Sheer Luck (2 page)

Ten, nine...

I’d turned, ready to head to my mystery
woman’s corner to, at the very least, get her name. Are you seeing
the pattern? Can you guess what happened next?

Eight, seven...

Yeah, luck had never been on my side and,
combine that with the family curse, I’d been screwed from the first
blink of her baby blues. She was destined to be an elusive,
intangible blip in my life—a cock and mind tease to the nth
degree.

Six, five...

I’d set my glass on a passing waiter’s tray
and strode to where I’d last seen her. Pissed off, I’d turned
three-hundred and sixty degrees.

Four, three...

I’d woven through the bodies. Checked the
hallway and front foyer.

Two, one...

Gone, baby, gone.

Happy New Year
it was not. I’d
searched the grounds, the street, asked the doormen. She had
dissolved into the night like she had vanished the last two times
I’d encountered her.

Three plus months had passed since then.
Little more than a week before the dreaded St. Patrick’s Day
holiday, and I sat in my brother’s pub, at a high top table with
two of my best former college buddies, scaling the joint for my
next conquest. My heart wasn’t in it. Truth be told, I hadn’t had a
woman since the second time I’d encountered
her
right before
Christmas. Hell of a dry spell for me.

Heath was married and had kid number one on
the way. He was ensnared in Josh’s tale of Valentine’s gone wrong.
A perpetual bachelor, like myself, Josh relayed his credence to
never date on Cupid’s day. I pretty much chalked the
hearts-and-shit holiday to an excuse for Hallmark to sell more
cards.

I sipped my whiskey, half-listening to my
mates. The place was pretty busy for a Friday night. It was ladies
night and there were plenty of them. Only a few open tables
remained, coupled with a handful of bar stools. Desperation clung
to the air. Ice clanked in glasses. Laugher rose over the Celtic
music playing through the speakers.

My brother knew how to run a great pub, that
was for sure. Gleaming, polished wood, green leather seats, a stone
hearth in the corner. Brass fixtures reflected the old-world
lanterns. Irish Eyes had been quite the success in the ten years
since Aiden had opened.

The familiar jangle of the door, followed by
a brisk, cold blast of air, barely registered in my head. I swirled
the ice in my glass, ready to call it a night, despite the early
hour and me not needing to work in the morning. I’d turned in a few
articles at the newspaper this morning, so I was good for a couple
weeks.

“Serious potential, nine o’clock,” Josh
said.

Sighing, I lifted my head, glanced at the
door, and stilled. No goddamn way. “Son of a bitch. It’s her.”

“Her who?” Heath asked, following my
gaze.

“The woman from the park.” Edging forward, I
watched as she stripped out of a blue raincoat and set it on the
back of a stool. Leaning over the bar, she kissed my brother on the
cheek and took a seat. Tonight she had on a red T-shirt and a pair
of skinny jeans that did fan-fucking-tastic things for her legs. I
couldn’t make out what the shirt said from here. Her hair was in a
high ponytail, little wisps floating around her face.

“Are you serious?”

Unwilling to lose sight of her again, lest
she disappear, I nodded for Josh’s benefit.

Something strange took a hold of me, made me
unable to move. Everything inside my head screamed to stay right
where I was, not to engage. My strange fascination for her was
unlike me and not healthy. Despite my mind’s two cents, my body
wasn’t listening to direct orders. She was pulling me into her
orbit without her even knowing I was in the pub. She hadn’t looked
my way.

“Damn. Does that mean she’s off limits?”

I growled. “Fuck, yes.” Apparently, she made
me territorial, too. My buddies and I had an unspoken rule. We
didn’t sleep with the same women and we didn’t step in when the
others were interested. Period. I trusted Josh to get the hint,
yet... The thought of someone else touching her had red-hot flames
licking under my skin and my temples pounding. Standing, I grabbed
my glass. “Dibs,” I said, like we were back at the University of
Missouri at a frat party.

Blood roaring, body vibrating, I made my way
across the hardwood floor. With every step closer to her, my heart
pounded. I was finally going to talk to her. Learn her name.
More...

Three, two, one.

