Get Lucky

1

Phoebe

The shiver starts somewhere in my core. It tightens there, teasing through me, sending tingles to dark, wicked places, before it trips its way up my spine. I can feel my skin prickling, despite the warm temperature of the dark, smoky room. Heat flushes through my cheeks and sparks through my green eyes.

I swallow thickly. My thighs clench. Electricity teases through me as my nipples brush against the silky fabric of my slinky green dress.

The room is pin-drop silent and packed with men. Rough, crude, wicked men, most of them. And I know most of the eyes in the room are locked onto me, considering what’s just happened. But I’ve somehow tuned all of them out. All the thugs and the crooks—the rough-and-tumble types that work for Patrick’s uncle, Terry Morrow.

Yes, that Terry Morrow. The de-facto head of the Boston chapter of the Irish mob.

They’re all here for the poker game. But again, I’ve tuned out the rest of the eyes staring me down—the henchmen, the bouncers at the door, the dealer, all of them with eyes lingering on me in this moment. I’ve even managed to tune out Patrick, my god-awful, hot-headed slime ball of a “fiancé”.

I’ve tuned out everyone. That is, except for two of them.

I shiver again in the dimness of the smoky back-room of the bar, where the high-rollers game is being played out. You can vaguely hear the dull murmur of the revelers out in the main bar of O’Doyle’s, not to mention out on the streets outside. It is Saint Patrick’s Day, in Boston, after all.

Suddenly, I blink, and everything around me starts to tumble out of the slow-motion speed it’s been moving in back to normal. I turn, my eyes locking onto Patrick as my brow furrows.

“I’m sorry, what?!”

His weaselly face goes pale, and then it flashes with anger as he whirls back to them—the two men sitting across the table from him. It’s a very different look from the smugness he was wearing when he made the bet right before this last hand was dealt. Five minutes ago, when I’d objected, he’d just rolled his eyes and waved me off, swaying slightly as he knocked back what had to be the tenth glass of Jameson’s he’d had in the last two hours.

“Fuckin’ relax, Phoebe,” he’d slurred, glaring at me. “I ain’t gonna lose.”

Except, he just did.

I shiver, feeling the eyes on me still, and when I swallow and drag my gaze past Patrick across the table, I feel my breath catch. Because there they both are, staring right at me. It’s a hard look—fierce, fiery, and so full of energy you can almost feel the air crackling between us. And the men they belong to?

Well, they’re every bit as hard as their looks.

Eamon Lear and Clay Moreland are two of the reigning Irish mob kings, visiting from Dublin. Tall, big, brooding, rough, and at this moment, probably two of the most dangerous men in the entire city. Oh, and they also happen to be one other thing.

Gorgeous.

It’s not in a pretty-boy way, it’s more like this dark, off-limits, dangerous sort of way. The both of them have dark hair, cut clean, with chiseled jaws, fierce looks, hulking shoulders and arms, and muscled chests. Tattoo ink peeks out around the edges of their sleeves and from their shirt collars, and they sip the whiskey in front of them with cool, calculated smoothness.

Eamon’s got these piercing blue eyes, which happen to be lancing right into me at this very moment. Clay’s the one with the dark, brooding eyes and the swath of beard across his jaw. And it’s those eyes—both of theirs—that I feel burning right through me, and I shiver under that heated, unblinking look.

And once again, that shiver goes to dark, forbidden places.

There’s a crash as Patrick lurches to his feet, his chair knocking backwards.

“Fuck this!” he screeches, his voice breaking as he stumbles slightly on his feet. “No, fuck this. The deal’s off.”

He’s fuming mad, and believe me, I know how Patrick can get when he’s drunk and mad. But across the table, Eamon and Clay don’t even bat an eye. They don’t flinch, they don’t move. Actually, all they do is slowly and almost imperceivably start to smile.

“The deal isn’t off.”

Eamon’s whiskey-and-leather growl rumbles through the room, colored by his Irish brogue accent.

“You lost, and now it’s time to pay up.”

I shiver.

It’s time to pay up.

See, because it’s not money Patrick is about to lose. He ran out of cash twenty minutes ago. It’s not his watch either—also in the pot—or the keys to his Porsche.

…It’s me.

Because five minutes ago, right before the last hand was dealt, my sore-loser, douchebag of a fiancé decided that after losing literally everything else he walked into the game with, he had one more bartering chip: me. He put me into the pot.