by Sienna Blake
“Well, normally you meet the family once it’s serious,” I explained. “But I met your family before I even met you.”
Darren grinned. “And I fell in love before we’d even ever kissed.”
It was my turn to lift an eyebrow in surprise. “Really?”
Darren nodded. “As silly as it sounds, I think I fell in love with you in Ma’s bathroom that morning,” he said. “When was it for you?”
I opened my mouth immediately, because I assumed it was an easy answer. But I could only stare at Darren in confused silence for a moment before saying, “I can’t think of a time when I didn’t love you.”
Darren again kissed me sweetly, softly, warmly.
“And!” I said, pulling away from his kiss and making Darren laugh. “And we just made love and haven’t even been on a date.”
Darren held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I can fix that.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Go on a date with me?”
I smiled. “Yeah.”
But it didn’t matter where we started: the beginning, the middle, or the end. Because my forever was with him.
Epilogue
Kayleigh
One year later…
It was two days before Christmas. O’Sullivan’s Garage was filled with twinkling Christmas lights, the sound of merry carols on the radio, and mistletoe I actually wanted to be caught beneath. Tiny hints of snow fluttered outside as Darren and I finished up our last work orders before the holidays.
I wasn’t nervous about the Christmas rush. I’d done all my shopping, wrapped all my presents, bought all the groceries I needed to bring to Ma’s place. Finances at the shop were doing fine, great, even. I had a secure job as a mechanic at the shop, wonderful friends, and a warm bed to lay my head every night.
And yet, I could not have been more nervous as I was then.
I was pretending to work on the front wheel of a motorcycle, but really spending all my time peeking across the shop at Darren. I could just see the white poof of his red Santa hat from atop the open hood of the car he was working on. Every time I saw it, it made me smile, because it showed me just how far Darren had come in the last year.
He would have burned a Santa hat at just the very sight of it twelve months earlier.
As I kept craning my neck to spy on Darren, I tried my best to keep my toe from tapping, my palms from sweating, and my heart from racing faster and faster. But it was no use.
Our lives were about to change.
“Hey, babe,” Darren called out across the garage, “I can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with this radiator over here.”
My chest seized as I froze on my work stool. “No?” I called out tentatively, eyes fixed on that white poof just visible above the hood.
“No,” Darren grumbled as he struggled with something. “It seems like something is wedged in—what the…”
Darren’s words trailed off and my heart beat so terribly that I thought it was going to beat straight out of my chest as the silence in the shop stretched on and on. Darren’s Santa hat remained still as I watched…and waited.
When Darren finally came from around the car and looked over at me, tears were already in his eyes. In his trembling fingers he held the sonogram I brought from the doctor and hid for him to find in the radiator.
He couldn’t find words for a moment as I started to tear up myself.
“Are you…I mean…are we…are we?”
I managed a teary, messy, elated nod and Darren rushed across the shop to sweep me up into his arms. He hugged me and kissed my wet cheeks and spun me round and round as he laughed with pure joy.
“I can’t believe it,” he kept saying. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
He set me down and kissed me long and hard and so passionately I got butterflies just like the first time. I laid my hand against his chest and felt his heart racing just like mine. We were both shaky and giggly and teary-eyed and it was perfect.
A few minutes later I couldn’t help myself from laughing just a little bit as Darren stared down at the sonogram with such awe, the touch of his thumb already gentle and tender despite the obvious fact that he was only holding a picture. He looked up at me in slight surprise, tears still clinging to his long dark eyelashes.
“What?” he asked, his voice still thick with emotion.
I reached up and brushed a tear from his cheek, smiling as I shook my head. “It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s just that we’re doing it again.”
Darren raised an eyebrow at me after glancing down again at the sonogram, as if he couldn’t resist looking away for longer than a moment or two. “Doing what again?”
I grinned and moved beside him so that I could rest my face against his shoulder and look down at the first picture of our daughter with him.
“You know,” I said. “Doing everything out of order.”
To explain even further I wiggled my bare left hand over the sonogram. I was surprised when Darren stepped away from me with wide eyes.
“Oh shit, I forgot.”
I frowned in confusion. “Forgot what?”
I would have expected Darren to say many things in that moment, but never, “You know the exhaust on that Honda has to be fixed tonight.”
I glanced over my shoulder in confusion at the blue Honda in the corner. It was next on my list of work orders, but was this really the time to be bringing this up? My face was not happy when I looked back at Darren and crossed my arms over my chest. “Excuse me?”