Leaning an elbow on the bar, I faced her.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world, you walk into mine.”
Cheesy? A little. I didn’t use lines to pick up women, didn’t need
to, but part of me wanted to test her. At twenty-eight years old,
most of my generation had not seen the movie
Casablanca
. In
the barest glances I’ve had of her, I noticed she had a world-weary
way about her, a grace rarely seen nowadays. I was more curious
than anything whether she recognized the film. Besides, it broke
the ice.

She turned to me, those shocking blue eyes
widening in surprise for a flicker of an instant before returning
to aloof. “Seeing as this is an Irish pub, wouldn’t it be more
prudent to say ‘of all the whiskey joints?’”

Even as a flare of disappointment hit for
her not acknowledging the nature of the quote, I smiled. “Witty.” I
sat on the stool next to her.

Smiling, she dropped her chin in her palm.
“And technically, this is Aiden’s bar, not yours.”

“Touché.” But how did she know that, or my
brother, for that matter?

As if summoned, Aiden made his way to us,
wiping a glass with a white towel. “Declan. Need a refill?” My
brother, four years older than me, was a good-looking guy, but
eight years of raising Liam as a single father had worn on him. Or
perhaps, it was just time that crinkled the corners of his eyes and
had gray weaving through his black hair.

“I’m good.” I turned to my mystery
woman.

Ah, the head tilt. I couldn’t tell yet if
she did this out of interest or acknowledgement. “Does using Bogart
quotes from
Casablanca
typically work for you when trying to
pick up women?”

Fuck me. My interest in her notched to
all-consuming. I shrugged with a nonchalance I didn’t feel. “Don’t
know,
a mo rún
. I’ve never tried before.” I held out my
hand. “Declan O’Leary.”

“Lily Durand.” She didn’t hesitate in
shaking my hand. Her grip was firm and delicate at the same time.
Her skin, smooth as glass and warm as a good ale hitting my gut,
sent my pulse thumping hard. I wondered if she was this soft
everywhere and intended to find out.

“You, Lily Durand, are a hard woman to pin
down.”

Amusement lit her eyes, curved her lips, and
I wanted to kiss that sexy little mouth until she felt something
else entirely. “Am I?”

I gave her a grunt of agreement. “Three
times I accidently run into you, and three times you escaped me.”
No way in hell was it happening again.

Her eyebrows arched. “We’ll always have
Paris.”

My fingers tightened around my glass. My
balls ached in pure, unadulterated desire. The combination of her
quoting
Casablanca
back to me and her teasing me over
speaking French the first time we’d met was so...fucking...hot.
“One might call this encounter fate.”

She took a sip from her pint in response,
eyeing me over the top of the glass. Her curious—and
interested—gaze swept my face.

My family didn’t carry the typical Irish
fair skin and hair, but rather the Celtic end, or Black Irish, as
some would say. My eyes were as green as summer grass in the old
country, so I’ve been told, and I had a perpetual shadow on my jaw
either from being unwilling or not interested in shaving. I once
dated an artist who said I had perfect symmetry to my face and high
cheekbones. I take care of myself, eat right, and work out three
times a week at my home gym. I had the defined arms and wide
shoulders, along with the six pack abs, women found attractive.
Again, not arrogance, fact.

I appreciated women, all sizes, but those
who took care with their appearance turned my head first. Not out
of a sense of vanity, but because it reflected confidence in
themselves. To me, this didn’t mean makeup and designer clothes. In
honesty, I could care less what a woman wore or what size jeans she
filled. It was how they carried themselves that roped me in, and
appearance played a small part in that. Curves were so much more of
a turn on than a slender rail who had nothing to hold onto. A woman
who wasn’t afraid to eat and then play to work the calories off did
it for me. And a sharp mind was as sexy as killer legs.

Attraction be damned, those were the kind of
women I stayed clear from. A matter of survival. And all those
traits Lily seemed to possess. Yet, here I was, playing with
temptation.

Now that I was up close, I read the phrase
on her T-shirt.
I’m not Irish, but you can kiss me anyway
.
Hm. In time. I dipped my head, indicating her shirt. “Is that an
invitation?”

She set her pint down, keeping her long
fingers on the glass, and drew a deep breath. “How do you know
Aiden?”

Was she trying to get details from me or
assessing whether I was safe to concede? Didn’t matter. “He’s my
older brother.”

