# **Contents**

TITLE PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE
Gettin' Lucky

by

Ellen Mint

_Jess is the unluckiest woman in the world. Nothing in her world ever goes right. So, when a tree crashes through her bedroom window, she's unsurprised until a drop-dead gorgeous Irishman sticks his head inside. In this steamy novella, Jess finds herself falling harder and harder for this man who her best friend swears is a leprechaun._

_Will Jess finally get lucky?_

Previously published in _Lucky Between The Sheets_ but now with a new steamy shower scene.

Other Books by Ellen Mint

_Holidays of Love Series_

Gettin' Lucky

PSL

Cutie Pi

_Inquisition Series_

Undercover Siren

Fever

Happily Ever Austen

Pride & Pancakes

_Wild Ménage Series_

Reefcake

_Stand Alone_

Hog Wild

Special Delivery

Copyright © 2019 by Ellen Mint

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2019

_If you want to get in early on information about my new books and deals, please_ _join my newsletter._

CHAPTER ONE

"OF COURSE."

It wasn't a scream that flew from my lips, nor a string of highly applicable curses designed for such an occasion. Nope. As I woke to a tree shattering my bedroom window the only two words I could think were "of course."

What else would the unluckiest women in the world expect? My youth was spent in a constant barrage of casts to set bones broken by a clump of misplaced dirt everyone else bypassed. Sadly, my luck didn't improve with age. If anything could go wrong, it would, often leaving me with hospital and/or insurance bills, and a burn of embarrassment hotter than the sun.

I squinted against the mass of branches clawing at my bedroom's wallpaper as if the forest came to claim me. Glass shards clung to the frame like broken teeth, the rest of the pane scattered over the dingy carpet. By the rising light of dawn, they looked like geometric water puddles...which could also cut my feet to ribbons. I was already the type of girl who'd find a small piece of glass in her salad. Walking across this new minefield without a cut would prove impossible.

Rising to sit up, my laggy brain struggled to think who to call first: insurance, clean up crew, emergency room to put on standby? I was partially out from under my rosy-oak duvet when a voice called from the window. "Sorry in there! Is everyone okay?"

This man's voice was followed by a shock of red hair prodding around the branches. Even with the twigs scraping against his creamy cheeks, the hair remained high, gel twisting at the front. As he turned from the tree, emerald eyes landed upon me. They glimmered like a field of clover after a spring rain, hinting at a smile that didn't crest across his tight lips. The jaw was broad and swooped back, gifting him an academic air. His nose was long but with a tiny bulb at the tip, an almost impish trait to offset the serious features.

All that cursing that didn't happen before tried to escape in one blow. My eyes darted about the glistening lips, the sparkling green eyes, and the fiery hair like a game of tennis. Sweet god was he handsome. And staring at me through my bedroom window!

My eyes whipped down to find I was dressed...in a Hello Kitty shirt three sizes too big for me. Grabbing the duvet, I slapped it over my chest and tried to pretend I was wearing a silk nightie underneath instead. "Who...?" I gulped, watching the strange man stare around my room. "What happened?"

"Forgiveness, please." His voice hummed with an accent that twirled on his lips. British? "I'm afraid I'm the fiend who caused this rotted tree to puncture through your window."

Scottish? My puzzling snapped away as I realized he was staring expectantly at me. No doubt he was waiting for a rant as anyone who didn't live my life would unleash. "I...see," I mumbled. There was a sexy some-British-Isle man with his head shoved clean through my broken bedroom window. What did a person say or do in such a situation?

_Oh god!_

I flung the duvet off my Hello Kitty-ed body and plunged my feet into the maybe glass. The green eyes of the stranger flared wide as I risked blood loss and limb, but my panic damn near forgot about him.

"Tir!" I shouted, a hand to my mouth. "Come on. Here Tiry Tir Tir!" Gulping, I risked glancing towards the floor below the window, fearing to see either silent fur or blood, but it was clean save the glass.

"What's the matter, Lass?"

The hamper! Spinning in place, I bent over to dig into the cracked laundry basket in my closet. Which just exposed the fact I was wearing greying white panties to the hot man that broke my house. A burn churned up my cheeks even as I dug through the clean laundry I never got around to putting away. Bras and blouses flew through the air until my fingers skirted against warm fur. Yellow eyes snarled at me for daring to interrupt his slumber, but I gasped in joy and tucked the angry cat to my chest.

"Tiramy, thank god you're okay. I..." In proper feline fashion, my cat wasn't pleased with my concern over his wellbeing, nor was he happy with my sudden onset of affection. Wiggling, twelve-pounds of fur and bone dug out of my grip and leapt onto the dresser. Black hair clung to my chest, adding to my alluring outfit.

"Ya have a kitty cat?" the stranger asked, staring in judgment at my spinster-in-training lifestyle.

"Yes, yes I do. And you smashed apart my bedroom window." I tipped back into the anger I knew I'd feel in an hour once he was gone. Then I'd come up with the perfect response to 'So sorry I knocked a tree into your house.' For now, all I had was glaring and crossing my arms over my chest to hide away the friendly look of Hello Kitty.

To my surprise, the striking stranger grimaced and rubbed a palm over his head. His hand was massive, the heel sitting on his forehead while the fingers damn near reached his ear. A hand like that could probably palm my whole ass...which was not what I should be thinking about. Tipping my head down so he wouldn't see the flush, I spat out, "Who are you?"

"Some call me Conall," he said. When his voice rang through the swooping vowels of his name, it struck me. He was Irish. "Would it be forward if I asked your name?"

"Jessica," I spat, trying to not give into the odd mannerisms of a rugged Irishman who spoke as if he fell out of the 18th century. And broke my window. Remember, window. "Jessica Malley."

A smile dawned upon his lips, the full amplitude of his gleaming grin nearly sending me babbling. "Jessica," he repeated my name in his emerald brogue, certainly causing some knee-knocking, "I am immensely apologetic for this accident. I promise I will do all I can to fix it."

Well, that was something. I feared he'd poke his head in, make sure there were no dead bodies, then do a runner. "Let's start with insurance..." I began, when my eyes tripped away from the emerald isle eyes to the ancient clock hanging off the wall.

7:15.

_No!_ It couldn't be 7:15 already!

Scrabbling, I yanked up my phone which should have woken me up at 6:45. A dead screen taunted me, the battery having once again fully drained while I slept. Shit! Returning to the pile of clothing I attacked for my cat, I hunted for the blouse I was going to leave out last night. Which I forgot to do, like always.

"Lass? Is there another animal in distress? A wee pup, perhaps?" Conall asked from the window.

Which was still broken. But there was no time for that. "I'm late for work, gonna be late for work. The meeting I was supposed to lead and...dear God." I worked like a whirlwind, picking up every damn thing I'd need for the day and dumping it into my purse. The clothes I perched on my arm, all coated in black fur, as I turned to the man with his head shoved through my window.

"I have to get out of here. You...you need to fix that mess you caused, and I need to get to work." I itched to run to the bathroom and then my car, but the strikingly handsome man refused to leave the hole he punched into my life.

A light blush rose, highlighting the spray of freckles over both his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. Leaning forward, he extended a business card from his hand. As I pulled it away, an unearthly warmth radiated from the piece of card stock. "My credentials as it were," he said and, touching the tip of his finger to his forelock, finished with, "Good luck, Lass."

I snorted, watching the man ignore the jagged glass and easily slide out of my bedroom. "Luck hates me." Another flicker of my eyes to the clock reminded me I needed to be on the road ASAP, but I turned over the card to read no address or phone number. All it said was:

_Conall Finnegan _

_Cobbler_

"You've got to be kidding me," I groaned at the no doubt fake one he'd hand out at pubs. Still, I stashed it in my purse just in case. Taking one last look at the half-green landscape, the cold breeze whipping through the massive hole in my window, I counted the odds I'd ever see him again.

I wouldn't head to Vegas on them, that's for sure.

CHAPTER TWO

"...AND IF I hadn't been there to catch that typo it'd have gone out to our entire client list. In forty point font."

Abby chuckled though my Accord's speakers. " _'Public'_ can be a tricky one to get right the first go. Lucky for the board you were there."

"Lucky for me. Even though I wasn't the one to type up our new 'Pubic Option' for the stockholders, it'd have been on my head." I sighed, turning down the out-of-the-way road to a small neighborhood originally built for military families. The base was torn down decades back, but the cement and brick houses remained.

"So you're saying that tree through your window was a good thing," Abby cooed. She'd found it all hilarious and spent the day texting me gifs of Ents.

I scoffed. "Thanks for reminding me of the mess I have to clean up." A groan rattled in my throat as I thought upon not only the shattered glass and gaping hole into my bedroom but the man who caused it. "What do you think the chances are on Conall actually paying to fix it?"

"Who?" Abby sounded distracted while dodging her own traffic. For me it was quiet sailing towards the driveway of the house with a hole punched in it.

"Conall. The red-haired, green-eyed..." so damn handsome, "Irishman who sent the tree careening through my window."

"Did he give you his insurance info?"

I pursed my lips. It wasn't until I burst through the doors of work two minutes early that I realized how truly up the creek I was. In the heat of the moment, I forgot to get anything substantial off him. He could be some lunatic who goes around breaking sleeping women's windows with shrubbery. "Just his business card, which — get this — claims he's a cobbler."

A prolonged silence tumbled out of the speakers, my eyes darting from the empty road to check my phone. Just before I could see if the battery once again ran dead, Abby spoke up. "Wait, wait. Are you telling me there's a redheaded, Irish cobbler wandering around in your backyard? You got yourself as wee little leprechaun there, Jess."

"Ha ha," I deadpanned, rolling my eyes at the preposterous thought.

"How tall was he?"

"I'm..." I wasn't sure. All I saw of him was his head and a bit of the neck. The bedroom was ground floor, what with the house having only one, but he could have been hunched over to make it through the hole. Or standing on a ladder.

"Four feet? Three?" Abby was snorting hard at her joke. Her words garbled as she spat out fast, "Better be quick to get all his lucky charms!"

"I hate you," I mumbled, coming to a stop in my driveway.

I let my friend finish with the unending cascade of giggles, my head tipped back into the duct-taped headrest. Shutting off the car, I pinned the phone between my shoulder and jaw while exiting. Abby finally shook off her unhelpful laughter and sighed, "Well, if your wee pixie doesn't show I can stop by to help fix it."

"What do you know about window repair?" I asked, my hip slamming the car door shut. Exhausted to the marrow, I collapsed against the car rather than face what I knew waited inside.

Abby took her time before blurting out, "There's gotta be a video tutorial on it."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'll..." sighing, I shifted the phone to my other ear and finally rose, "I'll figure it out. Bye."

"Bye," Abby chirped and I killed the call.

What were the chances the man who cut down a tree that shattered a bedroom window would stick to his word? Negative billion came to mind. More than just the glass littering my carpet and snow blowing in through the hole, I knew Tir had to have been on a tear from my closing the bedroom off to him. It didn't matter if he never spent any of the day in that room, the fact he was suddenly no longer allowed was tantamount to treason and I'd have to pay for it.

"I won't have a single roll of toilet paper left," I sighed, turning around the five-foot-tall bushes to the walkway. My mind flitted between who to hire to fix a window and which bottle of wine to open so I'd forget the mess. There was no way in hell I'd ever see that handsome Irishman ever...

"Hello." Green eyes caught mine from the impenetrable ether they'd been glaring into. I nearly ran backwards on my heels, my heart leaping into my throat at an unexplainable man standing on my porch.

"What are you—?" my lips tried to spit, but my eyes drank him in. An oaky-green flannel cut tight to his chest. So tight that when he shifted his arm the bicep threatened to split a seam. The color caused his eyes to glow, beckoning me to stare in rapture at the verdant depths.

He rose from his lean, quickly towering above me. No three-foot leprechaun was he. Stupid! Leprechauns aren't real. And dear God was his smile pretty. It flashed fast, without impudence, an ease and charm softening his hard jaw. As I kept staring, my mouth dangling open, the brightness in his eyes began to dim.

"Doing?" I squeaked, wishing I could pinch myself.

The smile's warmth increased tenfold, dooming me. "I'd intended to leave you a note, but this is much better," Conall said, passing me a scrap of folded paper. I accepted it in my fingers, limply flipping it open even while waiting for him to talk.

"As a full apology for the damage I caused, I wanted to invite you to dinner."

"What?" My head whipped up at him. I wanted to glare. The dashingly charming and besotting man was trying to pay off his crimes with a simple meal? It was enraging for him to think he could get away without proper reparations.

As the fullness of his meadow eyes fell upon me, my body was more than happy to let him do whatever he wanted. He leaned closer, a finger jabbing at the note. I took in a breath and my nose filled with amber, oakmoss, and a dab of clover. Conall didn't even blink as I lapped up his scent.

"To discuss the proper procedure for fixing your shattered pane. I don't know about you, but there's nothing I despise more than negotiating on an empty stomach."

God save me, his lips rounded up to a smile and he dipped the tip of his tongue against the edge. My traitorous eyes followed the movement and, in an instant, I ached to see if his lips were as soft as they looked. Shaking off the thought, I focused my attention on the letter. "Oh? So you do intend to fix it?"

He slapped a hand to his chest, reminding me how wide his palms were. "Lass, an Irishman never goes back on his word," he spoke with a cloak of chivalry, but his eyes sparkled as if we were sharing a private joke. "Tonight, if at all possible. I did my best to block up the hole, but the thought of you having to suffer in a drafty bedroom for overlong wounds me."

"You...you want to have dinner tonight?" My mind was still struggling with the threat of negotiations. But, then again, before I'd figured he'd pay a big fat goose egg, so anything was better than nothing. "Wh-where?" It was already past 7. Having to get changed and set out for the city, it was unlikely we'd even be seated before 9.

Conall turned to wave a hand at the house right next to mine. "A home-cooked meal is the best panacea for life's ills. Oh, and I hope you like lamb."

"Love it," I threw out as if we were talking favorite movie genres. He didn't really make lamb? For me?

