Meeting Lucky

By Nell Iris

It must be a stroke. Or a heart attack. Because it can’t be love at first sight.

One brief moment in a crowded hotel lobby is all it takes. A stranger’s gaze meeting Björn’s is a lightning strike, a game changer, bad for his heart and his sanity. And when the stranger, Lucky, starts flirting with him, he’s in real trouble.

Björn erected walls around his heart a long time ago, but Lucky is passionate and determined. Will Lucky’s sunshine be able to thaw the ice in Björn’s heart? Will meeting Lucky give Björn the fairytale happily ever after he never knew he wanted?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685504847

Nell Iris

Nell is a forty-something bisexual Swedish woman, married to the love of her life, and a proud mama of a grown daughter. She left the Scandinavian cold and darkness for warmer and sunnier Malaysia a few years ago, and now spends her days writing, surfing the Internet, enjoying the heat, and eating good food. One day she decided to chase her lifelong dream of being a writer, sat down in front of her laptop, and wrote a story about two men falling in love. Nell writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angst, and wants to write diverse and different characters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

February 2022

The first time I lay eyes on him, I’m hit by lightning. Or possibly I’m having a stroke, I don’t know.

Whatever it is, it makes the hairs on my neck stand up and a tingle run down my spine as my body first goes completely stiff and rigid for several seconds before it softens into a pile of goo, as though someone had reached inside me and pulled out all my bones, leaving me flopping around like a jellyfish on dry land.

It must be his casual clothing that’s detrimental to my health; the leather jacket dangling carelessly from his hand, the faded eighties rock band T-shirt and holey jeans make him stand out among all the designer suits in the lobby at the swanky hotel where I’m currently waiting to check in. Or maybe it’s the way he’s standing still in the crowded lobby where people swarm around him like bees; relaxed, gaze steady. Not looking at his phone or doing anything to give the air of being busy.

What else can it be that makes my heart forget its usually steady rhythm? His serene smile hinting at crow’s feet by his intensely dark eyes as he just stands there? His beard, his wavy, blond hair long enough to brush the tops of his shoulders? His miles-long legs or the hint of a hairy thigh through one particularly large hole in his jeans?

Please. Real life is not a romance novel, and I’m not a swooner.

But then he turns and looks in my direction. His eyes meet mine and lightning strikes again. I try to breathe, but my lungs stop cooperating, picking this moment to trap the air in my chest until it feels inflated like a balloon.

His eyes are absurdly dark from a distance, like two black holes with overwhelming gravity, threatening to capture me and drag me across the lobby.

Again, I try for another breath, but to no avail.

Am I dying?

His smile widens a fraction as he sweeps his gaze up and down my body before his eyes meet mine again. One eyebrow shoots up, asking a wordless question I can’t decipher, and I swallow, desperately trying to wet the desert that is my mouth.

He shifts his weight as though he’s about to take a step in my direction, when a loud call silences everyone in the lobby for a second—Hey. Lucky!

The words halt his movements, stealing his attention away from me. The man grins as he turns his body to the loud newcomer, and he raises his hand in an energetic wave, making his T-shirt ride up, revealing a patch of fair hair on his lower belly.

My breath whooshes out of my throat. It should be an improvement to my previous predicament, but it’s not. Instead, watching him makes my head spin, and even though his eyes are no longer on me, I still feel their pull on my chest.

Is this how Odysseus felt when he, tied to his ship’s mast, listened to the sirens?

What the fuck? Maybe I should go see a doctor; something must be seriously wrong with me.

Can I help you? The voice behind me isn’t insistent enough to