Page 16 of Tempting Irish

Fuck me for complaining about anything. My life is an excess of money, fame, women, andbooze.

But it’sempty.

The funny thing is, I don’t really know what’s missing. Just that the hollowness inside me has been growing lately.I need something. I just don’t know what that something is. But one thing is certain; the surplus of booze and easy women I’ve been trying to fill the void with isn’t workinganymore.

“Ye need to find a good woman and settle down,” Emer keeps telling me. She’s said it enough that even Aiden and Cillian are starting to harass me as well. The irony is that the same woman who keeps telling me to settle down, is the one I judge all othersby.

Pathetic.

It’s not the attraction. Shit, I’m not even sure that spark was ever there between Emer and I. It’s the trust, the knowing that no matter what life throws at me, she’ll have my back. She doesn’t put up with my shit, and when any one of us guys needs a good kick in the balls, she’s more than willing to giveit.

She’s our strength. The anchor that held the four of us together during the worst oftimes.

But she’s not mine. Never has been. Never willbe.

I tip the kid an extra twenty, then place the pizza box on the coffee table in the living room before walking towards thebedroom.

“Pizza’shere-”

I stop when I see Bree curled up on the bed, eyes closed, mouth slightlyparted.

“Bree,” I murmur, studying the woman lying in my bed, and not knowing why she affects me the way shedoes.

I’ve been around a lot of women in my life. Not just the roadies and fan girls that pack into our green rooms after the shows, but models and actresses. Women who spend thousands just to have their hair dyed the perfect shade of blonde, to have their tits made a few sizes bigger than any man’s hand cancup.

This girl is none of that. She’s beautiful without trying. Sexy as fucking sin without even knowing it. And the heat when she looked at me, the matched desire in those blue eyes, stirred an almost primal possessiveness that I’ve never feltbefore.

Yeah, I’m losingit.

I turn the bedside light off, then pull the comforter over her shoulders, cursing myself silently for not having the balls to take what I want, what Ineed.

“Fucking white-knight complex,” Imutter.

She stirs, her lashes fluttering. Her brows draw down slightly when her gaze lands on mine, still cloudy with sleep. “Owen?”

I can’t help the smile that plays on my lips at the familiarity with which she says my name. “Yeah?”

“I…” Her lips part on words she doesn’t say, but the intensity of her gaze leaves no question what she wants –me.

One look and the girl has me harder than granite. So, why the hell do I feel like I need to wrap my arms around her and keep hersafe?

“Ye shouldsleep.”

“Wait.” Her fingers curl around my wrist, stopping me when I start to moveaway.

I glance down at the contact, then back to the wide, blue eyes that blink up at me, and my chest squeezes at the array of emotions I seethere.

Desire.

Trepidation.

Need.

Innocence.

Shit. One look and the girl completely undoesme.

But, despite the sense of familiarity, I don’t know her. Not that that’s stopped me before from taking pleasure in a woman. But there’s something different about her. Maybe it’s the hope I see in her expression. The way she looks at me like I could be her whole fuckingworld.

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