"Grand." Conall danced around my frozen body, a thumb raised for emphasis. "Merely ring the bell when you're ready, Lass." With a lightness in his steps, he walked towards my next door neighbor's house. My eyes kept darting from the note in immaculate penmanship, to the house I thought was still the home of an older gentleman and not an Irish angel — who broke windows on the side.

"O...Okay," I muttered as if he was still there to hear me. When I caught my fingers waving at nothing, I sneered and stomped inside. Stop acting stupid, like he put me under some spell. I had to be focused, tough. Accept nothing less than a full replacement and clean up. And God, do not look at his tight ass again. It'll give the whole thing away.

Dropping my purse to the couch, I gave into my libido's pleading and let my mind return to those bountiful buttocks vacuum-sealed in his grey pants. I fluttered his letter in my hands, trying to cool off my burning cheeks, when twelve pounds of fur launched from the bookshelf. The body struck my shoulder while the front paws clawed at the paper toy.

Groaning at the weight, I pet my cat. "Hi to you too, Tiramy."

CHAPTER THREE

NOTHING TO BE nervous about. Just meeting a stranger at his house to discuss...no, negotiate. I frowned at the reminder that this wasn't to be a pleasant evening. He certainly didn't make it sound as if he'd cut me a check and fork over a plate of leftovers.

Why did he invite me to dinner?

Pulling in a calming breath, the crisp early-spring breeze brushed against the daring neckline of my camisole. The black blazer was my version of a power tie, always backing me up in the worst of situations fate led me into. Usually, I paired it with a turtleneck or boxy blouse, but in digging through my laundry all I could find was this low cut cami. Truly, there was nothing else I could wear. It wasn't as if I wondered what those emerald eyes would do when they'd caress down my cleavage.

Well aware I was stalling, and that for a ten-minute argument I didn't even need to bother changing, I lifted my finger for the doorbell. The first few jangles broke through the house and I stared down at my surprise-neighbor's lawn. Prodding through the retreating snow were surprising stretches of green.

Odd, I didn't remember seeing clover here.

The door that I'd been cowering at for a few minutes blew inward. My foot lashed behind in surprise, prepared to catch my clumsy form, which was right when the heel decided to buckle. I felt my body slipping towards the stone steps, no doubt about to land me in the emergency room for stitches.

As if parting from the heavens, a hand enveloped my waist. Raw strength froze my descent, pinning me in place as I tripped into emerald eyes. "Evening, Lass," Conall chuckled while holding me safely in half an embrace. He leaned closer, his nose nearly glancing against the tip of mine. Twin rings of pure gold encircled his pupils, the flecks dancing through his fields of green that sparkled in mine.

A pulse dug into my hip and along the small of my back, Conall flexing his hand against all of me. Right, he was holding me. On his front step.

I clumsily slammed my heel into place, finally taking my weight off of him. While he returned his hand to his side, he didn't look strained at having to hold me up. If anything, his cheeks brightened and the smile rose higher.

"You, you said I should come over," I babbled and finally let my eyes traverse down his body. The flannel was gone revealing a thin white undershirt straining against a set of shoulders and pecs that'd put most marble statues to shame. There were three buttons at the neckline, the first undone to reveal a tuft of red chest hair poking out. The shirt cuffs were rolled nearly to his elbows, the taut forearms flexing off square wrists. What struck me were the suspenders dangling off the tight grey pants. In his getup, he looked like a factory worker fresh off his shift in the Industrial Revolution.

An incredibly hot and buff factory worker, who was sweaty in all the right places.

"Indeed I did," Conall spoke, nearly shaking my lustful thoughts free. Window. Broken. Fix it.

Maybe if I kept repeating that phrase over and over he wouldn't bamboozle me by taking his shirt off. Oh God, I groaned as he turned to reveal the suspenders framing his round buttocks perfectly. Okay, yes, he could get whatever he wanted if he just asked.

"Please, come inside. I'd offer to take your coat, but you seem daring enough to leave the house without one," he continued, proving to be the perfect host over my drooling. Taking one last breath, I stepped into his home.

"It's not that cold," I laughed at the thought, "or that far a walk next door. When did you move in?"

"I didn't," he said taking me aback. "This is one of those app rentals. For a time."

"Oh?" I glanced around the living room cleaned and impersonal. With the soft grey walls and dark furniture, it looked like the setting of a staged house for a lifestyle magazine. "How long will you be here?"

Conall's chin pivoted at my question. His eyes began at mine, the emerald gaze amplifying as if he could pluck free my thoughts with a look. If so, he'd probably combust. Slowly, he drifted to my lips and the tip of his tongue lapped the length of his own. I squirmed in my heels, tempted to mimic his movements. But when his eyes landed upon my chest, I froze.

It was only for a beat, barely a glance, but the edge of his smile turned high and he met me eye for eye. "Depends on if I find what I'm looking for. You may leave your shoes at the door if you wish."

I hadn't planned to abandon them, but then I did nearly spill out on the front stoop. While sliding out of one, and tugging off the next, my body contorted so I didn't bend clean over. "Your business card, the one that says you're a cobbler...?"

"Oh." He smiled brightly. "Yes?"

"Just...are you really one? Does anyone need cobbling nowadays?"

"You'd be surprised." He relaxed his stance and I found my own shoulders unknotting. "Though, I'm not strictly a cobbler. More a jack of all trades. If you need something fixed, I'm the one you call."

"Now I'm starting to think you work for the mafia," I muttered to myself when the air went deathly quiet. Tension ripped through the sterile room. All I heard was the slush of my blood pumping through my quickening body.

Conall leaned closer. His feet locked to the floor, but his six foot and counting size easily pushed his lips beside my face. Hot breath tickled down my ear as he whispered, "And you willingly walked into my home. Brave Lass indeed."

Goosebumps erupted over my arms, my teeth chattering as I turned to face the voice in my ear, and found a disarming smile instead. A laugh rolled in my gut, Conall quickly responding in kind at the shared joke.

"I am a contractor," he explained as if to assure me he didn't have bodies hidden under the floorboards, "carpenter when needed."

"And occasional cobbler?"

"People too often let good shoes go to waste."

I was going to give Abby so much grief for her leprechaun theory. He wasn't some magical, gold-hoarding pixie. He's a drop-dead gorgeous Irishman who builds things. Perfectly normal. Dime a dozen, really.

"Is that why you were cutting down the tree?" I asked.

Conall squinted. "I don't know many who use trees for shoes. Excusing the Dutch." Before I could explain, he laughed and did it for me. "Yes, there was mention of a dead tree in the yard. The landscapers feared it might fall and cause damage. I'm afraid I didn't realize how rotten the roots became when it tipped into your bedroom."

I remembered the old elm. It hadn't shown signs of life in a couple of summers. Maybe a few branches with leaves, but that was it. His story made sense. Better than "I wanted to see if you slept naked and broke your window to get a peek."

Bouncing on my naked heels, I said, "I'm amazed I didn't hear the chainsaw."

"Chainsaw?"

"To cut down the tree. They're always so loud and..." I trailed his line of sight behind me toward the front door. "You can hear them for miles," I kept babbling while staring at an ax that looked like it could cleave a bear in half. It rested against a shoe rack as if it belonged there.

"You cut it down by hand?"

Conall shrugged. "There is usually some back, chest, and thigh involved as well." To emphasize, he drew his tree-chopping hand against said body parts which invited me to join in looking. How could I not have noticed those thighs before?

"You, me..." My lips sputtered words incoherently while my imagination flooded with a half-naked Irish lumberjack. "We!" I snapped out of it, realizing I had no idea where I was going. "We were going to discuss fixing the window. My window. My broken window."

Sweet lord, I sounded like an imbecile, but Conall was kind enough to chuckle at my ineptitude. He leaned nearer, his smile overwhelming me, when a ding broke from further inside the house. "Ah, sounds as if supper is ready," he declared, spinning on his heel and marching towards the supposed kitchen.

On instinct, I trailed him, giving into the occasional glance at his ass and the sway of the suspenders. "You had no idea when I'd come over and it just got done now?" I voiced one of the less incriminating thoughts in my head.

Sparkling eyes whipped back to me and he winked. "I'm rather lucky that way."

The smile stumbled my feet, his wink alighting my cheeks, and I muttered, "Must be nice. I'm afraid I'm not so lucky."

His gaze danced from my blushing cheeks down my cleavage and he snickered, "Give it time."

A scoff tried to build in my throat at his boldness, but when his back turned I lay my palm flat to my cheek. My entire body was tingling, my skin buzzing as if a single whisper could start a fire. And all he did was glance at me.

Trying to balance myself, I stared around the kitchen. Once again the stainless steel appliances and granite countertops were impersonal, the fine but bland taste hiding away any hint of who this relative stranger was. I was about to comment when my sight landed upon a black cauldron coated in chunks of rusting wrought iron bubbling on the stovetop.

Conall tugged off the lid sending a cascade of steam from boiled lamb and peas through the air. The meaty scent entwining with his tree-chopping physique left me ravenous. Paying me no heed, he dipped a wooden spoon deep into his concoction and took his own deep whiff of the meal.

"That's...an interesting pot," I said, my stomach eyeing up the rich stew while my lower bits grew peckish for the man stirring it.

Impish green eyes darted up over the pitch black cauldron. He held the spoon between us, his tongue lapping over his lips in thought. "Oh?"

"Don't see a lot of cast iron cauldrons outside of Halloween." I tried to laugh it off, but that ringing silence returned.

Conall glanced at his ancient pot as if seeing it for the first time. With a slow shrug, he said, "Only way I know to make a proper Irish stew. Here, give it a taste."

He extended the spoon towards me, the thick brown liquid reflecting his famished gaze. It could be poisoned. My brain tried to rescue me, or at least throw a pail of cold sense on the problem, but it was too late. Leaning forward at my waist, my lips suckered around the wooden spoon. Slowly, I pulled in the stew and my ramen-honed tastebuds erupted in joy.

"This is good," I gasped, tilting my head up. The move surprised Conall and I bonked my cheek into the stew-coated spoon in the way. Stupid. I tried to turn away and blot the accident off when warm fingers curled over my jaw like a meadow breeze.

Gently, he swiped his thumb over the spot, soaking the stain onto his own skin. With a smile, his green eyes burning into mine, he placed his thumb into his mouth and licked it off. I burned at the tender lap of his tongue around the thick thumb, my eyes drawn to the gentle pucker in his mouth. How it caressed his finger, holding it in his warm kiss.

How sweet...

How soft...

Hot hot...

I dove for him, plunging to his lips before my brain or body had a chance to call a retreat. Conall's hand barely slipped from his mouth before I claimed it.

Stone hard from shock at first, his lips melted against mine. Heat danced off the lips pressing as tenderly as a daisy's petals to mine. Fingers swept across my cheek until burrowing at the nape of my neck. Digging into my hair, Conall pulled me deeper into the kiss. His tongue slicked between the narrow gap of my lips, begging for an invitation. Greedy for a taste, I parted mine and he delved in, his hand rustling apart my ponytail while he tipped my head to fit him.

Spring rains tumbling off a crystal mountain stream. Verdant grass wafting in the sea air. The bleat of sheep standing upon the unassailable cliffs. My mind, my senses, my very being filled with not just the images but the scents and touch of those thoughts and more.

I gasped, breaking the kiss. The soul of Ireland fled from my mind, but the agony didn't leave my body. I gulped in air to shake away the illusion, but the earthy scent of lamb stew didn't help. "You," I sputtered, my hands splayed out over his chest. Conall froze, his fingers tousled in my hair but not gripping. I could easily push him away, his back to the counter, mine the exit.

Taking another breath, I stared up from his flushed lips glistening due to my kiss, into his eyes. "You broke my window," I said slowly.

"Yes," he responded solemnly.

I launched for him, my arms locking around the back of his neck, my hand pulling him into my kiss. Our tongues lapped against one another, mine tugging his bottom lip into my mouth. When I sucked upon it, my teeth barely grazing the fragile skin, his hands enveloped the small of my back. So large, they overlaid one another, Conall's fingertips reaching up my spine as he pulsed and kneaded against me.

"And," I broke again, my body flush to his. Straining on my tiptoes, as I stared deep into his eyes my hips glided against his clinging to low-slung trousers. A moan rolled off his tongue from my lower belly excising the rising bulge.

The guttural groan of pleasure caught me so by surprise, I fell forward. Lashing a hand out to grip the cupboard, I kept myself from crushing him, but our foreheads softly knocked. His arms wrapped around my waist, tucking me into his embrace as much to protect himself as well as me.

With our noses burrowing into each other's cheeks, our eyes filled only with the other's pupils, I asked, "And you will fix it?"

Pulling in a slow breath, the side of his lips rose and he rustled the tip of his tongue against the smattering of red scruff. "Yes," he repeated. His fingers locked around the nape of my neck, Conall submerging himself into my mouth. My body tumbled, not to the ground, not off a counter, but in his arms.

As if he was dipping me at the end of a ballroom waltz, he tipped me nearly horizontal. Fingers pulsed into the small of my back, reminding me that I was safe in his arms, while the others tugged on my hair. A gasping moan rolled off my tongue, Conall quick to ravish his own response in the throes of our kiss.

Just as I drank deep of the delectable Irish whiskey heating my veins, his lips left mine. I blinked, expecting him to put up his own questions, when a scorching kiss nibbled on the edge of my collarbone. Tipping my head back, I heard a grateful chuckle from the man more than happy to take advantage. With his strong lips, he pursed and nipped along the thin skin at the side of my throat. I wanted to giggle, but instead of feeling ticklish each tender touch drove straight to my sparking core.

Switching to the other side, his little nibbles canvassed across my exposed décolletage. The heat of his breath slid down my cleavage. Both hands dug into the small of my back, the heels cupping the top of my ass. My mind ran wild imagining those hands pressing to my back and buttocks as he thrust from behind. Or how they'd hold me up as I rode his lap. A giddy laugh escaped my lips at the wild ideas rampaging through my brain. Conall's scorching tongue lapped along the hem of my lacy camisole. Slowly, he curled it further inward, his lips sucking and nibbling on the heaving edge of my breasts.

