The Irish Lottery: A Friends-to-Lovers Contemporary Romance (Irish Kiss)

by Sienna Blake

  My heart began to beat hard. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I kept wiping them on my jeans to get rid of the moisture.

  My eyes scanned the banner over the message—another shot of the four men with their masks on. All looking like they were staring out from the screen and right through me. They were going to make me come if I let them.

  I felt ready to alternately hurl and pass out. I could just…not accept it. I could ignore it. They’d move on to the next winner after fourteen days of the prize not being claimed (part of the terms and conditions). I’d never speak of this to anyone. Ever.

  Forget my fantasy.

  Forget them. Especially the one with the blue eyes.

  But if I ignored it, I knew I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what if.

  Yes. I was doing it! Accepting prize n—

  How would Noah feel if he knew I was doing this? All my excitement fled, my hand falling away from my laptop. Would he be disappointed? Shocked? Noah had only ever known me as “relationship girl”. I’d basically been in a relationship with one man the whole time he’d known me. Did Noah even think of me as a sexual being, with needs, desires…unfulfilled ones?

  What did that matter? I was single. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Besides, Noah was my best friend. It’s not like I ever judged the God of Thunder or rolled my eyes when notes with phone numbers on it were shoved into his hand. I should be able to tell him about the lottery. He’d fist bump me, saying something like, “Go get your bit.” He’d be supportive; that’s just who he was, who he’d always been.

  What did I really have to lose? Not Sean—we were over. Not Noah—we were just friends. Why shouldn’t I do this for myself? I rarely did anything crazy. Why deny myself this one chance to be treated and pampered and loved on by four extremely sexy men there only to fulfil my every desire?

  My mouse hovered over the Accept button.

  Still, I hesitated.

  Why? No one had to know. I couldn’t tell anyone even if I wanted to what with the NDA I’d be signing. Not that that point made me feel better. I didn’t keep secrets from Noah.

  Except about my breakup.

  I shook my head. “Come on, Aubrey,” I whispered to myself. “Take what you want. Say yes.”

  Yes to pleasure. Yes to orgasms. Yes to four hot Irishmen making this happen for me.

  My insides turned molten at the thought, filling me with resolve.

  Before I could change my mind, I clicked Accept.

  Noah

  Aubrey hadn’t said more than a dozen words to me all day. Our usual fun, playful work banter was nonexistent even though she seemed like her usual self: smiling, happy, talkative with Candace.

  When Darren called me to tell me that the prize had been accepted, I still hadn’t been convinced it’d been her. But when Aubrey emailed back the NDA with her all too familiar signature on it, it’d confirmed that it hadn’t been a mistake. Nobody had done this on her behalf.

  Aubrey had entered.

  Aubrey had accepted.

  I’ve never wanted to say something more in my life. Instead, I watched her, keeping the storm raging inside me bottled up instead of dragging her into the back room like it was a confessional and demanding her secrets. Surely she’d confide in me like she always had. I had to trust that she would. Right?

  It’s not like you’re being very forthcoming, Noah. The only reason I fucking knew she was keeping secrets was because I was keeping secrets from her too. Who was the asshole here, really?

  Keeping a secret wasn’t on par with cheating on someone you promised to marry. At least, that’s how I justified it to myself.

  Maybe I didn’t know Aubrey as well as I thought I did? Maybe this was fate’s way of kicking me in the balls when I finally fell in love. Like someone up there was looking at me and saying, “Here’s the perfect woman for you!” Only when I fell head over heels, they threw in, “Oh, yeah, except there’s just this one little thing.”

  Aubrey was going to cheat on Sean.

  No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I still couldn’t believe Aubrey was that kind of person. Even if Sean had never pleased her—a thought that drove me mad with longing to fix it—it still wasn’t good enough a reason for her to do the dirt.

  You’re about to help her cheat. What does that say about you, Noah? Despite my morals, my conscious belief that this was wrong, my heart raced and cock stiffened imagining Aubrey spreading herself out naked for me.

  Aubrey tossed her head back, laughing at something—likely outrageous—Candace had said. Eyes from around the bar slid towards her. That infectious laughter drew everyone in, including me. Especially me.

  A sudden possessiveness came over me. I wanted to yell at everyone to stop fucking looking at her. Almost the whole time I’d known her she’d been “taken.” Part of me believed that Sean was just…holding onto Aubrey until it was my turn.

  But now that I knew she’d accepted a night with four strangers, things were different. Would she sleep with him—that young lad paying more attention to Aubrey than the game of pool with his friends? Would she let him touch her—that businessman eating by himself who eyed her hungrily as he chewed his burger? Would she come for him—?

  I heard a bang and realized that I’d slammed my fist into the countertop. Goddamn. I was making myself crazy.

  Aubrey’s dark-chocolate eyes met mine, her laughter gone. In its place, a look of surprise. Her furrows drew to concern. “Are you okay?” she mouthed.

  “Grand,” I mouthed back. Just fucking grand.

  At the end of the night, Aubrey and I were the last two left as usual, closing in silence. No music on. No dancing with brooms or hip bumps. No fucking limes in the fucking coconuts. I guess both of us were trying to come to terms with the secrets we were keeping.

