Page 24

“Oh.” He looked chagrinned but accepted the compliment. “Good, but…sorry.”

“I’d never seen a berserker before. Like that, I mean.”

Again, he was silent. He pulled the washcloth away from my nose to have a peek.

“It makes your eyes even prettier than normal,” I said, immediately wishing I hadn’t. My head gave another dull thud.

He stopped his inspection and focused on my own eyes. “You’re right. You must be concussed.”

“You don’t think you have pretty eyes?” Like, that couldn’t be true. He must have looked in a mirror before.

“I can honestly say I don’t think about my eyes.”

“You should,” I encouraged, maybe too enthusiastically. I blamed the head trauma .

He gave me another weird look, then stood up. “Let me get you some aspirin.”

He disappeared into the bathroom again and from there he asked, “What was the deal with the panties?”

“What?” I was suddenly conscious of the silky red thong I was wearing under my dress. Had he seen it when I keeled over?

“You said your ex took your panties from your drawer. Does he have some weird kink where he steals women’s underwear?”

“Oh,” I said on an exhale. “No. He’d just never seen them before.”

Lukas came back with a glass of water and two white tablets. I traded the washcloth for them, put the tablets on my tongue, and drank down the water.

“El,” Lukas said, taking the glass and handing me back the washcloth. “How is it possible your boyfriend had never seen your panties?” His tone was equal parts confusion and concern, as if I were a greater lost cause than he’d originally thought.

“He’d never seen those panties,” I explained. “Nothing that sexy. At least not in my drawer. I bought them earlier that day. I guess I was… inspired . By the videos.”

“Ah,” Lukas said. “I see.”

“And I was hoping that someday, someone might see them on me. Not that I was planning on an actual fashion show.” I hoped making a joke would prove to Lukas that I was okay.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I took things too far with some of my comments.”

“No, you didn’t. I meant it when I thanked you.”

Lukas sat on the edge of the bed again, bent forward and pressed his forehead into the heels of his hands. It was a pose of frustration that I didn’t quite understand.

I rolled onto my side, still holding the washcloth to my nose, though the stinging had stopped. “Why did you want to scare me away?”

He didn’t respond, but the muscles in his back went taut.

“Is it because you’re leaving? You didn’t want me to get ideas?”

“Something like that.”

I understood, even though it pained me. He’d pushed me away once before to shut down any fantasies I might have had about the two of us together.

He needed to know that—even after all that had gone down between us that evening—I wasn’t the same, ridiculously-crushing-on-him, eighteen-year-old girl.

“If that’s the case, you don’t need to worry. I’m a grown-ass woman, Lukas, and I can take care of my own heart no matter what my brother told you.”

There were a few more long seconds of silence, to the point I thought he wasn’t going to respond again. But then he straightened and glanced over his shoulder at me. “How’s your nose?”

“Oh. I…um…I think it’s stopped bleeding.”

In a flash, he turned around, putting a knees to the bed. He cupped my jaw, took the washcloth away, and tipped my head back to inspect the damage.

“Looks good.” He tossed the washcloth on the nightstand, then laid on the bed beside me.

My heart kicked up a notch, and I pressed my hand against his bare chest. “Lukas… what’s happening?”

The corners of his mouth tipped up right before he pulled me against his body, rested his chin on top of my head, and said, “Nothing.”

His breath rolled over my hair, and I felt the pulse in his neck against my cheek.

I closed my eyes. “This doesn’t feel like nothing.”

“It’s been a long night,” he said huskily. “We’re just going to sleep. That’s all.”

“But…um…like this? ” My voice came out a little higher than normal.

“Elli,” he said, sounding weary. “You need sleep. But with your head, someone should keep an eye on you tonight. Just in case.”

I understood. He cared about me. He wanted to make sure I was okay. But what happened tonight—at the club, in Daniel’s apartment—it wasn’t anything he meant for me to get used to, and I wasn’t meant to expect anything more.

On top of that, wherever he was going, I couldn’t follow. And once he left, he wouldn’t be coming back.

I kept my eyes closed and inhaled, memorizing every detail as best I could, from the feel of his hair sliding through my fingers, to the spicy scent of his skin, to the hard muscles on his back, to the massive power of his erection lying hard against my thigh.

At least that was good for my ego, even though it scared the shit out of me.

“How long?” I asked, my voice trembling against his neck. “Until you leave?”

An agonized sound slipped past his lips, and he smothered it in my hair. “Let’s not talk about that now.”

I shook my head. “I need to know.”

He pulled back so we could see each other, and there was a softness in his eyes I’d never seen before, but there was also pain. “Depends on my shoulder and the season. ”

I didn’t understand the connection between the team and his future as alpha of the Bakken clan, and my confusion must have shown on my face.

“I’m playing at seventy-five percent right now,” he explained. “If my shoulder doesn’t heal properly, if it shows in my performance and I get benched, then I’ll be gone. Called home because any sign of weakness detracts from the clan. But if it heals well, I’m here until the season’s done for us.”

“So, the championship game.”

His lips quirked at the corners. “Thanks for the confidence.”

“It’s not mine,” I said. “Those were your words: ‘the drought is over.’ The Spriggans will be in the playoffs, and since you’ll make it that far, you’ll take it all the way.”

“I’ll milk it for every second I can,” he confirmed.

“And if you win, you really don’t think O’Rourke will want you back for another season?”

“O’Rourke doesn’t factor. I’ve delayed my father as long as I can. It’ll be time for me to fulfill my duties.”

“Which are what, exactly?”

He closed his eyes, and he exhaled through his nose.

“You can tell me,” I said. “If these duties are secret berserker business, I won’t ever repeat it.”

I pantomimed locking my lips and throwing away the key.

He hauled me back against his body and held me in the same position as before, ending all eye contact. “Fuck. Elli.”

That wasn’t the response I was hoping for, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. Berserkers, shifters, fae…they might have assimilated into the human world, but humans were rarely invited into theirs .

I swallowed hard, my disappointment at his lack of faith in me heating my face.

Lukas loosened his grip, likely feeling the spike in my body temperature, and put some space between us so he could cup my cheek. “You don’t want to know that, Elli.”

“Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want,” I whispered.

“You don’t really know me.”

“I’ve known you for ten years.”

“You know the part of me that I’ve shown you. The rest…is nothing you want to know.”

“And I can’t be the judge of that?”

“You will be. Soon enough. But by then, I won’t have to see the disgust on your face.”

That gave me pause, and I narrowed my eyes. “I seriously doubt you could do anything to disgust me.”

Pain returned to his eyes. “I’ll hang on to that thought.”

Seriously, what went into all this alpha business? I switched to a different topic, one more immediate. “Are you and my brother going to be okay? Still friends?”

“Depends. Are you going to tell him you were in my bed?”

I snorted. “Hell, no.”

“Then we’ll be fine. He’s still pissed about the kiss, but he’ll get over it if I keep my distance from you.”

“How much distance?” He’d been gone for the last seven years of my life. Even if I couldn’t have him for real, I didn’t like the sound of distance between us.

He replied, “As much as we can manage given your assignment.”

“You mean, tomorrow we go back to being work colleagues?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Yes.”

Hearing his confirmation made my gut clench and my eyes sting. I rolled away—just in case a rebel tear escaped. “Then I guess I’ll see you at the rink.”

Lukas grabbed my elbow and turned me back around. He rested his chin on top of my head again. “You said tomorrow we go back to being work colleagues. We still have tonight, and Elli…I gotta say…you feel too good to let go.”

My lips brushed his throat when I asked, “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re very confusing?”

His humorless exhale ruffled my hair. “Trust me. No one’s more confused than me.”