I ached to rip my blazer off, the camisole, every damn stitch of clothing in the way. But at the same time, I was hypnotized by the tender kisses the Irishman drew between my less-than-ample cleavage.

"Mmm," Conall moaned, his fingers gliding higher. It tugged my blazer up, revealing my skin to his warm touch. His palm slipped under every layer, alighting my body as he reached ever higher up my spine. At the bra strap, he notched his fingers around the clasp, rolling it in his grip as if he could rip it open with his bare hand. Suddenly, he paused, his fingers sliding away.

The exploring palm landed almost chastely upon my hip, though his fingers kept gliding around to curl over my ass. With almost no strain, Conall tugged me back to my steady feet, cautious green eyes staring into mine as if he feared crossing a dangerous boundary.

Which he probably did. Inviting a woman over for dinner, because he broke her window, then ravishing her before the main course was even served.

_Would there be ravishing? _

He paused with our chests so close pulling in air slid my breasts across his pecs. My eyes drifted from his unreadable thoughts to his lips. Spicy red from every kiss he placed to my body, I could feel the heat off of them even at a distance.

_You're here for a reason, remember._

Another ragged breath punctured through his glistening lips, Conall smearing a hand through his hair.

_To get him to fix the window._

My hands dropped from where they'd dug into his back. The spread of muscles that tightened to keep me aloft, hard as stone even after putting me on my feet, began to soften. His hair rubbing paused, the palm remaining on his forehead, while he gazed almost sheepishly from below it.

_So, hammer out the details, then fuck him._

I leapt for him, pinning the man back to his counter. While my lips begged for sanctuary upon his, my hands were anything but chaste. Curling my palms over his shirt, I rustled against the hearty fabric piled into his straining waistband. Conall was quick to assist. Even while kissing me he snatched onto the back of his shirt and gifted me with a miracle.

Skin pale as cream, brown-red freckles dashed from the pop of his shoulders down into his mop of auburn chest hair. A single coin dangled off a chain around his neck, its color more ochre than gold. It caught my attention for a second when Conall wadded up his shirt, pulling his naked chest into stark relief. I lapped my lips with my panting tongue while gazing from his pillowed pecs down the long line of an 8-pack. The strip of red hair pointed me like a beacon towards his stark hipbones prodding over the trousers.

"So," I snapped my jaws as if I couldn't wait to get a taste of his taut biceps, rolling hills of abs, or what was clearly prepping for attention below the woolen trousers. My eyes bored into his, both the hunger and certainty in the emeralds bringing a smile to me. "How long will it take?"

"Depends upon your preferences, Lass," he whispered in my ear, my body trembling at the lust punctuating his breath. His fingers curled down my cheek and landed upon the edge of my askew blazer.

Boldness blazed in my veins and I wrapped my hand around the back of his. "No," I said, his eyes opening in surprise. Slowly, I placed his hand to the top of my blazer's buttons. "I meant how long until you fix my window."

A cocky smile flitted about his lips, his eyes burning into my kissed cleavage. "Well," Conall chuckled, undoing the first button. "That rests upon," he broke open the second, the tips of his fingers swiping against the silk clinging to my belly, "the frame and availability of a pane that fits."

When the last button popped, I shrugged off my jacket. The unforgiving light of the stove glanced upon my shoulders, nearly sending a shiver up my spine. Warm hands enveloped my stomach, both sliding upward. The satiny glide of my camisole lit awake my skin as Conall's lips plunged to mine. His questing hands circled under my breasts, hoisting them higher as his palms easily outflanked both.

Losing all sense, I scratched my fingers from the tuft of red belly hair around to his back. He gasped into my mouth, his open lips dancing against mine. Our eyes met and I said, "Sounds like it'll require...days."

My palm swung forward, cupping around the cock nearly bulging over his waistband. "Jaysus!" Conall cried, his hips thrusting forward to lay that vital part of himself in my hand. Rolling my tongue across my teeth, I inched my fingers up to find the pesky fly. At first, he widened his stance, gifting me an easier tug, when suddenly he grabbed both my hands by the wrist.

"Nah, no chance will I let a stunner strip me down." Conall shook his head, his emerald eyes staring through space. He extended my hands wide as if I were to be hoisted upon a cross. I stared in confusion at his right palm, the fingers so long they easily enclosed my wrist like a bangle. My mind spun in a circle.

_Did I read all that flirting wrong? Was he not into me? Oh God, how could I even face him again after..._

Eyes green as spring's clover burned into mine. He released my wrists, my arms dangling helplessly to the side. Curling his palm over my jaw, he held my face as he breathed, "Not until I get you in the buff first."

Pink silk flew over my face, the lace tickling my lips while Conall ripped off the camisole. I pulled in a breath, dancing on my naked toes as the drop-dead gorgeous Irishman turned his emerald eyes straight to my boobs. A string of what sounded like guttural curses escaped his lips, though judging by the joy on his face it could be prayer.

His mouth glanced across mine, the hot tongue once again dipping in. At the same time, his hands swept around my back, both targeting in on the bra's hooks. While kissing me with such force I stumbled, he struggled with the first of three clasps. When the second refused to budge, he did curse, "Shite," against my cheek.

"I thought you were supposed to be a handyman? Good with your hands?" I purred, catching his eye.

That wily tongue rolled over his teeth and he chuckled. "Aye Lass, wait 'til you see what I can do with my nimble fingers."

"Then." I reached behind to grip the tricky bra myself. Conall's hands fell to the wayside, his eyes widening with a view only of me. A blush burned across my chest and rose for my cheeks from a man's attention narrowed upon me. The clasps gave way under my practiced hand. Slowly, I pulled both straps down, releasing my breasts from their tether.

"Mother Eire herself," Conall gulped. He didn't even wait for the bra straps to move past my elbows. Tugging the damn undergarment free himself, my bra flew through the sterile kitchen. His lips pressed to mine while his hands — those warm, tender, talented hands — swept against the thin, naked skin he worked so hard to free. "Oh you're beyond a stunner, me beaut," he cried, his hot breath twirling in my ear while his fingers performed magic.

Gently, he kneaded against my giving flesh, his fingers swooping out to the sides of my ribs while ladling me in kisses. But when I plucked his bottom lip between mine, he wrapped both thumb and forefinger around my nipples. The pinch caused me to jump not in pain but surprise.

"Tell me," he smiled, his accent thickening as he began to coax my nipples, "how you like to be touched." Lips pressed to my throat, soft as a beat of a butterfly wing. Slowly, he swept the tips of his fingers against my nipples.

"Tender and slow?" Conall whispered, pressing kisses down my throat. "Or," he breathed just above the press of my cleavage.

"Or?" I repeated, struggling for air.

A winking smile danced from his lips to his eyes. Darting forward, he sucked his scorching lips against my right nipple. "Christ," I gasped, my head tipping back, hands tousling through his hair. Conall increased the pressure, just the tip of his teeth gliding against my nipple. Pleasure erupted through my body, my thighs pressing tighter as the need to ride him drew to an ache.

He switched to the left, following the same pattern and causing me to unleash more ecstatic cursing. I found myself flexing my calves in hunger, my hips thrusting forward with each swipe of his teeth. "No one's ever," I gulped, sweat rising on my brow. I tried to wipe it away before the sexy Irishman staggering to his full height noticed. Even as those dashing lips smiled, his hands kept knocking against my nipples. The ripples dancing down my body wouldn't stop.

"I do believe there's yet the matter of your trousers," Conall chuckled. Biting down on my lip, all I could do was nod. Words were quickly escaping my brain, and I feared if I tried to open my mouth gibberish would emerge.

"Now." He hooked his leg around behind me, tugging my bottom half to his hands. I flourished in the bounce of his cock against my hip, glad to know it'd only grown more demanding from my shirtless state.

While he pressed his lips to my ear, sucking upon the lobe and breathing a shot of hot air inside, his fingers worked quickly on the button. "This I do know."

My pants hit the floor without any complications, revealing to him my single pair of deep green panties. His eyes darted down to the shiny bikini bottoms with only a thin strap keeping them on my hips. "Nice color," Conall whispered.

Circling around my hip, his finger playfully tussled with the band, tugging the hemline down towards my inner thigh. All the while he kept trying to kiss me, but I couldn't stop struggling for air, my full attention upon the fingers swerving about in my dark pubic hair. The agony of waiting, of never knowing if and when he'd dip in, drove me mad. I found my body rising up on my toes and widening my stance as if it was screaming for his touch.

As if I was.

"Jesus Christ!" I shouted when that wayward finger swept straight down the middle of my inner core.

Conall began to hum at the wetness coating his finger. "I adore that." I was about to ask what he meant when he circled from my inner folds up to the shy clit.

It was no joke he was skilled with his hands. A talented expert, he rubbed not just the pearl itself but swerved and swept every humming inch. Every time he danced his fingertip on the hood itself I feared I may fall backwards in ecstasy. My nails dug into his shoulders, trying to keep me upright, while the man weaving an orgasm from just one finger kept pressing a kiss to my slack lips.

"Please," slipped from my mouth into his. Even I started in surprise from the word before my body told my brain what it wanted. "I need you," I sputtered. My hand freed from the taut muscle it clung to and once again curled around the hidden cock.

Conall's Adam's apple bobbed, his eyes screwed tight as he gazed to the heavens. "I," his finger retracted from inside me. "I cannot deny you," he said as if in shock at the fact. Undoing his straining button fly, he kept a hand locked around his todger while letting his pants fall.

Slowly, as if uncertain to reveal it, he opened his palm, the fingers circling around a delectable cock. It bore the same woodsman girth as its owner, the head larger than the straining shaft which pulsed twice at my hungry gaze. Sliding my palm over his bony hip, I rustled my thumb through his rust-colored pubic hair. My hand circled just at the base of his cock as I whispered against his lips.

"It's perfect."

Conall's wide palms grabbed my hips, his teeth nibbling on my neck as he hefted me into the air. I wiggled my feet in shock at how fast and far they left the ground, but it wasn't for long. Placing me upon the table right beside a set of bowls for the forgotten stew, he snatched off my panties. Hands worried up my inner thighs, digging into the muscle even as he spread my legs wider.

Growling deep in his chest, he placed the crown of his cock right against that clit he'd stroked to almost perfection. His hips shuddered, that delectable tip pulsing and pushing more pleasure from my throbbing clit. I gasped at the pleasure beading through my body and Conall's bright eyes snapped down at himself almost as if surprised to find his cock nearly inside me. His forehead against mine, I watched his slick tongue glide over his lips.

Slowly, I raised my ankles, bouncing the heels against his ass. As they locked behind him, sealing us together, he looked up into my eyes. I opened my lips, about to tell him to fuck me, when he thrust forward. My arousal greedily sucked him in, Conall's cock pressing deep into my hungry cunt. A moan of heady pleasure erupted from my mouth, but the second was caught by his lips. Even while thrusting he kept kissing me, a primal grunt rising from his chest.

His hands tried to cup my back, to pull me closer, his cock diving deeper and deeper inside. Guttural panting transformed to goosebumps rising all across my naked skin. In one fast move, Conall grabbed my ass and pulled me into the perfect spot.

"Holy shit," I spat, my clit bounding against the base of his cock. My ankle rose higher, opening myself to the bliss pounding inside of me. The rattle of silverware, shake of the table, and our panting breaths were the only sounds pounding in my ears.

A tender palm swept over my breast, lips babbling in that same strange language against my forehead. "Tell me," he suddenly switched back to English, eyes burning into mine, "tell me this is what you want."

His certainty, his need for me, caused my heart to thrum erratically. "Yes," I whispered, my voice terrified. It felt as if I was staring into a power I couldn't understand.

"What?" Conall gasped. He dove his finger over my clit, his spine leaning back as he gave all of himself to me.

"Yes!" I screamed, the fuse sparking into a full out explosion. His thrusting paused, though through the tremors rocking my vagina I could feel his cock savoring the ride. My ankles remained locked around his ass, Conall's one hand digging into my hip while the other cupped my cheek almost chastely. In that position, he rode out the orgasm trembling down my legs and up into my chest.

His green eyes stared where he joined with me as if still surprised to find his cock found its way there. When he didn't begin thrusting again, I reached out between us, fingers fumbling apart his hair. "You are," Conall sighed, his hot tongue tapping against his top lip. Boring his sight into mine, I stared deep into the gold flecks that seemed to be increasing by the kitchen's overhead light.

"I'm what?" I asked, feeling more foolish by the second.

The fingers curling over my cheek swept lower, Conall parting his thumbprint against my lip. Slowly, he tugged my bottom lip open and placed that half kissed thumb to his own mouth. Pulling in a deep breath, he declared, "Impossible."

Hips rocketed forward, driving the pound of his cock back through my orgasm-drunk core. Sweat percolated across his swath of creamy skin like dawn's dew upon a white rose. Fists slammed to the table astride me, rock hard forearms pinning against my hips. Conall tugged me tighter to his rolling pelvis and thumping cock, even as he placed his lips to mine.

The heat of a fire burned not only through my body but in my nose. It smelled of a hearth with a fresh catch popping in the fireplace, warm arms wrapped around me as an Irish rain beat against the windows. It felt of home, of safety and belonging.

"Sweet Mary," Conall cried against my lips, breaking the spell. His head tipped back to the ceiling, his fingers digging into my pooling hips as he came. Still, he kept on thrusting, as if wanting to keep the magic going even as the wand sputtered to a rest. Sadly, all good things and so forth. After wiping his forehead and shaking his head as if he downed a shot, he pulled himself free of me.

"That," he gulped, a giddy chuckle rolling off his lips.

That was not supposed to happen.

I struggled to sit up, the table's hard edge digging into my bare skin. Guilty, my eyes darted to the empty bowls still waiting for dinner. Conall followed my gaze and he smiled, "That's one way to work up an appetite."

"I, uh..." The full situation punctured through my post-coital, rainbow haze. Shame gurgled in my empty gut, and my eyes darted from the fully naked man back to the door. "I don't usually do that," I sputtered out.