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight,” she said in a low tone that caught my attention.

  Had her voice always been this husky?

  I glanced over to her.

  She was watching me through her eyelashes, her chin down.

  I just want an orgasm.

  All I could imagine was her speaking those words to me in that voice.

  Give me an orgasm, Noah.

  Begging me as she stared at me through her lashes.

  Make me come.

  Fuck. My cock swelled to near painful. I tore my eyes away, turning my body so she wouldn’t see my reaction to her. It didn’t matter what I consciously thought about the matter, the voice of morality that echoed in my head, I was going to give Aubrey the night of her fucking life. I was going to make her come over and over until she forgot Sean’s name. And I was going to hate myself—and her—for it.

  “Stuff on my mind,” I said. Like you coming apart around my cock behind your fiancé’s back.

  “Do you want to talk about—?”

  “No!” I didn’t mean for my tone to sound so harsh. I softened at the flash of rejection in her eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. I just…” Can’t stop thinking about how sweet your guilty pussy will taste.

  Aubrey surprised me with a quick hug. Her smell of coconuts and vanilla washed over me, calming my whirlpool of thoughts. Faith settled over me. Aubrey wasn’t a cheater. She wouldn’t go through with it, I was sure.

  Aubrey backed off before I could hug her back. “Your ma. I know. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.” She gave me a sad smile before turning away to finish up closing.

  When we were done, we stepped out into the early morning air and I locked up behind us. Our breath hung in the air like ghosts, a chill nipping at my fingers as I tugged my jacket close.

  “Confession time?” Aubrey said.

  My heart rate leapt into overdrive.

  Was she about to tell me the truth? Was she going to tell me she had won the lottery? That she was going to cheat on Sean? Could I hold back telling her my truth too?

  I stared into her big brown eyes and my heart flipped over in my chest
. No, I’d hold nothing back. The second she confessed, I’d confess too. Everything. About the lottery. About being in love with her.

  “G-go on,” I said, my heart beating in my throat.

  She inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly as we moved towards my car. “I don’t feel as alive at any other time as I do at 2 a.m. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with having to work a nine-to-five job.”

  All my hopes dissipated. She wasn’t going to come clean. She wasn’t going to tell me the truth. Jaw clenched, I moved a bit quicker and she rushed to keep up.

  “What’s up?” she asked as we reached my car, a note of concern in her voice.

  I wanted to throw my hands up, wanted to shout, What’s up? You’re going to cheat on your fiancé and here you are telling me a guilty confession about liking night-time. It felt like a slap in the face. Hell, I wish she had hit me. That would have hurt less.

  “Nothing. Just get in.”

  She opened the passenger door and slid in.

  I plopped into the driver’s seat, seething.

  “Was it something I said?” she asked.

  I turned the engine over and screeched out of the parking lot towards her place.

  Was it something she said? No, it was something she didn’t say; the fucking truth. Pulling in a deep breath, I struggled to fight the tide of anger rising in me. This wasn’t the woman I thought I knew. She wasn’t the friend I thought I had. Obviously, since she was sneaking around, lying, and cheating.

  “No, I’m just in a shit mood.”

  Her hand came to rest on mine.

  I stared at it for a second before focusing on the road. I wanted to pull away. More than that—I wanted to pull over and pull her closer. I wanted to fulfil her desires at the same time as I wanted to demand answers. It was an ugly duo that was shredding me apart inside.

  “You’ve been off all night,” she said softly, her statement sounding open-ended, an invitation to talk.

  Usually I would. But not about this.

  I could feel her staring at me, but I refused to look at her. She could take it personally, she could take it as a snub, or she could assume I was just trying not to kill us by watching the road…I didn’t give a damn.

  After a few moments of silence, her hand slipped away.

  When I drove past the kebab place we usually stopped at I heard her breath hitch, but she didn’t say anything.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, and when I pulled up outside her place, she turned to me like she was going to say something.

  I beat her to it. “I’m going to have to pass on our usual plans this week.” Like our late-night kebab ritual. Or our weekly EuroMillions lottery ticket. Hanging out in her living room till dawn.

  “Oh.” Her shoulders sagged. “Okay. Is everything okay?”

  I could hear the hurt in her voice. As awful as it felt, I couldn’t decide if it was worse than knowing I’d be the other man in her life very soon. “I’m just going to be really busy,” I lied. More lies to cover the first lie. This was how mountains were made, one little cup of dirt at a time until I buried myself. “What are you going to be up to on Tuesday?” It was her day off and the day for her “date” with the four Irishmen.

  She hesitated.

  I prayed she was going to come clean with me.

  “Um, just meeting up with a friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  She shifted in her seat. “You don’t know her, I met her at school.” She’d pressed herself to the door and her hand was on the handle like escape was at the top of her mind.

  “And how is Sean?” The question burst out of me.

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess?” This wasn’t the woman I knew. Talking so flippantly about her boyfriend who she was planning on cheating on with four men, no less!

  Her eyes met mine and I saw the way her lips pressed together in a thin line. “We broke up.”

  “What?”

  She nodded.

  “When?”