My ire did not seem to be affecting him, because his eyes were alight even as he tried not to smile.
“Kayleigh,” he said slowly, “the exhaust on that Honda really has to be fixed tonight.”
If he thought he was making the situation better, he was wrong. Dead wrong.
“Pregnancy doesn’t affect my hearing, Darren.”
Nor the strength of my fist.
Darren sighed and then came over to twist me around with a smile playing at his lips and guide me toward the Honda at the back of the shop.
“Kayleigh,” he said patiently, as he helped me to my knees behind the back of the car. “I think there’s something blocking the exhaust.”
“Well, you fix it,” I grumbled, trying and failing to stand up as Darren held me tight.
“You little spitfire,” Darren laughed. “Why in the world did I decide to marry someone so stubborn?”
“Probably because you li— Wait.” I stopped and glanced at Darren. Darren, who was on one knee next to me. “Did you say marry?”
Darren, with the sonogram still held tightly in his grease-stained, scar-covered hand, nodded toward the exhaust with a smile. I held his forearm him to keep myself steady as I leaned down farther to look into the grey pipe.
And there I saw it: the glint of a diamond in the darkness.
Just like my one true love.
The End
Dear Reader
I hope you love Darren as much as I do. Darren is the grounded, humble, broken hero of my dreams in a sea of billionaire players.
As for Eoin, never fear… his story (and love of his life) is coming!
(Keep reading for details…)
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Eoin’s story is coming next!
Player’s Kiss
It was supposed to be my big break—landing the coveted spot as the All Ireland Rugby team’s new PR assistant.
Instead I’ve become a glorified babysitter, lumped with the heinous job of keeping their star winger out of trouble and out of the papers.
Eoin O’Sullivan.
Cocky. Charming. Outrageous. Destined to drive me feckin crazy.
Party boy.
Ladies man.
An absolute PR nightmare.
Never mind that he’s can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you gorgeous. Forget that the sparks (and insults) fly whenever we’re together.
Too bad he’s decided that torturing me is his new favourite “game”. And he’s not stopping till he gets what he wants…
Me. Naked.
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Have you read Noah and Aubrey’s story in The Irish Lottery?
The Irish Lottery: Four hot Irish brothers ready to play out your ultimate fantasy…
Noah
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Our ma is sick and this lottery is the only way to raise that much money quickly.
But when my best friend in the whole world, the girl I’ve secretly loved for years, turns up as the winner I cannot believe it.
When I read the secret fantasy she’s submitted I almost choke.
She just wants us to give her what she’s never had…
…an O.
This could be the very thing I need to convince her that we should be more than friends. I could give her what she wants—the sexiest night of her life…and more.
I just hope she’s happy when she finds out who’s behind the mask.
The Irish Lottery is a standalone friends-to-lovers contemporary romance in the Irish Kiss standalone series.
Out now
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Keep reading for an excerpt!
Can’t get enough of the Irish?
I used to think I was one of the lucky ones.
But at twenty-six, I’ve left my “perfect” life in New York behind—my perfect fiancé, my stylish friends, my high-flying marketing career—and moved to Ireland.
Truthfully, my perfect fiancé is now my ex after I walked in on him face-deep in my best friend’s p***y.
And my career? It’s over. Because that cheating ex-fiancé of mine…he owns the company I worked for.
I know. I know. Don’t screw your boss. Trust me, I’m never making that mistake again.
On my way to the remote Irish farm I’m now working on, my car hits a ditch. I’m rescued by the three sexiest men I’ve ever seen.
The three Irish O’Callaghan brothers.
Broad shoulders, strong arms, accents that make me wet just to hear them.
I want them. All of them.
They all want me.
Plot twist…
Turns out they’re my new bosses.
Warning: This is a sexy yet emotional reverse-harem romance, a full-length, standalone novel at 50k words. Three sexy Irish brothers who want nothing more than to please their special woman. All at the same time.
Sienna’s Quick & Dirty series consists of standalone novels which are hotter, dirtier and quicker than her other novels.
Out now
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Keep reading to the end for an excerpt!
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xoxo Sienna
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Excerpt of The Irish Lottery
Noah
“Policemen.”
“Men in suits.”
“Ooo!” Aubrey cried. “Irish cowboys. So hot right now.”
I let out a chuckle. Sitting here joking around with Aubrey about sexy calendar themes made me feel lighter. She hadn’t left my side and so we were still cuddled up under my arm. The world and all its problems felt so much smaller this way.
“We could wear actual cowboy hats,” I said, taking her concept and running with it.