"No?" Conall spoke, rising off me to his feet to gather up the scattered clothing. "That's a shame," he said, his green eyes winking at me, "because you're quite talented at it."

A laugh rolled in my chest evaporating the tension. Without a care, he crammed one foot down his pants leg and said, "Now if you don't mind, I believe it's uncouth for a gentleman to dine in the presence of a lady while in the buff."

I watched in awe as he hid away his muscled thighs, the hips vanishing with the tug of his waistband. He took care tucking that yet rigid member into the fly while buttoning it away. A thought struck me, foolish and perhaps childish, but I plucked up his lost shirt and threw it over my own body before he could.

Green eyes watched me struggle to slide my arms through the sleeves, the long cuffs hiding away my hands. My breath held as I waited for Conall to yank his shirt back, call me on the far too intimate move, and kick me out. But those eyes drifted down across my breasts just before they too slipped below his shirt.

A sigh of regret lingered upon his lips, his fingers stuck upon his waistband as if he forgot what he was doing. I rummaged through my hair, trying to fluff up the mess, which was when I realized my toes were yet skimming above the floor. Hard to eat supper while I was sitting on the damn table.

When I hopped off, my eyes drifted across that acre of flesh I didn't want him to hide away. The tuft of red chest hair was slicked up by sweat and smashed to and fro. The ruts reminded me of when a herd of deer scattered through a field. My fingers reached for it, as if I had to fluff his body hair up, when the glint of the coin caught the last rays of the sun.

Without the temptation of a naked man thrusting upon me, I was able to focus on the curiosity. Instead of being a perfect circle, the edges were blobby and misshapen, like it was pulled from a museum. There was a relief upon the top but I couldn't make it out. The letters circling the outside looked too random to me to form words.

"You've gone into your head," Conall whispered, his voice tumbling like waves against a cliff.

"Sorry, I was...your coin?" My palm swept up his dewy skin to reach for the golden coin. Just before I could touch it, Conall jerked his neck back, his body taking a full step away from mine.

"It's, I've never, um," my lips kept talking, my foolish hand hanging in the air while the man that just fucked me hard glared. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Oh?" That surprised him, his eyes opening wide. With a tender caress, he cupped the coin and held it up to his face. "It's me treasure."

"Like..." I tried to find a laugh at the serious words, but he stared at the coin as if there was nothing else in the room. Nothing else in the world. "A treasure as in an old coin you unearthed at a construction site?"

The golden question tumbled back to his pecs, my eyes drawn to not only its metronome swing but the body below. Conall rifled through his hair, his stance shifting open. "Something like that. You're probably hungry." He pointed to the long-forgotten stew before dashing to its side.

"Famished," I admitted, my foot sliding over the top of the other. The scent of amber and clover smothered my body in a tight hug. Wanting to smell more off his shirt, I rubbed at my stomach.

"Looks that way, Lass."

I whipped my head up to find emerald eyes smirking at me caressing my own body. After another wink, he pointed at the two bowls. "Incidentally, is there a moniker you prefer?" Conall spoke as I handed him the means to passing out dinner. "Jess, Jessica, Jessie?"

God, in that thigh-trembling Irish brogue I'd let him get away with calling me Jessie.

Accepting the stew, I smiled. "Jess is fine. And for you?"

"Conall's all I know. Least all that's served me well," he spoke breezily while falling into the head of the household's place at the table. I tugged back the chair beside only to discover where my panties wound up. The dark green taunted me, reminding and scolding me over what I did. With a lightning quick speed, I snatched them up into my fist and dropped to the chair.

"Caith siar," Conall said in that same tongue he whispered against my neck. Before I could ask what he meant, he dug into the dinner. I caught the gist and followed suit. God all mighty the man could cook. It wasn't Instagram pretty, but the spicy lamb broth drove straight to my stomach and warmed my bones. I found myself licking my spoon clean even before diving back for another taste.

My skin prickled and I looked up into green eyes devouring my every move. Guilty, I wiped the back of my knuckles over both sides of my mouth for fear there was a mess left behind. Conall cupped his cheek in his hand, elbow planted to the table, as he mused, "You are not what I expected to find."

"Oh?"

"You're so young and álainn." He sounded truly gobsmacked at such a fact, as if he expected me to be some rickety geriatric. I glared in confusion. How could he have expected me to be anything? He sent that tree through my window accidentally, right?

"I mean," Conall gulped, his eyes opening wide, "given the makeup of the area...I'd first feared I'd given some poor old lady a heart attack."

That made sense.

He leaned across the table and caught my fingers. Slowly, he smoothed his index finger up and down the middle of my palm. Conall's voice purred, "I am eternally grateful I did not."

A blush burned on my cheeks which I fanned with my free hand. The other was content to be in his. "It...it used to be my grandmother's house. When she grew too frail to easily get around, I moved in to help look after her."

"Generous too." Conall lifted the glass of water as if toasting me. "Should I be inviting her over for a meal as well?"

My face blanched bone white at the thought of my grandmother knowing _anything_ about what occurred in this kitchen. Gulping in air, I shook my head. "No, no, she...passed in her sleep a year or so back. She didn't have much, but she left me the house."

"I am sorry," he whispered as if he could have had anything to do with an old woman's peaceful death.

Shrugging, I admitted, "It was probably the only bit of luck for me to happen after a tragedy. Things haven't been...easy in my life." I hated to admit that I believed in curses, or even say it aloud. But watching my life fall apart on an endless loop, it became difficult to ignore. And that was not post-coital dinner talk to dredge up. What was exactly?

"The window. You wanted to...agreed to fix the window you broke." My brain snapped back to action as if it'd been waiting with spreadsheets in hand.

Conall's hand slid to his side of the table. "Aye, I will require a key from you as I'll have to be slippin' in and out of your bedroom to install it."

That thought made me blush from my thighs up to my chest. I'd certainly love to have him slipping and sliding in my bedroom. "Oh, Tir will try to run the second you open the door. I'll have to put him in his kennel. God, he hates that."

"Yes, your wee kitty. What is he called exactly? Tiry? Tirami?"

My flush of lust shifted to embarrassment as I had to face telling the sexy Irishman my cat's full name. "Tiramisu. He's mostly black except for a strip of white and brown along his belly. Also, it's my favorite dessert."

I hadn't planned to adopt a kitten, much less the ball of energy Tir turned into. But I stumbled across him in an alley with mud-splattered to his ebony fur and I couldn't turn away. "The most unlucky girl in the world with a black cat," I said shrugging, "it seems almost comical."

"You think yourself unlucky?" Conall asked, his fingers tenting like a supervillain planning to launch a nuclear bomb.

"I just had a tree smash through my bedroom window. My bed is literally covered in glass and debris. If that's not unlucky..." Though it did introduce me to him, and then I got really lucky. "Not that, I mean..." Oh shit, that was bad.

But Conall chuckled. "I understand entirely. It does have the makings for a rather unpleasant day."

"It's gotten much better," I raced to smooth over feathers that didn't even seem ruffled. If anything, he was a man with the least amount of ego I'd ever met.

"Glad I am to hear that, Lass. There is another question I hoped to pose to you." He scooted his chair closer, emerald eyes boring into me.

"Oh?" I perked up, my heart in my throat.

"Given the state of your bed, I cannot in good conscience allow a woman to risk herself upon such glass. Would you consider sleeping in mine for the evening?"

He lay both his hands open upon the table as if trying to show he had no cards up his sleeves. Leaning closer, my fingers curled over his palms and up his wrists. I kept rising off the chair until my breath could whisper in his ear, "Will you be sharing it?"

Ravishing green eyes turned to me and winked.

CHAPTER FOUR

WAKING TO A pot of coffee boiling on the stove was a treat made all the more delectable by the man in nothing but his smile pouring it for me. While I wanted to stay, I had my job of making upper management look good to get to. And Conall had my window to fix.

Through the day I was giddy with anticipation of seeing the sexy Irishman again. Then reality cracked my rose-colored glasses. It was one night; he said he wouldn't be around for long. Why should I expect anything more? Perhaps he's on a tasting tour of America and here to take a sample of every woman from coast to coast.

The man's looks and dashing accent would certainly help him achieve such a goal, but deep in my gut, I didn't think him the scoundrel type. Or perhaps that's just hope talking, and the rest of me not wanting to share.

It was with a weary, acid-burned heart I approached my home after work. I'd expected a construction crew to be outside, perhaps a large van advertising for windows, but it was just empty space for my car. At least there was no note on the door saying, "Good news Lass, got the window in and have moved on. Thanks for the fun."

I shook my head at the thought, muttering under my breath, "Great, you're already acting like a love-sick idiot." Pushing open the door, I first heard the hiss of a cat angry at being locked in his carrier, then the whirr of a saw slicing through wood. I turned to my bedroom, my cat's yellow eyes pleading with me to free him.

"Give me a sec, Tir," I told him while pausing outside the bedroom. After slicking back my hair, I pulled my breasts up higher in my bra and waltzed into my own bedroom.

Inside, it looked as if the tree sneezed. Shards of wood sprayed clear across the room, all of it caught on tarps stretched out over the floor and bed. Piles of sawdust hovered near the frame...where the frame was. Now a man was running a sander over the surface, spraying more of the powdered wood into the air.

The green eyes behind a pair of plastic glasses darted up from the shredding sander to find me. As Conall shut off the ear-gouging power tool, I eyed him up. He was in that same rustic white shirt, this time the suspenders pulled up. Dark stains of mud and sweaty-sawdust coated his pecs and abs. The cap was off, more of the same mud, dark as rich earth, smeared in his red locks. Sweat glistened from his forehead and off the forearms exposed where he rolled his sleeves up to the elbows.

He was the hot handyman come to fuck the bored housewife right down to the handkerchief dangling off his belt. My mouth salivated at the thought of him bending me over, but I took a sad glance to my bed that was now a cemetery for 2x4s.

"Evenin,' Lass," Conall called. He reached to tug off the glasses, smearing more mud across the plastic lenses. Where was he digging? Why had he been digging?

"You're...you're a mess," I sputtered, crossing towards him over the battered carpentry disaster that I used to call a bedroom. He shrugged, his forearm smearing more mud and sweat over his forehead than taking it away. "And my room is..." I splayed my hands out over the giant mess that'd take a week to clean up.

Conall roughed at the patch of scruff over his chin and shrugged. "That wily one's been proving trickier than expected. Had to buff out this frame here. No one makes windows to fit this old size. Like a dollhouse really," he said while rubbing his hand over his work, the smile tugging on his lips but not reaching his eyes.

Praying I didn't somehow have a splinter of wood pierce through my shoes, I walked towards the filthy Irishman in my bedroom. The hand holding the power tool hung limp, his eyes skimming over me as I paused before touching him. At first, he looked as if he was about to reach for me, to curl his hand over my hip and pull me in for a well-earned kiss. But he froze, his body leaning away and I faltered.

"How is there so much mud on you?" I stammered, trying to will away the drumbeat of failure in my heart. _Of course he doesn't want you now. He already had you before._

Conall grimaced, lifting a shoe to inspect the grime clinging to his souls. "All that rain this morn washed the snow away and..." He jerked his head out the hole in the wall. Muddy footprints were dug deep right below the window. Good thing he was her only nosy neighbor or someone might think he was a burglar trying to rob her.

"I," he dropped the tool to the ground, shaking his head in disbelief, "I should leave you be before I make an even larger mess of your life." The handy Irishman made a break for the door, darting around my body as his feet crinkled on the plastic tarps.

"Or," my tongue spoke, causing him to pause before he fled from my life forever. Green eyes turned back to me, Conall's eyebrow raising as he waited for me to continue my sentence. Too bad I had no idea what I wanted to say.

Grime dripped down his pants, black mud buried under his nails, his bright hair dimmed by the dirt. It had to be uncomfortable to work in that mess. "You could clean up here," my libido threw out without any input from my brain.

He could what?

"That's not necessary...?" Conall's nose crinkled, finding the idea as ludicrous as it was. He lived a house away, why would he need to use my shower?

"So you don't track mud all over the floors in your house, the rented house, and lose your deposit. Or however it works," I babbled, realizing I had no idea what it was like to rent someone else's place for a weekend getaway. Unlucky people never won sudden windfalls of money or palatial suites to vacation in.

A hand curled to my cheek, surprising me as I hadn't heard his steps crinkle the plastic. Eyes greener than summer burned into mine as his thumb caressed down my smile line. "Alright, Lass. You get your wish. Now, where should I wash my filthy body clean?"

His brogue wrapping around the word body instantly snapped up the memory from last night of Conall completely naked while walking across the room, climbing onto the bed, and straddling above me. I felt my cheeks burning even as I flexed my thighs together. "There," I gestured wildly at the only other room in the tiny house, "there's the bathroom. Use whatever towels you like. However you like."

What the hell was I saying?

Conall either knew I was fully under his sway or wanted to be far from the babbling idiot. Tipping his head in a subtle bow, he said, "Thank you, kindly," and slipped into the bathroom. As the door closed, I flung my back against the wall in the hallway and sighed.

Quick, Jess, act even more like an idiot with the handsome man. Why had it been easier to seduce him the night before? Maybe he did all the seducing and now that he had his fun he doesn't want to bother. I snarled at the cruel half of my brain that adored taunting me, even if it was often right.

Pathetic meowing burned through my shame and I risked blood loss to free my cat. Tiry shot out of the cage like a bolt, his tail puffed up as he ran to inspect his house that'd been ransacked by strangers. "You hungry?" I asked my fat ball of fluff while already reaching for the can. Nothing but the best for my picky eater. Not that he wouldn't only eat half then cry as if I was purposefully starving him in order to get more.

As I finished yanking the aluminum cover off, I heard the shower start up. No doubt he was testing the water with his long fingers, letting each drop bead up in his giant palms. Would he sigh as the first warm wave washed down his body? Would it sound just like when he first thrust his cock into me?

Paws whacked at my hand, Tir annoyed at my slow service. I blushed at my cat being inconvenienced due to my runaway imagination and dug the last crumbs of food out with a spoon. Once the meal was fit for my megalomaniac king, Tiramy dug in.