  She shrugged with one shoulder. “A few weeks ago.”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  This whole time I was berating her in my head for being a cheater. But she wasn’t. She was single. Of course she wasn’t a fucking cheater. I knew her. I knew Aubrey.

  I was such an asshole.

  “Why?” An asshole who apparently could only grunt in monosyllables. Get it together, Noah.

  She shrugged even as a sadness glossed over her eyes. “It wasn’t right.”

  I wanted to pull her close, to hold her and stroke her hair and let her cry it out on me. I wanted to have her on my lap and when she lifted her head to look me in the eyes, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to fucking kiss her so badly. Now that she was single…I could.

  I could lean in right now and—

  Fuck, I shouldn’t be making moves on her right now. I schooled my features into a look of concern. This was all a friend should be feeling for her. Concern that she was okay. Not fist pumping and wanting to throw a feckin’ parade because she was on the market again.

  How the feck did I not see what was going on with her? How did I go several weeks—

  Wait, this happened weeks ago and I was only hearing about this now?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  She let out a sigh. “I don’t know. At first, I was trying to process it. It came as a shock but it kinda didn’t, if that makes any sense.”

  It did, strangely. I never saw her and Sean lasting the length of time that they did. I almost fell off my chair when I heard they’d gotten engaged. “Are you…okay?” I studied her face, ready to pull her into my lap at the first sign of tears.

  “Honestly?”

  Honestly. My lies twisted in my chest. “Of course.”

  She chewed her lip, a clear sign she was feeling unsure. “Would it be bad if I told you I was fine?”

  She was okay? She…she looked okay. More than okay. I mean, she seemed a bit preoccupied the last few weeks but nowhere near heartbroken.

  She sighed, but it was filled with relief, not sadness.

  “Ugh, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I was that girl who had agreed to marry someone I didn’t really love.”

  “Rey…” I looked right into her eyes, “…when have I ever judged you?” Except when I thought you were a cheater.

  She gave me a bashful look. “Never.”

  “So why would I start now?”

  She let out a curt laugh. “Yeah, I know. Now I just feel dumb for not telling you.”

  I leaned in. “You know you can tell me anything, right? Anything.”

  Like about the lottery. Here was her chance, her chance to tell me the truth I wasn’t supposed to already know.

  She smiled but it felt forced. “And you can tell me anything too, you know?”

  This was my chance to tell her how I felt. To tell her the truth. The lottery. Everything.

  I nodded, feeling my heart swell. Yes, I should go first. I’d been keeping this secret for longer. “Actually, there is something I have to tell you.”

  She shifted in her seat to face me. “What is it?”

  I opened my mouth.

  I love you.

  These words jammed up in my throat and I… I couldn’t force them out. I could barely breathe around them. They’d spent all these years buried so deep and now…

  I’ve always loved you.

  “Noah?” she whispered.

  My name coming off her lips in that breathy tone trickled into the deepest parts of me. The silence swelled, the pressure in the car almost suffocating. A buzzing in my head started.

  Dear God, man, say something.

  Her tongue darted out and traced her full lower lip, drawing my gaze to it. I wanted to lean in and suck her lip into my mouth. To taste her.

  “I want…” I whispered.

  I wanted to give her that O. I wan
ted to please her all night long, close up the bar to please her all day tomorrow and the day after and after that, giving her orgasm after orgasm after orgasm until she begged me to stop. And then I’d give her one more.

  “Want…what?” she asked, her sweet breath on my face.

  Be with me.

  I reached out and touched her chin. Tilting her head so she’d look at me. Inches. That was all that was left between us.

  Her eyes widened.

  If I couldn’t speak the words to tell her how I felt, I’d show her. I leaned in.

  Suddenly, her door popped open and she practically tumbled out of the car away from me. I felt the loss of her nearness immediately, rejection tasting bitter on my tongue.

  She backed up, shutting the door between us, a strange mixture of shock and longing on her face, before bolting like a startled deer up her front steps. My heart sank as she disappeared into her building.

  Fuck. I slammed my hands on the wheel. Stupid, Noah. Too soon. Too fast. She just broke up with her fiancé, for God’s sake.

  Not too early for her to be getting into bed with four strangers, a voice inside me snarked.

  Maybe she just didn’t want…me. This thought turned into a lump that I struggled to swallow around. Maybe I wasn’t good enough for her. Maybe she really did just see me as a friend.

  But that longing… I glanced up to the dark windows of her apartment. I saw that longing. I felt it. She wanted me to kiss her. Or at least, part of her did.

  A strong urge to follow her rose in me. To knock on her door until she let me in. Demand answers. Or to kiss her until she gave in. I yanked my door handle and—

  No. She needed space. Time. Rushing in was stupid. Pushing her would only send her running. I didn’t want her to regret anything, and that meant letting her lead. Giving her time to be single, if that’s what she wanted.

  Give her the space for her feelings to grow into something more.

  I could wait. I’d waited for years already. I’d wait forever for her if that’s what it took.

  Aubrey

  I leaned against the inside of my front door, stunned, my heart beating a million times a second. Each inhale and exhale felt like I was swallowing sandpaper.