Sheer Luck (18 page)

Despite the catcalls from my actions and the
patrons waiting, I kissed her until she swayed into me. Her lids
were at half-mast when I eased away. “That’s better.”

Cheeks pink, she glanced around and offered
a shy smile at all the attention. Her gaze skimmed the crowd and
stopped.

I followed to what had snagged her
attention. Declan was sitting in the stool she’d vacated, eyebrows
pinged near his hairline and an amused smirk on his lips. “Sierra.
Good to see you.” Then he leveled me with a shit-eating grin and
nodded.

Shaking my head, I picked her up and set her
on a stool near the liquor shelf where she’d be out of the way of
grabby hands, but still close to me. “Want a beer?”

“I’m good.” She pressed her lips together,
hiding her ghost of a smile. Her blush now covered her neck and
disappeared behind her sweater. “Are you sure it’s okay I’m back
here?”

“I own the place. I can do what I want.”
Dragging my gaze over her, I groaned. Mint green sweater, black
leggings, and knee-high boots. “Later, wear those boots and
only
the boots.” After giving her another swift kiss, I
turned back to the customers.

Ninety haggard minutes later, she was
pouring a lager from the tap. I sidled up behind her and set my
hands over hers, tilting the glass to avoid excess foam. “Like
that,
aingeal
.” I pressed my pelvis against her round ass
and kissed her neck, breathing in her sweet scent. Warm baked
cookies and fall afternoons. “You smell so damn good.”

With an earth-stopping grin, she tilted her
head and kissed my cheek, then...handed a waitress the lager. Said
waitress wove through the crowd to deliver the drink. Sierra
was...helping out?

Reluctantly, I stepped away as someone
called my name. I filled a dozen orders, exchanged a few words with
Declan, and turned back to check on Sierra, who was pouring whiskey
shots for another waitress as if this weren’t her first time behind
the bar. Her cheeks were flushed and her grin dimmed the wattage of
our pub lighting. Throwing her head back, she laughed at something
the waitress said.

Christ. Holy, holy Christ. I fell in love
with her on the spot. I was shocked it had taken me so long to
plunge, really. Almost from the get-go, I’d harbored more than
friendly feelings for her, but out of a sense of self-preservation,
I’d named the emotion lust. Not even close.

Not. Even. Close.

In my crowded pub, teaming with wall-to-wall
people, sweat dripping down my back, my brother watching the show,
and a couple days from the holiday I despised most, I stared at an
angel fifteen feet away. And my heart beat for the first time in
nine years.

Just like that.

I expected panic or for time to stop. I
waited for a blinding flash of pain or an assault of guilt.
But...no. The devil didn’t drag himself up from hell to pull me
under where I’d thought, for years, I belonged. No one tried to rip
her away from me. Instead, a warm tendril of heat curled in my
belly, meting out the cold I’d grown used to, and settled in my
chest. Fizzles of carbonation zinged through my veins and my breath
caught.

Rooted to the floor, I could do little more
than stare at her and fight the tears threatening to rise in my
tight throat.

She glanced at me and did a double-take.
Pointing to the shots, she mouthed,
This okay?

Slowly, I nodded, when what I really wanted
to do was empty the pub, lay her out on the bar, and erase the near
decade I’d had to wait to have her. I ran a shaking hand down my
face and turned away.

The rest of the night, she filled orders for
the waitresses while my manager and I handled the bar. She smiled
at customers and chatted up the regulars. I stared at her with some
kind of resonating shock and awe.

And when we got back home, I made love to
her against the door, on the kitchen table, and in my bed. With her
boots on.

I
awoke to an empty
bed and the sound of the shower running. Stretching, I glanced at
the clock and noted it was almost lunch time. Shit. Liam would be
back in a couple hours. And though I much preferred waking to
Sierra in my arms, the image of her all wet and soapy in my shower
wasn’t a hardship.