So it was one night? Best sex of my life kind of one night, where some stranger seemed to know my thoughts before I even had them. But still... No reason to get clingy. To think that there'd be more. Okay, my bed looked like the floor of a sawmill, but I did own a couch. He had to know that now.

No chance of him offering another opportunity to sleep beside his body.

My nervous fingers fished at my phone, hoping to distract myself with anything to cover over the sound of water hitting a naked man. I unlocked it just as another noise thudded in my ears. It was the creak of twelve pounds of fur shoving open the broken latch on the bathroom door.

Shit!

"Tiry," I shouted, racing down the hall. Just the twitch of his little black tail with the white tip rolled from between the crack as he oozed through. With a little whip of it, knowing he was up to no good, my cat snuck into the bathroom.

I froze outside the private refuge, my eyes darting through the slot in the door to catch the mirror over the sink. A shadow danced through the steam, Conall's naked body vigorously rubbing the mud off itself. And there, slinking in like the thief he was, padded my cat.

"Tiramy!" I snarled, dropping to my knees. Pushing the door open a little further, I wedged my head in to spy my cat sniffing at the fallen clothing. The underwear, in particular, held a fascination for him. God, it'd be my luck that the second I went to grab my cat, Conall would come out of the shower to find the strange woman pawing at his boxers.

Yellow eyes drifted away from the deep sniff of the cotton wonders and I snapped my fingers. "Get your butt out of there!"

The showering shadow paused and I winced lower. _Please don't see me._ _Please don't look._ My emperor in a fur coat glanced from me to the closed shower curtain. I scrabbled closer on my hands and knees, hoping to swipe at the damn cat's scruff and yank him out.

My fingers parted through the air, nearly snagging him, when Tiramy's curious eyes caught the water tumbling from the magic fountain. Without a second thought, my cat bounded up the wall. Shit!

"Tirany-Sue!" I hissed in a whisper at the damn cat landing upon the edge of the shower's top bar. "No. Don't you dare!"

The unimpressed eyes of ancient royalty glared in mine and without breaking, he dipped his paw into the stream of water and pulled it back to his mouth.

"Damn you, you stupid..." I began while skittering over the piles of muddy clothes to grab my cat before the worst came to pass. Tiramisu was drinking his full as usual, his paws growing slicker with each return. If I grabbed him quick I could dash out of there before Conall noticed.

Set in my path, I rose to my knees, and the shower curtain flew back.

The perfect body of an Irish god stood before me, his pale skin glistening with beads of clean water, his red hair darkened to auburn. My eyes took a quick lap of the entirety of him, noting that even the fiery hair around his cock was calmed to a darker hue by the shower. And he was glaring at me.

"My..." I began when what I knew would happen did.

Tiramy shrieked as his paws slipped and twelve pounds of angry feline tumbled off the shower towards my gentleman visitor. I moved to reach out but it was Conall who caught the cat, cradling him like a baby in his arms. Even Tiramy seemed shocked by the turn of events, his eyes blinking in surprise as Conall chuckled.

"I was trying to stop him, my cat I mean," I babbled. "He does that all the time. Sneaks in when I'm showering and — like an idiot — falls."

"Is that so?" Conall said, but there was mirth in his voice, his eyes darting from the cat in his arms back to me.

"I didn't want you to get, to get all scratched up, but you've...you've got good reflexes," I admitted, sounding dumbfounded at his catch. And what was I still doing on the floor? The idea to rise drained from my brain as I stared up into his emerald eyes.

"A little luck can go a long way," Conall said, an incomprehensible look tugging on his lips. It wasn't a smile nor a smirk.

Oh, God. I finally had enough sense flood my brain for me to look away, my cheeks burning bright red. "If you just want to hand over the cat, I can..." I said as Tiramy finally realized he wasn't going to get anymore free water. Twirling in Conall's hands, my cat's paws flailing through the air, he spun and moved to jump. Conall dipped down, shortening the distance my dumb cat always managed without a thought.

After landing on all his feet, Tiramy raised his tail high in the air and strutted out as if this was his plan all along. I watched him go before whipping back in fear that Conall's beautiful body was decimated by cat scratches. But no, there wasn't a single red scrape to his creamy-white skin. He'd avoided every one of Tiramy's vengeful paws.

"You're, you're not hurt. Okay. That's good. Glad my cat— I was worried he would, but he didn't." Stop talking, Jess. "I should go, go and..."

The hand that'd been cradling my cat cupped to his hip, Conall jutting it out as he stared down at me. "I must say, the sight of you on your hands and knees is a most delectable view."

_What?_ I whipped my sight away from my exit to watch as his cock began a rapid ascent from its slumber. My entire body burned as I mentally drooled over its trembling twitches, the pulses seeming to grow stronger the longer he stared down at me.

"That's, that's..." I swallowed down the foolish fear I was making a mistake and stared up into his eyes. "Rather presumptuous of you."

"Oh?" Conall chuckled, his eyebrows rising as if he expected me to skitter away in disgrace.

"I mean," I said rising to my feet. Trying to look graceful while getting off the bathroom tile because a gorgeous, naked man watched was not an easy feat. But once I felt I was on solid ground, I met him eye to nearly eye, placed a hand to my hip and said, "You haven't even made me dinner this time."

Those emerald eyes sparkled, his tongue licking his sharp canine tooth as he stared me up and down. I gave a quick glimpse of that cock, still plumping to perfection as he watched me. "True," Conall said with force.

Even with the water running, he stepped out of my shower towards me. My breath caught in my throat as the scent of him filled the bathroom. It wasn't from one of my soaps, or even a masculine fragrance. No, he smelled of the sea, of leather working in a craftsman's hands, of a crackling bonfire, and of a man wild with lust.

His hot hand curled around my hip, dampening my pants in the process. Some forgotten corner of my brain wanted to be angry at that, but the rest watched his other hand land upon the first of my blouse's buttons. Shower water bounced against the tile, steam rising in the room as Conall undid the first button. All the while, his green eyes burned in mine, his lips curled to the side as if he was waiting for me to call him off.

Another pop and the top of my blouse separated as his fingers swerved down my cleavage. He fluttered his pinkie and index against the rising swell of my breasts, his tongue parting to lick his lip as he moved further down to undressing me. I swallowed deep, my bare toes clenching against the muddied tile while my periphery drifted over the naked man sternly undoing my shirt.

His biceps, the ones that'd spent the day digging out a frame, were just on the edge of my vision. I flexed my palms, aching to worry the pads of my hands over his powerful muscles, but my hands remained limp at my sides. The last of my blouse's buttons surrendered to the sexy Irishman and I raised my chin higher.

Rather than pull the shirt off, Conall smirked at my move and rounded to the button on my pants. I flew towards him, hands hungry for his dewy skin, lips aiming for that twisting smile. His ornery mouth softened to my lips, Conall's tongue gliding inside to lap against mine. I crushed his hand as it hung to my waist, his right one slipping from my hip to knead against my asscheek.

The thrum of his fingertips pulsing deeper into my crack caused me to grind against him, the water off of his body quickly seeping into my shirt and bra. All the while, he kept twisting his lone finger over my trouser's button as if he could undo it on its own. I wrung my fingers along his back, folding the nails down and leaving scratches behind that caused his head to tip back in an exquisite whimper.

"Lass," he sputtered, those emerald eyes locked tight as he gazed to the ceiling. "Do you know what you're asking for?"

"Yes." I snorted, fully aware of what my body grinding against a naked man's led to.

His hands broke from kneading my pants against my skin, both cupping my cheeks and pushing my fallen hair back. "Oh," he whispered, his hot breath washing over my lips. Tipping my chin higher, he finished, "I pray that is so."

As his lips plunged to mine in need, my pants fell to the floor. Conall tugged aside my panties, his magic fingers plunging deep inside. A gasp of shock erupted from my mouth into his, even as my body heat rose from his expert finger twirling. I stared up at the smirk rising where his soft lips had been.

Slipping out his fingers from inside of me, Conall worried my thigh and curled both of his hands to my ass. Without pause, he hoisted me into the air and began to walk backwards. "I dare say you do know what you want." He chuckled, climbing over the lip of the tub with me extended in the air.

Hot water struck my shoulder, beaded against my skin, and dripped down the curve of my breasts. My blouse offered no resistance, quickly drenched in the shower and sticking to my body. Conall's hands swept across me, his palm cupping my stomach, kneading my back, and worrying my shoulders while our tongues twirled together.

Wetness coated my panties both inside and out, my thighs flexing tighter as his cock pressed to my belly. Each thrust towards my belly button tugged his foreskin lower, the crown flaring as if it wanted inside of me without delay. But Conall didn't reach to yank off my panties, or even my shirt and bra. He massaged my arms, slicked his nails down my chest, sucked on my neck while thrusting his hips into me. And still, he wouldn't finish undressing me.

I stared down at the coin he wore even in the shower, the gold bounding into my breasts as the man paused to suck in air. Water beat against us both, Conall acting as an umbrella for me while the brunt struck his back. Steam swirled around us, turning our bodies into a hazy, almost dreamlike state while he stared in rapture at me.

Reaching out, I caught the coin dangling above me. It weighed heavier than I expected. His heaving body locked in, the emerald eyes burning down to glare at my hand. Still, his hips pressed hard against mine, the bones knocking me up onto my tiptoes as if he was arguing with himself to push open my legs and thrust himself in.

I could help alleviate that problem at least.

Dropping the coin so it twisted in a pendulum swing, I swept my palm down his stomach. The red line of hair was beaded in water drops as if fairies kissed his abs, each dewdrop tumbling while I worked my way lower and lower. With a gentle swirl, I cupped my hand under his balls, holding them as I had his coin.

Conall crashed to the side, his lips sputtering in my ear, "Jaysus himself." All the while, I cupped and rolled his sac, his balls safe in my grip as the Irishman cursed in that foreign tongue of his.

It was heady, to have so much power over this man who chopped down trees by hand. My ego pounding brighter in my chest, I dipped my other hand around his cock and nestled it right at the base of his shaft. As one hand rotated his aching balls, the other jerked up his cock. Conall groaned, his hips digging deeper into mine as he thrusted to match me.

His forehead rubbed against mine, his lips whispering incoherent pleas. I puckered up, taking a kiss from the begging mouth of my Irishman. The emerald eyes flared open, staring at me in surprise. His thrusting paused, his body stepping back.

"You are," he said, his voice throaty. Coughing, he drew his hands down my arms until wrapping them around my wrists. Suddenly, he yanked both clear over my head. Surprise more than pain screamed up my shoulders, my eyes opening wide as the naked man in my shower leaned his body against mine.

His voice dropping to his balls, he breathed against my cheek, "You are addictive." A single hand pinned both of my wrists together while the other yanked my panties aside. God! Two fingers plunged deep while his thumb vibrated against my clit. I struggled to breathe, to swallow against the humid air as the water bounced around us. All the while, those impenetrable green eyes stared down at me, his grip inescapable.

Moans and whimpers crawled up my throat, the pressure rising fast inside me. I wanted to grind on him, to have him fill me, but I couldn't move. Pleasure burned through my core, my thighs shaking at the stretch he had me under. Each stir of my clit, each thrust of his fingers dragged me deeper under.

"What...?" I gasped, somehow dredging my voice from its fallen depths. Those wild eyes focused on me, Conall tipping his chin in surprise as he waited for me to continue. Swallowing, I met him eye to eye, and said, "What do you want?"

He laughed, his head shaking so water spun off his red hair. Once again his fingers left me wetter than how I began. My wrists plummeted to my sides, my entire core aching for more. It pleaded with me to leap on him, to grab his hand and guide it to the end I craved. But I waited, watching as Conall stared heavenward as if for guidance.

With eyes closed, he pulled in a breath that expanded his chest wide. The chain around his neck jangled, my eyes darting from the surprise sound to the man suddenly rushing forward. He pinned me with his forehead to the shower wall, his emerald eyes glowing like fire on the moors. Licking his tooth, Conall declared from deep in his chest, "You."

Hands clamped to my thighs, Conall yanking me off my feet as my soaked back smeared up the wall. It was he who curled my legs around his hips, his teeth nibbling down the valley between my breasts while his cock slid against my soaked panties. His palms pulsed into the bottom of my ass, fingers clenching with every thrust that bounded his crown against my aroused clit.

"Tell me what you want," Conall growled, torturing me with the temptation of him but a thin strip of cotton away. My hands pawed at his shoulders and gripped to his straining biceps as he opened his jaw. His teeth sunk into me, his hot tongue lapping in a pattern against my collar. Slowly, he worked higher, nipping and biting towards my shoulder. Every pinch set off another gasp from my panting throat. How much more could I take?

"Tell me what you wish," he snarled. I flinched at the sudden flip in emotion when his hand swept under my bra band. The palm cupped my breast with such desperate kneading I bounced my head against the shower and tried to breathe.

While his hungry fingers pinched my nipple, my mouth parted and I screamed loud enough to rattle the soaps, "You!" Conall's maddening thrusting paused, his eyes burning in mine as I tried to focus. "I want you inside me." My raw voice caught at the truth, my body begging for him.

The smile that had vanished returned tenfold. Conall tugged aside my panties with his two fingers, the rest cradling my ass. Slowly, he guided his cock to my entrance, the crown swerving around my lower lips to coat it in arousal. I shuddered at the waves of euphoria erupting from my core. "Your wish," he whispered in my ear, his fingers pulling my thigh further to the side, "is my command."

_Fuck me!_ He thrusted inside, my body crying in pleasure at the fullness it'd been craving for what felt like hours. Those green eyes bore down upon me as Conall worked himself deeper inside. He didn't want me to look away, to blink, but God it was so good. I clenched tighter to him, guiding and pulling his cock to my g-spot.

Conall cried out, the words incoherent to me. But his hips began to thrust. Each bounding of his body bounced my back against the shower, his right palm kneading over my breast while the left dug deeper into my ass. "God, God, God," he cried, his soggy head shaking as I watched the stern man shred to pieces from my body.

