa, I’ll drop you off at the cabin so you can get ready and then I’ll bring your car back to get you and we’ll make a night of it on the town. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like almost as much fun as picking peaches,” she said with a tired looking smile.

He wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that, but he only hoped that before the night was over he’d have at least one more chance to kiss her again.

* * *

Simon had dropped Piper off at the cabin to shower and get ready for dinner, and as much as he wanted to go in and shower there, he decided to be a gentleman and not even ask. Instead, he went over to Zeb’s house to get ready because he didn’t want to deal with all the kids and chaos at Thomas’s. He knew the kids were all home from school already, and would be pestering him with wanting to play or asking him to take them fishing. And hell if he wanted them all pig-piling on top of him again right now. The only person he wanted lying atop him was Piper. Just like she’d done in the orchard.

He still tasted the essence of her lips on his and it was the sweetest ambrosia of the gods for sure. He couldn’t get enough. Just thinking about her had him hard and that’s another reason he opted not to go over to Thomas’s. If little Eli kneed him in the groin again when he was in this condition, it was going to put a damper on the rest of the evening he had planned with Piper.

He stepped out of the bathroom fully clothed in some of Zeb’s clothes that Cat had lent him since he hadn’t had time to go back to the marina to get his. The pants fit fine, but Simon’s muscles were bigger than Zeb’s and he had to opt for wearing a sleeveless shirt in order for it to fit around his upper arms. It wasn’t what he’d choose to wear on a date with Piper, but it was either this or waste precious time going back to the marina when he could be spending that time kissing her instead. He walked through the kitchen dragging a towel over his wet hair. His brother Zeb was already home from his law office for the day, and talking on his cell phone.

“All right, James. Sorry to hear that,” he said into the receiver. “I’ll let Simon know. Bye.” He clicked off the phone and Simon sat down at the kitchen table to talk to him. It was late in the day and already getting dark in the house.