Grinning, I made my way into the bathroom
and stared at her form through the shower curtain.
All...those...curves. Instant hard-on. I made a little noise to
alert her to my presence and then stepped in the stall with
her.

Yeah. No hardship.

Suds streamed down her ample chest, past her
stomach, to the pale curls between her thighs. Hands in her hair,
she blinked at me through wet lashes. Her gaze took a slow, heated
perusal of my shoulders, biceps, abs, and...lower.

Eyes locked on my thick erection, she
smiled. “Good morning.” Her voice was thick, husky, and my cock
jerked in response.

“Yes, it is.” Wasting no time, I grabbed her
hips and pressed her back to the tile. I crushed my mouth to hers
and she opened for me, stroking my tongue and sucking it into her
mouth. Hell. “You created a monster,
aingeal
. I can’t get
enough of you.”

With my lips, I traced the path of soapy
bubbles and latched onto a nipple. She arched and threaded her
fingers through my hair. I sucked hard before moving onto the other
breast and her breaths soughed. Ever responsive, my Sierra. Testing
her readiness, I slid my hand to her folds and found
her...drenched. Slippery with arousal, I coated my fingers and
groaned.

Straightening, I grabbed her thigh, wrapped
her leg around my hips, and gazed down at her. “Look at me,
aingeal
. I want to see those eyes when I sink into you.”

Her heavy lids lifted and I was met with the
fiercest blue. Through the fringe of her lashes, I’d looked at that
color over the years and had never found another source to quiet
the storm. Bitter, desperate, wrecked...it didn’t matter my
emotions. She’d kept a trickle of light on inside me so I didn’t
peter out altogether.

“
Is breá liom tú, aingeal
.” The
declaration slid so easily from me I should’ve been concerned. But
I did love her, and we were going to be okay.

I thrust deep inside her and stilled,
adoring the way her eyes glazed. Her lips parted. Her tight nipples
rubbed my chest with her ragged breathing. Home. This was fucking
home.

She cupped the back of my head and brought
my mouth to hers, and I kissed her with everything I had, thrust
into her giving body for all I was worth, attempting to relay the
depth of what I felt. Nothing could encompass it.

Afterward, I dried her off and we got
dressed. She made us a sandwich and we discussed her going back to
her place before Liam returned. I agreed to come over tomorrow to
let her know how the talk went and how to proceed.

Honestly, I didn’t think my kid was going to
be upset at all. He loved Sierra, and her and I being together
meant we both could keep her no matter what job she took or where
our lives journeyed. And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind we
wouldn’t last. We were too compatible as friends to say otherwise,
and too explosive as lovers to question our relationship. It was
early yet for the forever conversation and proposals, but they were
inevitable.

I hated the silence after she left, and
anxiously did menial tasks around the house waiting for Liam. It
seemed like four years and not four days since I’d seen him last.
By the time the front door barreled open and my son ran inside, I
was ready to burst.

I laughed, catching him mid-launch, and
hugged him hard to my chest. “I missed you, kid.” He smelled like
little boy—dirt and grass and outdoors—and I closed my eyes.

“Missed you, too. I caught no fish, but I
roasted marshmallows every night and we found a bat in the cabin
attic. It wasn’t a vampire, though.”

Laughing again, I glanced over Liam’s
shoulder to Dad, who dropped Liam’s bag and kicked the door shut.
He looked no worse for wear after their trip, but his eyes lacked
their usual jovial cheer. Worry twisted my gut.

I set Liam on his feet and tousled his hair.
“Why don’t you unpack and we can order a pizza for dinner?”

When he was out of sight, I turned to Dad.
“How was everything? Did he behave?” I’d be shocked if he hadn’t.
Liam rarely, if ever, acted out.

Dad waved his hand, still standing by the
door as if anxious to leave. “He’s a good kid. We had fun.” His
eyes, green like Declan’s, avoided my gaze. I’d gotten my mother’s
gray-blue eyes, and I often wondered if that’s why he had a hard
time looking at me sometimes.