Slipping from the trap of my soggy bra, both hands slapped to my buttocks and Conall began to lean back. _Holy Fuck!_ All breath kicked from my lungs as he thrust into the perfect spot. _Yes! God. Just a little more._ My panting was punctuated with pleading and prayers.

_Please._

The sense of eyes on me caused me to open mine and I watched as Conall, with a bright smile on his handsome face, winked. In an instant, the cascade surged through my body. The sight of this gorgeous man charming me even as he was balls deep inside tipped the orgasm from luxurious quivering to maximum overdrive. A scream of pure delight slipped from my lips struggling to funnel in air, my body tightening to the source of the pleasure arcing through it.

My personal handyman smiled at the sight, and — as he leaned back even further — he gave more vigorous thrusts through my vagina pulsing and hugging his cock. "Holy shit," he sputtered, his eyes locked tight as his face scrunched up and then opened into a smile of pure joy.

Conall collapsed forward, his forehead bouncing against mine as we both were supported by the slick shower wall. His naked chest pressed to my saturated one. Every one of his breaths struggling from the marathon pinned me tighter in place. I moved to slide my legs down, but he clamped both hands to my thighs, keeping them in place.

I stared in confusion, but his eyes — my only hint into what he could be thinking — remained closed as he came to grips with his own orgasm. "That was..." He glided his hips away, pulling himself from me. My panties slid back into place. Conall pulled in another breath, and the full power of his emeralds beamed on me. "You sure do know how to welcome guests in your home."

A laugh gurgled in my chest, my mind wanting to slip into the easy jocularity of the moment, but a nagging thought remained. What were we, exactly? I didn't want to talk about exclusivity or anything of that nature, not while I was pinned to the still running shower. But I needed to know if there'd be more later. Preferably with both of us naked.

I drew my fingers along his chest hair, batting at the water droplets that hadn't fallen from his exquisite thrusting. "You did seem to work hard today. I thought all that effort called for a little extra compensation."

His lips pressed to my neck, Conall kissing the tender skin as he said, "I far prefer the celebrations of you...Americans to my home kin."

The pause didn't go unnoticed, but as he let my feet slip to the floor, Conall began to finally take off my soaked shirt. I laughed, turning in place. "Seems rather late for that now."

"Thought you might want to dress in something dry," he said while dangling my shirt and then bra over the shower beam and tipping back to finally shut it off.

Naked save my soaking panties, I placed a hand to my hip to ask, "Oh? Do you have big plans for me?"

His mouth popped open, his eyes darting away from my face. As he took in my naked breasts, a smile of satisfaction chased away the serious mood. "Yes. I do believe I owe you a dinner. My place?"

I leaned to him, my fingers ruffling over his touch of red scruff. After scraping against his chin, I whispered, "It's a date," and kissed him with the hope that there'd be much more to come.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR TWO WEEKS my days were filled with unprecedented scores at work, while my nights with exhilarating scores on an Irishman. I'd never had such a fantastic run at both my job and in his bedroom. God help me, Conall didn't even snore. The man slept like an angel. Though, I'd wake each morning to his body cupped around mine, a hand tossed over my stomach as if he didn't wish me to leave.

Part of me didn't want him to finish with the window. The throbbing parts protested loudest. But another was excited to finally be able to sleep in my own bed and not have to suffer the indignant growls of a preternaturally angry cat.

After sliding in from work, a bounce in my step, Conall grabbed both my hands and tugged me towards my once under-construction bedroom. He didn't drape a palm over my eyes but did step in the way of the closed door. "You ready, Lass?"

Nodding my head, I shuffled on my toes causing my A-line skirt to ride up. It drew a flicker of those green eyes to my exposed lower thigh, but he shook it off. With a dramatic toss, he cracked open the door to reveal golden light shining through a crystal clear pane.

I stumbled inward, gawping at the not just brushed off but laundered and remade bed. The spic and span carpet. And, most amazing of all, the durable window revealing a beautiful garden just outside my bedroom. How had I not known it was so green out there?

"Double paned, to help with any cold drafts," Conall spoke, his hands slotting over the exposed forearms which put all that glass in place. "Energy efficient, because they all bloody are now. Heavy-duty vinyl in the frame that shouldn't yellow and stain the way the old ones did. And best of all..." He reached past me to unhook the pane. It slid inward, allowing the crisp scent of snow melting through the grass to waft into my bedroom. "Easy cleaning if you don't want to bother heading out to the garden."

"This is...beautiful, amazing. I never thought. It had to be expensive."

"Only the best for you, Lass." Conall smiled so brightly my stomach churned. When he told me he'd be done soon a chasm had opened in my guts. He wasn't here forever and soon he'd find whatever he was looking for.

"Thank you," I whispered, both my hands slotted inside his grip. "For breaking my old, shitty window and replacing it with this marvel." I laid it on as if he'd built me a stained glass one by hand, but this was the nicest thing a near-stranger had ever done for me.

Conall's palm scooped against my cheek, lifting my overwhelmed eyes to his. "Tá fáilte romhat," he whispered before pulling my lips to his. Heat swirled through my body, my mouth greedily melting into his strong sway. But before our tongues could resume the familiar dance, he pulled away.

Rustling a hand through his hair, he said, "Ah, one other matter. When the men were clearing out that rotten tree, they found this."

From his back pocket, he pulled a flask rusted and dingy. Dirt clung to the screw-cap top. I stared in confusion at it, then darted up to his eyes. Conall seemed out of sorts holding it, his gaze dancing away from mine. "Sounded as if it was buried at its roots."

"That's odd." I picked up the flask from his fingers which was when it rattled. "There's something in here."

"So the gardeners presumed," Conall spoke, his body lingering close to mine as I reached to unscrew the cap and solve this mystery.

Wrapping my palm over the muddy top, I gritted my teeth for the force necessary to unleash what time and decay had sealed away. Conall's eyes burned into the flask, no doubt his own curiosity rising, but his hands kept almost touching mine.

Suddenly, one enveloped my forearm, pausing my grunting attempt to free this treasure. I assumed he'd offer to take over, but he smiled and said, "There was one other surprise I had for you." He leaned directly to my ear and whispered, "In the kitchen."

"Oh?" I asked when he blew a gentle breeze against my earlobe. "That sounds...interesting."

"I pray so. If you wouldn't mind?" Conall jutted out his elbow to me. Trying to not feel silly, as if I were some maiden taking a dashing Duke's arm, I wrapped my had around his forearm. Before we exited the bedroom I left the curious flask upon the dresser to be opened later.

While walking down the hall, a streak of black dashed from the linen closet to the bathroom. "Tir will never forgive me," I sighed, trying to not think about all the surprise attacks I suffered for wounding his pride.

"Once he slumbers upon your bed warmed by the sun, I suspect all will be forgotten," Conall purred in my ear.

I chuckled. "You've never had cats, have you?"

My kitchen was nowhere near as impressive as what we'd been enjoying for the past fourteen days. Formica counters and cupboards still painted an olive green dated the place. The old wooden table broke some years back so I'd been relying upon a card one, which was where I left my purse. And, I finally noticed there was a white box sitting right beside it.

I glanced at the eight-inch sized box while asking, "No stew, then?"

Conall laughed. "Afraid not." His arms swept around the side of my stomach, hands curling over my hip as he pressed his nose to my hair. "Though it warms my heart to know you ask for it."

"So..." I prompted even while running my fingers through those red locks. Reaching forward, Conall slid the box into his one palm while the other remained wrapped around me. Into my hands he placed it, enraptured as I began to open the lid.

"As we already did dinner, many times over, I thought it time for..."

The heavenly aroma of chocolate and coffee hit me first, my eyes opening wide as my brain realized what I held in my hands. "Tiramisu?" I cried, staring in wonder at the gift.

The box's sides fell apart, revealing the creamy layers of chocolate and lady fingers entwined with mascarpone and espresso. "You didn't? You did!" In shock, I placed the treasure upon the table and rummaged for my phone.

"I thought," Conall began, before flinching as I aimed my camera at the dessert. "What are you doing?"

"Taking a picture to commemorate the..." The nicest thing a man had ever done for me. I shook off the depressing thought and said, "The beautiful tiramisu." That brought a warming smile to his lips, which plunged to mine for a sweet kiss. With the proof taken so I couldn't forget, and after sending the picture to Abby, I dropped my phone on the table and turned fully to the generous man.

Hoisting the treat up in my hands, the small cardboard circle pressed to both palms. I tried to not drool or dive forward, mouth unhinged to devour it whole. "You look as if you require a fork," Conall chuckled and, from nowhere, produced the utensil.

Well armed for the fight, I was about to pierce into the first chocolate kissed layer when I paused and looked to him. "What about you? Should we, um, share?" God, that might be the greatest test of my generosity, to only consume half of a tiramisu slice.

Conall rolled a dry laugh through his throat, his brogue dropping from an oboe solo to a bassoon. "Ah, don't fret, Lass. I have my own...treat."

Confusion furrowed my brow, the fork dangling just above its first cut. A palm skimmed from the side of my ribs down to my waist and flared at the hip. He began to worry his hand, fingers digging in as he kneaded from the top of my hip back towards the buttock. All the while those green eyes beamed naughty signals to my brain.

His other hand swept around my forgotten left side, its heel resting upon the bone while those fingers kept thrumming over the seam in my skirt for the crack below. Gulping, I struggled to keep the cardboard plate safe in my fingers. Conall tapped his tongue over his bottom lip as he began to inch my skirt higher.

When the hemline reached my upper thigh, he paused and stared at the pristine fork nearly tumbling from my fingers. Leaning to me, Conall's hot lips plunged over my mouth, his wicked tongue coaxing mine from its slumber. I moved to wrap my hand around his hair, but he leaned back.

"Eat up, Jess," Conall breathed. Both hands dug in deep to my ass and in one quick move, the Irish lumberjack hurled me onto the table. A squeak erupted from my buzzing lips, terrified eyes darting to the ancient metal scrap. But it was holding its integrity, which was amazing in and of itself.

My toes skimmed above the floor, the tiramisu resting in my lap. Conall stared down at me while worrying the auburn scruff on his chin. Limply, I lifted the fork, uncertain what he had planned. As I plunged the twine prongs through the silky layers, Conall took a knee.

Whipping my head up to him in shock, he spread my thighs by gliding that virile scruff back and forth over the tender skin. A pant grew in my chest, air struggling to reach my brain as I watched him kneel between my legs. Slowly, he'd drag his short beard, roughing up my inner thigh then place kisses to the tingling skin. It was the perfect balm after snapping awake my nerves.

As if he had all the time in the world, Conall's lips and tongue swerved from almost my knee, up the trembling thigh, and higher over the pooling flesh. When he reached the crease where my stubborn panties blocked the path, he switched to the other leg. After repeating each trip, he'd pause at the center of my core and take one slow exhale right against my wetting panties.

_Sweet Jesus!_ My legs spread wider on their own, my loins aching for him to do more than whisper above them. But he returned to torturing me into babbling submission. His wide hand curled around my ankle, easily outflanking it, while he worried a hand up my calf.

"Eat," he spoke, green eyes darting up to me, "enjoy." Both hands released from my legs, leaving my entire lower half quivering for what came next. I watched transfixed as he licked along the corner of his mouth and knotted both hands around my panties.

"I intend to," Conall announced while yanking my underwear down to my ankles.

Spearing the fork through all the layers at once, I hefted the decadent first bite towards my lips. Conall spread my thighs apart and dove tongue first into me. My tastebuds sparked from the perfect blend of chocolate and cream as my spine arced to meet the man licking me.

"Dear god," I cried for both experiences. His tongue swirled along my longer folds, tenderly sucking upon the delicate skin and casting ripples through my body.

"Good?" Conall mumbled between kisses against my outer labia. He placed a single sweet one right at the top of my inner core and for a brief second glanced up.

Dumbstruck, I nodded. Never had I thought to delight in eating my favorite dessert while a man ate me out.

"Good," he said and pressed his proud smile against my clit.

My legs rocked on the heaving table, rolling my hips to match the licks and sucks. Somehow I wiggled enough for my underwear snare to slip off an ankle. Gasping, I hauled my leg high over his shoulder. The heel bounced into those back muscles I ached to nibble on.

Conall grabbed my other slack leg and pushed it up to join the other astride his head. All the while, he maintained his rhythm, the throb from my clit reaching so deep inside I could swear it touched my heart. I glanced down at the fork rattling against the cardboard. My fingers were trembling, one hand lashed to his head to keep myself from toppling over.

There was no way I could eat this properly.

Without a second thought, I plunged my fingers into the squishy ladyfingers and plopped the mass of creamy sweet cheese and coffee into my mouth. A laugh huffed from his lips ignited mine, creating the perfect vibration through me. Groans erupted from my throat, my head tipping back to pull in more air. Chocolate swirls tumbled from my fingers across my heaving breasts.

I was about to shake them off when Conall surged forward. His entire hot mouth suckered around me, sucking my pearl and the hood into the wet, slippery abyss. My body pitched backward and my hand had to follow so I didn't fall. The tiramisu was forgotten as my body hummed from the desire flooding down to my toes and up to my hair.

A whimper rolled from my lips, my heels struggling to grind myself against the unending pleasure parting from Conall's mouth. Yes.

Yes!

Fuzziness swarmed through my veins; the warm, transcendent plateau singing inside. I clung to it, enveloped myself in the floating freedom. Hung on with all the strength in my body. One more lick kicked off the orgasmic triumph. I whipped up fast, gasping and babbling incoherently as my body tried to collapse in on itself. As if that would preserve that perfect moment forever.

I was dimly aware of Conall sliding back onto his ass, his hands massaging my calves. The rest of my brain was sparking more than a sweater in the dryer. Rolling my tongue around, I tried to form a sentence. When that didn't happen, a word.

"Eep," slipped out and I heard a chortle as the response.

"Is that your official review?" Conall laughed while staggering to his feet. He removed himself from between my thighs but didn't pick up my lost underwear. That thought caused me to clench my toes in anticipation of more to come.

