Bree

Owen Gallagher is standing – no, hovering - above me with a giant smirk plastered across his handsome face. He radiates with sexual confidence, and I know exactly what he wants – a conquest.

Desire gleams in his eyes, ripples through his words, and the cocky arrogance he emits lets me know he’s used to getting his way.

The way his stormy eyes roam down and back up my body fills my core with a warmth I haven’t felt in a long time, or ever. But it also makes me wonder if he doesn’t recognize me, because if he did, I doubt he’d dare look at me the way he is now.

Or be offering me his bed.

“Excuse me?”

He leans forward, his gray eyes searching mine, and I see the twinkle of humor in them. “I won’t be sharing it with ye if that’s what ye’re worried about.”

“Sha-sharing?” I sound like a stuttering, star-struck idiot, which by his amused gaze, I’m sure he’s used to.

Of course, he is. He’s Owen freaking Gallagher.

“The bed.” His head angles as his gaze seems to swallow me whole.

“Oh.” Even I hear the edge of disappointment in the word, and more heat creeps into my cheeks.

He laughs, a melodic sound that seems to rumble inside me, going straight to my core.

“Unless, of course, ye want me to.” One dark eyebrow cocks up.

“No,” the word comes out forced, and I have to take in a deep breath to try and steady my wildly beating heart – and imagination. “I mean. I-I don’t want to impose.”

“No imposition.” His gaze holds mine, and there’s a challenge in his eyes.

I breathe out heavily and nervously tuck the damp hair that’s fallen across my cheek back behind my ear, my head still spinning at seeing him. Here. Now. As coincidental as it seems, it’s not. I knew he was staying in this hotel. Planned to be here to finally face him and my cousins. I just didn’t expect to be standing in the foyer of the hotel, with a slightly intoxicated Owen offering to take me up to his room.

A bed. That’s all he’s offering, I remind myself. Yeah, right. Even I’m not that naive.

I should tell him who I am, before things get awkward. Before…

“Come on,” he says. “I’m freezing my ass off, and ye look like ye could use a hot shower.”

The thought of him naked and wet sends all kinds of dirty thoughts racing through my mind. He must be able to read every single one of them in my expression, because his smirk only broadens and he lets out a low chuckle deep in his throat.

I should say no.

There’s still a part of me that’s angry at him for breaking the only promise he ever made to me. And then, there’s also the problem that I’m now ninety-nine-percent certain he has no clue who I am. Which is another blow to my ego.

I may have only been twelve the last time he saw me, but we’d been close. Or, at least, my pre-adolescent mind thought we had.

“I think I’ll just stay here.” I glance over at the lounge with its stiff leather chairs and wince.

“Are ye scared of me?” He takes a step closer, forcing me to look up.

My heart beats wildly, fluttering like a caged bird.

“No. Of course not.” Liar, my brain screams. I swallow past the enormous lump that’s lodged itself in my throat. “I just don’t make it a habit of going to random men’s hotel rooms.”

“And I don’t make it a habit of inviting strange women to mine,” he says with a grin.

“I doubt that.”

He chuckles. “At least, not to sleep.”

I can’t help but snort.

Arching a brow, I cross my arms over my chest, but the movement only makes his gaze drift down to my cleavage. I drop my arms.

“And if I come up with you, that’s all you want to do? Sleep?”

“I didn’t say that’s all I wanted to do. But I promise to keep my hands to myself. Plus, I’ve got a huge—” he accentuates the word, “—room, and no one to share it with.”

Don’t do it, Bree, my rational brain screams. But my sleep and sex-deprived body has other ideas.

He shrugs. “If ye’d rather stay down here in the lobby-”

“No.” Again, the word comes out forced. So much for staying cool and collected. The man already has my head spinning. “I mean, yes, thank you. I’d appreciate it.”

“Good choice.” He takes my other bag and tosses it over his shoulder, then starts to walk towards the elevators.

I catch the concierge’s knowing, judgmental grin. Red-hot embarrassment creeps up my neck, warming my cheeks.

What am I doing?

Eyes trained on Owen’s back, I try to stop my gaze from drifting down, from noticing the way his jeans hug his perfect ass and thick, muscular thighs.

At eighteen, Owen was good-looking, tall, and corded with muscles, but the man in front of me is breathtaking.

I should tell him who I am. I don’t know what stops me, other than that I like the way his gaze keeps drifting to mine. The hunger that lurks in the gray depths, promising a night of toe-curling pleasure.

All I have to do is ask.

Damn, if I don’t want to. Want him. To taste his lips, feel the heat of his skin, to hear my name roll off his tongue as he buries himself inside of me. To finally experience the fantasy that all my past sexual encounters had been measured against.

But what if even he doesn’t live up to the hype my overactive libido has imagined? Then, maybe, finally, I’d get the man out of my head.

Not likely.

I chew on my bottom lip, following him, and watching him from the corner of my eyes as we ride the elevator up the top floor. Watch as he saunters down the hall with the swagger of the rock god he is.

My breath comes out in shaky little puffs as he uses his keycard to open the door.

I’m really doing this.

Spending the night with Owen Gallagher.

Sleep, my brain reminds me. That’s all he offered.

Verbally, yes. But the offer of so much more is clear in his gaze.

He holds the door open for me, one brow arched, and I wonder how long I was standing there gawking at him.

“Having second thoughts?”

Yes. Second thoughts about allowing him to seduce the seven-month sexual drought right out of me.

I give a small shake of my head, then walk into the suite.

“Ye can have the bedroom. I’ll take the couch.” Owen opens the double doors that lead to the bedroom, and places my luggage beside the bed.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Ye can thank me by telling me yer name.”

“My name?” There’s no doubt now that he doesn’t know me.

“Ye do have one, don’t ye?”

“I…”

Dark eyebrows raise in expectation.

“Bree,” I whisper, holding my breath. Giving him the name I’ve been going by since I moved to the States. One less thing for the kids at school to tease me about. Because I found out very quickly that Beatrice wasn’t an ordinary American name. And the best thing you can be at a new school is ordinary.

“Bree,” he repeats, taking my hand and pressing my knuckles against his lips. “I’m Owen Gallagher.”

“I know who you are.”

He grins like he expected as much.

Half the world knows who he is now. But no matter how famous he got – the magazine covers, and TV interviews, the songs that topped the charts – he’d always be the boy that consumed my dreams. The boy who’d made me believe in white knights and fairytales. The boy who gave me hope when I had none.

The boy who broke his promise, and broke my heart.

He tilts his head and leans against the door frame, hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans, gray eyes studying me with a curiosity that has me wondering if there isn’t a part of him that remembers. That I meant even a fraction to him as he did to me.

His mouth opens like he’s going to respond, but instead, his expression changes to the broody, intense look he’s often photographed with. “Ye should have that shower. Ye look like ye’re frozen to the bone.”

I am, but I also don’t want him to leave.

“Thanks.”

He nods. “I’ll leave ye to it, then.”

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath, until the bedroom door shuts behind him, and I let it out in one long whoosh. Because I know that if he asks me, if I’m given the choice, there’s only one way this night will end. With Owen between my thighs, and my heart once again claimed by the only man who ever held it.