She glanced at Aiden, still standing behind
the bar, as if to ask,
Is this guy legit?

Aiden’s gaze slid to me and back to Lily. He
nodded, smiling as if reassuring her. Who knew my big brother could
be a decent wingman? Aiden hadn’t dated since he’d met his wife,
who had died delivering Liam—her death a result of the O’Leary
curse, Dad said. Our age gap had desisted us hanging out in the
same circles until I’d graduated college. Either way, whatever
Aiden’s connection to Lily was, it wasn’t sexual.

“You are quite the vision, Lily.” I liked
the way her name sounded when I said it. And she was quite lovely.
Pale skin, dark hair, long lashes. And her eyes? I couldn’t wait to
see them clouded with lust as I drove into her. In this light, her
hair had the slightest hint of reddish highlights and would look
perfect wrapped around my hand.

“Thank you.” Smile. “You’re not hard on the
eyes either, Declan.”

I groaned. It couldn’t be helped. The way
she said my name had me past half-mast. She had a soft tone that
drifted like smoke and clung to everything within range.

I raked my gaze over her, loving her
hourglass shape. She either had great genes or worked out
regularly. Her hottest asset wasn’t her rack or her legs, though.
It was her understated self-assurance. She didn’t flaunt her
intelligence or shy from a compliment. And her sense of humor?
Needless to say I had to adjust myself on the stool.

Impatient, I dialed my voice to hoarse.
“Would you like you take this conversation to a more private venue?
My apartment, for instance?” My fingers clenched my glass again. I
never took women to my place. It was theirs or a hotel. I didn’t
like the invasion of privacy or the possibility of one of my lovers
going stalker. It hadn’t happened, but call me paranoid.

And without hesitation, I’d invited her as
if I hadn’t set that rule for a reason. By the look on her face,
she was considering.

Her gaze skimmed the tats on my right arm
that disappeared under my white tee—a sleeve of writing in Gaelic.
“I don’t date men with tattoos.” She said it without any criticism
or condemnation, as if she was testing me, not being
judgmental.

A rough laugh dragged from my throat.
Remembering the shamrock tattoo on her nape, I lifted my hand and
skimmed my fingers over her neck. A caress. Light. Sensual. “Said
the woman with her own ink.” I ran my fingertips in a slow circle,
teasing her hair and eliciting a shiver from her. “And,
a mo
rún
, I never said anything about dating.”

I dropped my hand and she sucked in a
breath, pink tingeing her cheeks. I swallowed another groan at her
responsiveness.

Aiden stepped away to take care of a
customer. I waited until he was out of hearing range, then asked,
“How do you know my brother?” I knew Liam’s teachers and
babysitters, and she wasn’t one of them. Aiden didn’t get out much.
He lived at the bar, and I would’ve recognized if she was a
regular, so I was more than curious.

“We...” She brushed away a strand of hair
from her face and gave a slight shake of her head, as if deciding
not to divulge the information after all. “I’ve known him a couple
years. We’re friendly acquaintances.”

I nodded like that was enough for me, which
it wasn’t. “Have you slept with him?” I was pretty certain she
hadn’t, since Aiden didn’t date or screw. I didn’t share and,
despite wanting her more than was wise, I’d slam the brakes right
now if she’d been with Aiden.

Her gaze whipped to mine, wide. Appalled.
“No.”

I nodded again. “Are you married?” She
didn’t wear a ring.

She shook her head, and I was nearing the
end of my rope. For seven months she’d been in my head, one way or
another. I wanted her under me, on top of me, bent over the nearest
hard surface.

“Then there’s nothing stopping us,
a mo
rún.
” The huskiness in my tone wasn’t deliberate, but my cock
twitched against my zipper as her pupils dilated.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “What
does that phrase mean? You keep using it.”

I knew I had her. Instinct and her signals
told me. It was all I could do not to stroke myself through my
jeans. I leaned close to whisper in her ear, making sure my lips
caressed the shell. “It’s Gaelic and means my secret.”

She shivered and I smiled in satisfaction.
We were gonna be so fucking good. I nuzzled my nose against the
soft spot behind her ear, breathing in her light perfume, before
easing away. She looked at me through heavy lids, her lips parted
with shallow breaths.