Tipping my head towards my quivering thighs, I sucked in air and tried to calm the buzzing in my head. "I'm usually more eloquent than that. But in this case..." I looked up into those impish eyes that flooded my senses with both decadent chocolate and hot cunnilingus. "I'd say 'Eep' is the best I can manage. Seeing as you probably can't get 'HolyFuckingShit' past the mods."

Conall tipped his head at my nonsense and curled his hip against the table. "Hm." His nimble finger drew across my chest and swept up that long forgotten chocolate. Tucking it into those lips that drove me wild, he mused, "Not bad. I'm glad you left me a taste."

We both glanced to the half-mauled tiramisu still waiting to be devoured. "That's all your doing. If you hadn't...distracted me so well, it'd be gone before you could blink."

He used the fork to scoop a bite out, placed it beside his lips, and snickered, "Good to know." After sampling the most perfect dessert on this planet, his head tilting as if he were a sommelier finding all the flavor notes, he took another forkful.

I'm certain I pouted because it was a tiramisu. And even though he bought it, and gave me an earth-shattering orgasm, I still selfishly wanted it all to myself. Conall raised the forkful up, but rather than place it to his hungry mouth, he pushed it to me. Hand cupped under to catch any crumbs, his eyes sparkled as I rolled my tongue over the fork and foisted the crumpling creamy cake into my lips.

A groan rumbled in his chest as he watched me return to lick the fork clean, reminding him he wasn't the only one with a nimble tongue. My fingers glided around to his waistband, savoring at the bulge below. It only seemed fair to give a taste for a taste.

Just as I tugged him forward by his fly, my phone vibrated like mad. I sighed, barely glancing at the screen. Abby must have gotten my text as she sent me back a leprechaun and pot of gold emoji. Fully forgetting it, I turned back to the sex god in my kitchen, but Conall's eyes were on the phone.

"What's that?" he asked.

"My best friend, being a pain," I said with a sigh, hoping to tempt him into more dessert. But he was frowning until his forehead folded like an accordion. "She, uh, she likes to torture me with leprechaun things."

"Why?" His tone turned unreadable in a heartbeat, arms that'd been so warm crossing his chest.

I shrugged and glanced down at my toes. "It's a joke. Because I said I met a...sexy Irishman contractor. Abby thinks it's funny to insist you're a leprechaun." God did it sound stupid coming out of my mouth. And judging by Conall's cold glare at the phone, it went over like a lead balloon. Thanks, Abby.

"Not that I think you are," I sputtered out fast, hoping to get this sex train back on track. "I mean, it's stupid. Not as if leprechauns are real. Like unicorns or Bigfoot. Though people sometimes hunt for Bigfoot and I'm babbling. Sorry."

Conall stared at my phone even as the screen went black. He rubbed a hand up and down his forearm, his body swaying. Below his wool sweater, I caught the outline of that coin he always wore. His treasure.

"What do you know of leprechauns?" he asked.

"Uh, that they're little with big red beards, and live under rainbows," I threw out with a shrug. He snorted at that, which gave me a ray of hope. "And, of course, the whole pot of gold thing."

That drew the thunderclouds back. Conall rubbed his forehead and roughed through the scruff covered in my juices. "There's a legend in Ireland. Not so much a legend as a tale. If you find a leprechaun and steal a coin from him, it will grant you a hundred years good luck."

_I could use that_ , I thought glumly. Though, it was amazing how great things had been going lately. It also kept me on edge, waiting for the proverbial piano to fall on my head.

"But," he waved a finger in the air as if to chastise me, "after a hundred years, the coin drains all the luck from the person who has it."

"All the luck...?" I whispered, my head swiveling back to the bedroom just patched up from an unexpected tree.

Conall breathed beside me, his green eyes so dark the gold flecks glowed. I wanted to curl inward, to wrap my arms around my body for protection from the stormy clouds rolling across his face. Suddenly, he laughed. "It's one of those stories. Like the monkey's paw, or a genie. Be careful what you wish for and the like."

"Right." I nodded at his ease of stepping past the unpleasant topic. A smile perked up my lips. "Right, that...of course. Makes sense." Leprechauns aren't real.

Rising off the table, I felt my full weight sink to the kitchen floor as if I'd been floating. Hands encircled my chest, Conall pulling me to his lips. Chocolate overwhelmed his usual taste of clover and spring days. When his tongue swept across mine, all the awkwardness of the leprechaun emoji vanished. Combing through my hair, Conall's fingers tugged just enough to bring a moan to my still hungry body.

"You know," I whispered in his ear, "I do think new windows requires some christening."

"Bha mi an dòchas mar sin," he responded in that old tongue while his fresh one fluttered in my ear. Without a care, he hoisted me into the air, palms clamped to my ass. I laughed, savoring in the air as he carted me backward to my own bedroom.

His chin planted to my cleavage, Conall stared straight up at me. Aching to taste him, I curled down, one hand roughing along his scruff while our lips fell into each other. When we reached the bedroom without a ball of black fur wrapping around his ankles, I blinked in surprise. Tir was always tripping up my path.

The hands cupping into my asscheeks gave one last squeeze before opening. I slithered down his body, my breasts bounding off his rock-tight pecs. Upon landing safe and sound on my toes, Conall's palms found refuge on my hips. His face nuzzled against my neck, my head turning from the bright window to the dresser.

"Oh right, the flask," I sputtered, turning from his enthralling grip to the other mystery.

"Yes," he muttered, the hand that'd been tugging on my skirt's zipper plying through his hair, "that flask."

I rattled it again beside my ear as if to remind myself there was a confounding secret inside. Wringing my hand around the cap, I was about to unscrew it when I paused. Last thing I wanted to do was spit out unladylike grunts while struggling against a piece of metal.

Gulping, I glanced to the man scratching at his ear and staring out the window. "Could you open it?"

Conall glared at the flask as if it wronged him. Pulling in a breath, he shuddered and smiled. "Nah, Lass. I have faith in you."

I didn't, but I may as well prove my lack of grip strength. But this time, all I had to do was give a soft tug and the cap seemed to fall right off. Shaking the flask into my palm, from its crusted-over top emerged a rusted key.

"A key?" I turned the confusing thing over. There were numbers on the head. Maybe I could look them up online later.

"Do you know what it unlocks?" Conall spoke solemnly.

Snorting, my eyes boring into the teeth of the key as if that would solve the mystery, I said, "Not a clue. I suppose I'll..."

My thought snapped to dust as I watched the sexy Irishman tug his workman shirt clear off his body. The flask, the key, and the mystery were fully forgotten as I leapt on top of him. I needed the gorgeous not-leprechaun inside of me now. The key could wait.

CHAPTER SIX

"TOLD YOU IT was a safety deposit box key," Abby stage whispered beside me. We huddled together in the bank's backroom filled with rows upon rows of tiny doors. My eyes kept drifting to the massive vault door fearing that at any moment it could slam shut and trap us inside.

I'm not saying it's not an outlandish fear, but I was once stuck inside a port-a-pot for three hours because the door jammed.

The bank manager — who was willing to hear my tale of the buried flask, then discover my grandmother did have a box at the bank — finished turning both keys. A two-foot-long slender box slid out into her arms. With a smile that cracked her hefty foundation, she lay it upon the lone table in the room.

"Please, take your time," was her response and, to my surprise, she turned to leave.

"Aren't you gonna...?" I began, when the door closed behind her. Even though we were sealed in, at least the bank knew we were back here. Took me an hour and a half to get anyone at the music festival to listen.

Awestruck I gazed down at the plain, gleaming box I had no idea existed. "I thought she'd open it," I muttered, my hands limp at my side.

"Nah, doesn't work that way. You could have stolen gems, or illegal papers, or who knows what in there. This way the bank has plausible deniability, while also getting to keep all that criminal money," Abby mused to herself. She'd been a bank teller for a few years before switching to IT. It wasn't why I asked her to accompany me, but it served well when the teller balked at my asking to see a manager. I didn't have much of an account here, enough in my savings to splurge at a hamburger joint should the need arise.

Grazing her fingers over the hinged lid, Abby snapped it a few times. The metal clank bounced off my teeth as I stared daggers at the mysterious box. "Well, are you gonna open it or do I have to?"

Okay. Shaking off the thunder pounding in my chest, I wrapped my hands around the cold metal. It was a drizzly grey day outside, more winter than spring, but this felt colder than the stained snow. Colder than the grave. "Just, opening up something my dead grandmother left for me after she buried the key in a flask."

"Was there anything else in that thing?"

I smelled a hint of whiskey but that was it. Doubtful Abby meant that. She was probably hoping for instructions or a treasure map. Shaking my head negative, I plucked up the lid. A fat, yellowing envelope caught my eye.

When I hefted it into my hands, the flap fell apart revealing green and white piles of legal tender. The scent of old books and rusting iron struck my nose as I yanked up the first of dozens upon dozens of hundred dollar bills.

"Holy shit, Jess!" Abby gasped for both of us. My mind shattered as I stared down at two to three inches worth of $100 bills.

Lifting the envelope from my fingers, Abby began to count out the pile, laying each in a perfect fan-out as she went.

_Grandma? What is this? What..._

"There's five grand in here," Abby sputtered, quickly doing the calculations. "Is that another envelope?"

Sure enough, the stacks of cash couldn't all fit into one, so Grandma stuffed another full of the same $100 bills. As Abby got to work counting out the entire haul, I gripped to the table and struggled to breathe. Towards the end of her life, we were scrimping and weighing which medications to refill every month Medicare screwed us over. And all that time this was here?

Why didn't she say anything?

"Can't believe this wasn't in her will," Abby sputtered, already on the fifth row. It looked like a tarot reading for the exceedingly wealthy. _I see riches in your past, riches in your present, and riches in your future._

A breath rattled in my throat, the back of my brain ticking through everything I could do with this windfall. "She was starting to go in the end. Probably forgot to tell me, or already thought she did."

"Holy hell," Abby yanked the box up and tipped the lidded section towards the table. "There's stocks and bonds in here too. Who knows what it's worth now. Bet you could pay off your student loans with all of this."

Tears sprung in my eyes at the thought of my grandmother hiding away her small fortune in the hopes that one day I could use it.

Abby kept pulling more and more sheets of paper from the magical box, each landing on the pile of unburied treasure. She was laughing, talking about how we were owed the fanciest dinner the second after talking to a financial planner. A thunk from inside the box paused her giddy blue-skying.

We both turned to the nearly empty stainless steel, Abby shaking it to reignite the sound. "Your Gran didn't work for the mob, right? It isn't a finger in there or something?"

"No, she was a seamstress." I groaned at the macabre thought but was still hesitant to dig around. It was a lot of money that seemed to come from nowhere. Easing the lid open, I peered inside as if I was checking on the cage of a radioactive rat. With the tip of my finger, I shoved aside the papers in the way. Gold struck my eye and I froze.

Abby stood behind me, her chin pressing to my shoulder. "Is that a..." Without a thought, she plucked up the gold coin hidden in my grandmother's pile of secrets. "Huh? Think it might be worth something?"

Ochre colored, the edges were blobby as if this coin was cast by hand and time. My head buzzed in pain, the sides of my vision frizzing as I hefted the small coin in my palm.

"Ever seen anything like it?" Abby asked.

Yes. Pressed to my cleavage while kissing. Bouncing against my spine as I was ridden from behind. Glistening from the shower we shared. Dangling off the neck of the mysterious stranger who came to my neighborhood looking for something.

It was an exact duplicate of his treasure.

Closing my hand around the coin, I tried to swallow the scream rising in my soul.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"YOU!"

Spotting the man standing upon his front lawn, I bolted so fast from the car I forgot to undo the seatbelt. It snapped against my ribs, my left hand struggling to push the button before I broke something. My right was wrapped around the coin burning a hole through my flesh.

Conall glanced up from the halo of clover he stood in, misting rain beading upon his fisherman sweater. "Evening, Lass," he called, a jolly wave to his hand. "You're home early."

The explanation that I left work to head to the bank rolled on the back of my tongue, but I swallowed it. Stomping across the rising puddles soaking into the frosty spring ground, I froze a foot away from him. The man who knocked down my window with a tree. Who found a key under those roots. Who...

Who laughed at my jokes. Who fed me tiramisu. Who rolled up a ball of yarn and dangled it for my disinterested cat. Who strummed my body until I wanted no other hand to touch it.

Who was a fake.

When I didn't rush into his arms, Conall caught on that something was amiss. The waving arm that extended for a warm embrace thudded to his side. He quirked his head up as if waiting for me to deliver the final blow. As if he was too much of a coward to do it.

I'd thought of nothing else on the mad drive home. Even left Abby alone with the money, telling her to get it somewhere safe. She turned ghost white at the thought but agreed.

It couldn't be true. He couldn't be... But no matter how much I twisted and turned the puzzle, it kept coming up with the same answer.

Holding my palm flat, I opened my fingers to reveal the glint of gold to the world. Conall winced, but his eyes also zoomed in on the coin and refused to leave.

"This is yours!" I shouted above the rising pelt of rain and slush of car wheels through puddles.

A puff of steam escaped his lips and his head drooped. "Aye."

"This is why you're here. This is what you're looking for!"

Slowly, he raised his gaze off the glint of the coin to meet my eyes. Thunder rumbled inside them, and Conall's lips parted. "Yes, it is."

"Your treasure," I sneered. The logical part of my brain that knew Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Unicorns were all lies refused to believe this truth.

Conall worried his hand over his scruff, his head bobbing. The rain soaked through his red locks rusting them to a muddled brown. There was no long red beard, no green frock coat, no pointy shoes. He dressed...odd but not for a hipster. Maybe there were still a lot of hipsters in Ireland. And even with the coin in my hand, I was still begging for any explanation other than the truth.

"You're a leprechaun," tumbled from my lips, my teeth chattering as drizzle soaked through my shirt and drowned my hair.

Conall snickered and a doleful smile wrapped around his lips. "Now you know the truth."

"How? Why? What?" Every question I wanted to put to him smashed to nonsense, but I couldn't stop talking.