Which reminded me. “How’s Cathy?” I stumbled
a bit over my step-mother’s name. Hard not to when she was only a
decade older than me and, up until she’d married Dad, twenty-four
hours after meeting him, she was a topless waitress at a Vegas
casino.

“Ah, about that.” Dad glanced at the
ceiling.

Every cell in my body went into deep freeze.
“What? What about that?” He and Cathy had been together roughly a
year. I didn’t know her well, but things seemed okay. If I was
wrong, then that meant—

“She left me.” Dad scratched his jaw. “Went
back to Nevada last week.”

The air punched from my lungs and I doubled
over. Clawing, shredding fear seized my chest. This wasn’t
happening. No.
Christ, no
. Declan, Dad...hell, even Sierra
had me convinced the curse was over. But apparently my first
impression had been right. Declan had only turned his own luck
around.

One hundred tears of heartbreak in our
family. Divorce, illness, death. No females conceived, aside from
my brand new niece, and that was all because Lily had found a way
to save my brother from fated misery.

I should’ve known better. Fucking hell. And
I’d gotten involved with Sierra. Loved her...

Oh shit. I’d set her right in the fucked up
path of the curse. Just like I’d done with my wife. Amy, insipidly
pale as the life drained out of her. Amy, bleeding out on a
hospital bed. Amy, unseeing eyes fixed to the ceiling as the
doctors frantically tried saving her.

I’d loved my wife. I truly, truly had. A
part of me still did and always would. But the kind of love I had
for Sierra—the bond, the friendship, the passion—was in a
completely different realm. If I lost her, there would be no coming
back from that kind of hell. Not for me, not for my son.

A sharp, piercing wail filled my ears and it
took me several seconds to realize I’d made the noise. I couldn’t
get air. I couldn’t...I couldn’t...

This. Wasn’t. Happening.

“Dad?”

My gaze jerked to the hallway, where Liam
stood. I grabbed him and pulled him to me, clung for dear life.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll make it right.” Somehow. “I
promise.”

“Aiden, what’s wrong with you?”

Rage broke to the surface and I whirled on
Dad, Liam still in my arms. “You assured me everything would be
fine. All of you. I stupidly believed you.”

My father must’ve sensed I was three seconds
from completely losing my shit, because he whipped his cell out of
his pocket and paced in front of the door. I couldn’t hear the
conversation through the roar in my ears.

“Dad?”

Liam. Christ, my son. What have I done?

I set him on his feet and dragged in oxygen,
forcing my tone to as normal as possible. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m
okay. Everything’s fine. Finish unpacking and take a shower. I’ll
have the pizza here by the time you’re done.”

He nodded, residual hesitancy in his gaze,
and backed toward the bedroom.

When he was out of sight, I pressed the heel
of my palm over my heart with one hand and pinched the bridge of my
nose with the other.

Fifteen minutes later, Declan walked through
the door and Dad was taking Liam to Lily’s to “help her” with the
twins. I hadn’t moved from my spot in the center of the living
room, trying to stop my head from splitting open and my heart from
splintering ribs.

Silence stretched. More silence.

“Aiden.” Declan shoved a shot of whiskey
into my hand.

I tossed it across the room. Glass
shattered. Amber liquid dripped down the wall.

Closing his eyes, my brother inhaled.
“What’s going on? You scared the shit out of Liam, man.”

Hell. I’d taken tonight off, had
double-staffed the pub, so I could spend time with him after the
trip. The poor kid hadn’t slept in his own bed in four nights and
he’d come home to me having a nervous breakdown. This was...this
was...

“Aiden. Start talking. You’re scaring me
now.”

My body tensed to the level of agony. “Cathy
left Dad.”

He paused. Awareness dawned in his eyes. His
shoulders slumped.

I stepped closer. “You knew?”

Instead of answering, Declan went into the
kitchen and returned with a glass of whiskey, twice the amount of
liquor than the last offer. “Don’t throw this one.” He passed it to
me. “Drink. All of it.”