“Only cowboy hats. And boots.” She laughed and let out a snort looking up to me.
My heart flipped when our eyes met. I wanted to lean down and kiss the shit out of her. But I couldn’t.
Instead, I gave her shoulder a squeeze and said, “What would I do without you, Rey?”
She giggled in that girlish way that wrapped around the base of my spine. “I know. I’m pretty awesome.”
I grinned. “You being stood up was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed at my arm playfully. “Ass. You know Sean didn’t really stand me up. He got the dates mixed up.”
Four years ago, I spotted her sitting on one of the stools alone at The Jar glaring at her phone, obviously having been stood up. She was a pretty girl so I did what I did with every pretty girl I saw while I was working behind the bar. I went up to her, served her a drink on the house and made her laugh. But by the end of the night, we were both in stitches. She was a little drunk and I was completely drunk on her.
I’d walked her home after closing up and said goodbye to her at her front door. I’d cussed myself out all the way home and all the next day for not kissing her. For not claiming her then. I hesitated because…well, because I’d sensed even then that a kiss with her wouldn’t just be a kiss.
Back then, I hadn’t been ready for it. But you’re never ready when you fall in love. That was the night I’d fallen in love with Aubrey Campbell. Even if I didn’t realize it at the time.
If only I’d kissed her.
Maybe she wouldn’t have accepted Sean’s apology in the form of generic red roses. Sunflowers were her favourite flowers.
She wouldn’t have gone on that date with Sean the next day. Maybe she wouldn’t be his girlfriend.
Fiancée.
She was his fiancée now.
Maybe I wouldn’t just be her friend.
If I could turn back time…
But I couldn’t.
I tasted bitterness at the back of my throat. My fingers curled into Aubrey’s flesh and I was seconds away from kissing her the way I should have four years ago. But that would ruin everything. She was with another man. Our friendship would be over if I ever made a move on her. I would lose her. Forever. The thought of not having Aubrey in my life, even as friends, was too painful to bear. More painful than having to love her in secret.
I pulled away from her suddenly, leaping to my feet. “I should go, Rey.”
Her face flashed with disappointment and my heart ached. Because I knew there wasn’t anything underneath that disappointment other than she didn’t want her best friend to leave.
“Okay.” She stood as well, wrapping her arms over her chest as if she were hugging herself, chewing her kissable bottom lip with her teeth. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I ran the hell out of there before I pulled her back into my arms.
How fucking ironic.
Noah O’Sullivan, one of Dublin’s biggest players, in love with the only girl he couldn’t have.
Out now
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Excerpt of Three Irish Brothers
“Fionn,” Killian barks. “Ye better go see Cormac and tell him where to find her car to get it towed.”
Does he think I’m fucking incompetent? “Excuse me, but I think I can organize getting my car fixed myself. You’ve done enough to help, thanks.” My voice is dripping with snark.
Killian snorts as he eyes me up and down. “No offense, girl, but if you ask him to tow and fix yer car for ye, he’ll see ye comin’ a mile away and take ye for a ride. Let Fionn do it.”
Killian is so demanding. So bos
sy. So damn infuriating. I want to kiss the shit out of him. Slap! I mean, slap the shit out of him.
Jesus, Savannah.
“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth as I fist my hands into my pockets so I don’t grab Killian around the neck and do just that. “Thanks for your help, Fionn.”
“Anything for you, pretty lady.” Fionn winks before he strides off to wherever he’s going, presumably to organize getting my car fixed by this Cormac fellow, who I assume is a mechanic. I think. I hope.
It’s just Killian and me now.
I glare at him as he glares back. I can’t help but think how damn good-looking he is, even with that scowl on his face. Perhaps the scowl makes him hotter. As if he knows what I’m thinking, it deepens.
Yeah, it definitely makes him hotter.
“Are ye going to stand around gawking at me all day,” he demands, “or are ye going to call whoever it is that cares?”
Asshole.
Beautiful asshole.
“I am not gawking.”
“Yeah, ye are.”
“If I’m gawking, so are you.”
He shakes his head. “Never seen someone so out of place here.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He waves his hand at me as if he’s batting a fly. “First of all, look at what you’re wearing.”
I stare down at my outfit, a cream cashmere sweater tucked into a high-waisted mandarin, black and cream plaid wool skirt, teamed with diamante opaque tights and latte-colored knee-high boots. Sure it’s crinkled from a six-and-a-half hour flight and over two hours in the car, but I still think I look fabulous.