Clicking his tongue, Conall dipped a finger into the collar of his shirt and tugged up the coin around his neck. Laying it in the palm of his hand, he said, "A hundred and fifty some years ago, a village swiped my gold. My hard earned keep for a millennia of cobbling, and sweeping, and doing whatever you mortals asked for. In dire straights from the famine, they thought that a leprechaun's gold coin would fix all their problems."

He stepped closer to me, leaving the clover path to splash in the puddle. I didn't back away, but my body shuddered. That was enough to freeze Conall's gait. "Was your great-Granda who took it, along with over sixty other villagers. I've been hunting across all of Ireland, Scotland, England, and finally America for the pieces."

"Why...why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you take it back from them?" Why wait over a hundred years to collect? Why walk into my life, sweep me off my feet, and make me fall for you?

Conall licked his lips, steam puffing off his tongue. "I was all outta luck. Didn't have a chicken in a fox den's chance of catching any of 'em. Not until theirs ran out."

"So that's how you...how you managed to get it all to work. The tree, the window, the box," I recited over the near rube goldbergian chain of events he set off, which luck guided him to. "I don't understand, you had the flask. Why didn't you just take the coin yourself?"

"Banks aren't prone to releasing their secrets to just anyone, especially anyone without that piece of plastic you all carry," Conall mused with a laugh, but as his wandering eyes slipped back to me, he gulped. In a stricken voice, he said, "And I was curious what you'd do."

I'd barely looked at the coin, only held it so tight in my hand it was probably imprinted forever into my flesh. Now I gazed down at it. There was a hint of a lion in the relief. Were the circle of letters around the edge a magic incantation? Either way it was beautiful.

"You said it was cursed."

"If that's how you wish to see it. The luck's long gone," Conall said.

"But I could still keep it, suffer the consequences anyway." I weighed the coin in my hands. Was this family relic the reason everything in my life kept going wrong? I could get rid of it, pass it off to the leprechaun and breathe freely for the first time. Not fear every horrific outcome that only chaos can cause. But it'd get rid of him too. He'd have no reason to remain.

"Yes," Conall breathed, his voice dropping deep into his chest as if he suffered from a twin set of wounds. There was no easy way for him to relieve the pain from either. "You'd continue with your string of bad luck until the coin passes on, but I will not take it from you."

Keep the bad luck, keep him. Though, probably not. There were more coins out there, more treasures for him to collect. He'd have no reason to even see me, to contact me, to leave a text message. Did leprechauns have phones?

Raising my head, I stared deep into those emerald eyes I tried to get lost in. How long had they suffered for this? How long had he searched and begged for his treasure back? I knew what it was like to have a life full of bad luck, and he had to endure a century of it.

My eyes never leaving his, I reached my hand out. "Here," I said, upending the coin into his palm. "It's yours." I was about to snake my hand back, but Conall enveloped his fingers around mine. Pain bobbed in his gaze as if he was pleading with me to both give him the coin and take it away. But I had no answer and tugged my hand from his grasp.

Weighing the coin in his palm, he bounced it thrice before flicking the golden artifact into the air. When it reached its apex, instead of falling, it began to spin faster and faster until transforming into a stream of light. It beamed directly onto the coin dangling off of Conall's neck, sealing itself there.

"I keep all my treasures in one now," he spoke as if he needed me to understand.

Numb, my head lolled to the side. My lips mumbled the compliment, "Smart," as I began to turn away from the leprechaun caught in the rain. Water seeped through my shoes soaking my socks, the puddles rising as if to trap me in this gloomy purgatory.

"Wait." Warmth enveloped my frozen fingers, Conall seeming to appear by my side from nowhere. I froze in my march away, my hand locked in his, but I wouldn't turn to him. I couldn't let him see the rain washing down my face.

"When I left Éire, when I faced unending nights in the dark, cramped squalor of this mortal life, I never dreamed I'd meet someone like you."

"The others weren't as gullible?" my wounded ego spoke for me, the hurt striking like a lash against my heart. I rolled my eyes over my shoulder and from the edge watched Conall glaring at the ground.

The rain ceased drenching his shoulders and hair as if he didn't have to keep the ruse up anymore. "Who I am, what I am is beyond most mortal's ken, but you..." Green eyes burned into the sliver of mine that I gave him and a gulp bulged in my throat. "There is none in this realm or the other like you, Jess."

"What are you saying?" I tried to shake away the buzzing crowding out my thoughts, the headache of truth transforming into a confusion migraine.

Conall stepped closer, ensnaring my eyes. Releasing his grip upon my hand, he tugged off the chain about his neck. The gold coin caught a splinter of light. "That you, Jessica Malley..." He reached over and circled the long necklace around my head. A burst of breath broke from my lungs as the coin of a hundred coins landed against my sternum.

"Are me treasure," he breathed, watching as I ran my fingers along the edge of the coin in shock. By the third circle of the mystic runes, I felt his head dip down from the weight of uncertainty hanging in the air. Those emerald eyes; however, wouldn't drift from me for a second. When did they look at me the way he'd once stared hungrily at his coin?

Conall folded, rain gushing down the back of his shirt as he stumbled away. "If'n ya don't..."

Splashing through the puddles, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled his lips to mine. Warmth trembled through my frozen body, alighting the fires of hearth and home in my soul. Conall's safe and comforting embrace pulled me ever tighter to his body. Rain splattered around us, but not a drop would touch our tangling bodies as I lost myself in his Irish kiss.

Breaking from my lips, Conall brushed his forehead to mine, green eyes burning forever in my vision. "In all my searching, all my long nights and days, you," he cupped his massive hand to my cheek, a smile dawning upon his lips, "you are the greatest treasure I could ever find."

As we kissed, the rains faded to reveal a beautiful rainbow sparkling through the rising-blue sky. Hope rode upon those colors of light and a future I'd never dreamed of but couldn't wait to live. The unluckiest girl in the world and a gorgeous leprechaun entwined in love. Who'd have ever guessed?

THE END

Don't miss the next book in the series!

PSL — _an autumn paranormal with a prince fairy_

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ellen Mint adores the adorkable heroes who charm with their shy smiles and heroines that pack a punch. She has a needy black lab named after Granny Weatherwax from Discworld. Sadly, her dog is more of a Magrat.

Her first two books, Undercover Siren and Fever, are available in both ebook and paperback. If you enjoyed the adventures of a sexy leprechaun, you'll salivate over her next book _Pride & Pancakes_ to be released by Totally Enchanted. Look for it Christmas 2019.

For more information, you can sign up to her newsletter or join her Street Team.

**Website** **|** **Bookbub** **|** **Facebook** **|** **Twitter **

CHAPTER NINE

ENJOY THIS SNEAK peek of my next steamy novel in the series _PSL_

_One hot lumberjack, a rustic cabin in the woods, whipped cream and lattes, princes, magic, and fairy wings. This is not the vacation I wanted, but it might be the one I need_ _._

The entire world was painted in hues of reds, oranges, and browns from the ground up to nearly the pristine blue sky. Crunchy leaves lay across the small, animal-worn paths twisted between gigantic oaks. Those trees blazed in their colors, the golden sun burning through the waning leaves.

I spotted a dark form darting through the trees. It leaped like a ballerina, bounding fast around the maze of the forest. Careful to take it slow, I stepped closer to watch the shadows melt from its tawny hide. The deer, with its hooked antlers knocking into twigs, paused right at the edge of the drive up. Its white tail twitched, the ears shifting back and forth while a big brown eye stared me down.

It knew I was in here and it wasn't afraid.

Reaching forward, I placed my hand out to try and tell the deer I meant no harm. The other dug behind for my phone. I promised myself I wouldn't even turn it on this trip, but a couple of photos hardly counted. Twisting its head to the side, the deer posed to display its svelte body. Sunlight glinted through the bramble of antlers, turning the simple animal into an element of the forest.

I raised my phone, about to press the button, when another blast of that ear-splitting sound ripped through the forest. The deer spun on its hooves and became nothing more than a streak back into the woods. Which was all I managed to take a picture of. Great.

Shutting my phone off for good, I sneered. Whoever was making that racket better have a damn good reason. I paid for a week of rest and relaxation and I deserved it.

It wasn't until I stood on the porch, the screen door swinging back into place, that it struck me I might happen upon a woodland serial killer. No doubt he was dicing up his victims in the sanctuary of his shack deep in the heart of the forest until some nosy glorified secretary walked in on him. Even as my brain played out the worst and goriest possibility I tracked the blaring sound down a mulched path.

Sliding down a low hill, my hands pawing at the trees as if they were a railing, I narrowed in on the sound and source. A body was hunched over a fallen log, the back to me while the scent of sawdust and gasoline hung in the air. Judging by the wide shoulders, narrow waist, and tight ass I was right in guessing it'd be a man, but I hadn't counted on him falling out of an LL Bean catalog.

An olive green flannel hugged the biceps sawing away at the tree while denim clung to the backside taut and firm to aid in his work. Perhaps he had shoes on, perhaps he was barefoot. I couldn't say as my eyes refused to slip any lower.

Silence erupted through the forest, my ears ringing in shock as the stranger shut off his chainsaw. After placing the tool on the ground, he turned and I leaped up in surprise. Dusky blond hair swept back across his long forehead, while smoldering brown eyes, a strong nose with a soft tip, and sculpted supple lips struck me at once.

How in the hell was there a gorgeous male model wandering around in the woods just outside my cabin? And he didn't even have a hint of sweat beading up on his brow. He couldn't be human. His eyebrows, which were thin without a misplaced hair in sight, raised.

Oh shit, he wanted me to talk first.

"What are you doing?" I asked while jutting out my hip.

The man stared at the cut up pieces of the log, then his chainsaw. "Baking an apple pie," he deadpanned.

"That so?" I stepped closer, nudging one of the sawed branches with my foot. "I think you left it in too long."

He snickered at me and bent down to pick up massive logs, which he didn't even bat an eye at. Damn! His muscles had to be working hard to carry that much wood. Shame about the flannel in the way.

"I didn't know anyone would be around," he said, once again forcing me to stop leering at him.

"I just got in. Renting the cabin up there for a nice, soothing vacation. Or was until someone started a chainsaw in the middle of the woods."

After dropping his first load into a Jeep up the path, he wiped his hands off and focused on me. "What's your name?"

"Jenny. What's yours?"

My answer, or perhaps question seemed to surprise him. Rubbing under his sharp chin, he said, "Scott Langston."

"And you're the...groundskeeper around here?"

Those dangerous lips smirked. "Something like that." Without another word, he returned to hoisting up the potential firewood. Birdsong and the leaves rustling through the trees were the only sounds to accompany the awkward work. My back itched at the confounding silence, causing me to turn to my cabin.

Shock of shocks, a hot man didn't want anything to do with me. Not that I wanted anything to do with him either. This was supposed to be a week just for me. No work, no relationships, no...men.

Shaking my head I started to return to my abandoned book when I paused. "Are you going to be making those loud noises all day?" I asked, wondering if I'd packed any earplugs.

Scott paused in his work, his wide eyes narrowing in thought. "Would you rather a fire tear through this forest? Because if I don't remove this deadwood that is likely to happen."

"Hey." I held my hands up, remembering that there was a strange man with access to a chainsaw and no one else around. "I'm all for stopping forest fires, Smokey's honor. I was just wondering if you'd be around should I decide to take a walk."

A smile graced his lips. "Very likely, though...I believe I've finished my work here."

"Oh." Why did I suddenly care? I'd been planning on heading back to the empty couch already. Damn it. No boys! That was the rule.

"If you don't mind my asking, Miss Jenny..."

"Miss Jenny? I sound like a schoolmarm."

He snickered at that. "What brings you all the way out here? Most have left for the season."

That was a loaded question I did not have the heart to get into with a stranger. Near-stranger. At least I'd know the name of the man who would chainsaw my body into tiny pieces.

"Well, it's..." I said waving my arms around as a distraction. "I love trees. Autumn. The leaves all crisp and crunchy...not that I eat them. Why did that sound like I eat them? I mean, you know, fall is the best season."

A brightness illuminated his face, Scott nodding as if I spoke some deep aphorism instead of babbling. "Indeed it is." He glanced to his Jeep before spinning back to stare at me. "I was planning on heading out to the apple orchard, any chance you'd like to tag along?"

"An orchard...?" While the idea of picking fresh apples straight off the tree and gorging myself sounded like heaven, my stomach flipped at how I'd have to sit oh so close to him. Ignoring the still on the table potential of him being a chainsaw murderer, a man that hot had to have a hundred girlfriends all of who could double as actress-models. Meanwhile, I was dressed like a woman who stumbled out of a Starbucks at six in the morning wearing whatever she grabbed from her closet in the dark.

Scott leaned closer, revealing flecks of green buried in his brown eyes. "I believe you'd quite enjoy it," he whispered as if we weren't the only two people in the whole forest.

God, I wanted to say yes. But if I opened my mouth, incoherent nonsense would tumble out, mostly of the 'You're so pretty' variety. How was he even hotter up close? That wasn't fair and had to break all the rules of the universe. Somehow, my head managed to bob, conveying a 'Yes, I'll follow you anywhere, even to your murder shack.'

He read it as such at least, smiling and offering me his hand. Before I took his fingers, I glanced back at the cabin, growing aware that I left my bag and phone there. A tiny voice in the deep recesses of my brain ordered me to go and get them until I turned to find Scott's sparkling eyes glued to my glutes.

_You're wearing tissue-thin leggings for pants_ , my mind helpfully reminded me. _And he's enjoying it_ , my libido purred.

Realizing I caught him staring, Scott glanced up at me and a slow smile wound across his lips. Before my brain or body could foster up an excuse, he guided me to his Jeep. All manner of tool clanked in the wheel well of the passenger side, which my feet shuffled around.

As Scott slipped into the driver's seat, he reached a hand over my headrest and glanced behind us. A flicker of his fingers darted through my hair, no doubt completely accidental. But the brush against my chestnut locks sent a spark racing through my body.

"So, apples?" I asked, flexing my thighs together.

"And," he said, popping the clutch, "perhaps more."

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