Page 52

LUKAS

“ D o I need to remind you, you’re injured?” Elli asked.

Lukas licked his lips as her typical scent of peonies and vanilla was suddenly overrun by the musky scent of her arousal. “I’ll deal.”

“I don’t know…” she said.

Lukas tightened his grip around her neck, and—ignoring the zing of pain through his ribs—bent his head to take her mouth. Thank God his split lip had already healed.

For one beautiful moment, Elli went utterly and perfectly still.

Then her body melted into his, and her palms slid up his chest and gently curved around his shoulders.

Lukas slid his tongue along the seam of her lips, and she opened for him. She tasted exactly as he’d remembered. Sweet. Succulent. Female. Elliette . His future.

The truth of that washed over him like a tidal wave, devastating and at the same time everything he’d ever wanted .

He wrapped his other arm around her waist and started walking her backward.

Elli broke their kiss to look over her shoulder, as if afraid she might trip. As if he’d ever let her fall.

“You know better than that,” he said, feigning reproach.

She did know better. She faced him again, and kissed him, trusting him to guide her backward toward the bedroom.

Through their slow progression, their kiss grew deeper and with each slide of her tongue, Lukas’s cock jumped in response.

With one particular move along the backside of his teeth, she summoned a low growl from his lips, but she was way past being afraid of his wolf. She didn’t even flinch at the sound, but held on until the backs of her thighs hit the edge of his mattress.

He had her where he wanted her. Here, in this sanctuary, it was just them. She was seen. And he was heard. And they were all that mattered.

They fell to the mattress, and it seemed neither of them could get enough of the other. He tugged at the bottom of her shirt, and she lifted her arms over her head. Whoosh , off it went.

She unclasped her bra, and it was gone too.

He kissed her neck, nipping with his lips and sometimes his teeth, all the way down to her breasts while she worked at the buttons on his shirt.

Ultimately, she got so frustrated, she tore the shirt off, scraping him with her nails and sending buttons flying.

Lukas had to admit, he liked her wild side. It spoke to his wolf.

She yelped in surprise as he flipped her to her back, then she frowned when he got off the bed. “Where are you going?”

“No where,” he said, enjoying the view of all that chestnut-colored hair spread over his white sheets. “Ever.”

She smiled wolfishly, and he felt that in his cock. He undid his belt, the button, and fly, then shoved everything down and stepped out.

Her gaze lowered from his face, down his chest, to his painfully hard erection, and her gaze grew nearly as hungry as he felt.

Another burst of her musk, filled the air, telling him she was primed for him.

Careful with his claws, which kept trying to extend, he grabbed onto the elastic waistband of her leggings and panties, then dragged them both down her legs together, taking her socks with them until she lay totally naked on his bed.

It was all too easy and yet completely torturous. He nearly came on his stomach just looking at her.

“Lukas,” she said on a breathy plea.

Hearing that, he dropped instinctively to his knees, slid his hands under her ass and pulled her to the edge of the bed. He tossed her legs over his shoulders, and she whimpered in expectation.

God. There she was. Pretty. Pink. Glistening. Right in front of him. With a desperate growl, he buried his face in her pussy and licked at her clit.

She arched and clenched her fists in his hair and rubbed herself against his mouth.

Fuck, yeah.

Sweet.

Glorious.

Perfection .

She dug her heels into his back, then whispered, “ Oh! Sorry! ”—clearly, in the midst of all of this, still having a mind for his injuries.

But Lukas didn’t care. He’d take whatever passion she wanted to throw his way. He’d take the pain. The only things that held his attention were her scent, her taste , and the throb in his balls.

He dug the pads of his fingertips into her flesh and sucked at her clit until she moaned, that sound telling him how very, very close he had her.

He rose to his feet, and she scrambled backward away from the edge of the bed, toward the center of the mattress.

He bent forward, intending to crawl over the top of her, but she shook her head.

“Until you’ve recovered, I’m on top.”

Lukas didn’t want her to think of him as weak, but he could hardly argue when she gently rolled him to his back and straddled his thighs.

She was like art. Far better than any of the expensive shit on his walls. She was beauty incarnate: her hot pussy slick with wet, the bite mark he’d left on her right breast, her nipples hard and rosy like sweet round bits of raspberry candy.

She was a Botticelli. A Rembrandt. A Michelangelo.

She reached between them and took hold of his shaft.

Lukas groaned and closed his eyes at her touch.

“Go slow,” he warned, not because he needed it that way, but because they were still new to this—this being together—and he could be a lot.

She positioned, and he choked on a lungful of air when she dropped down fast, taking him all the way to the root.

“Fuck,” he rasped.

Her heavy-lidded gaze went even lazier, and her lips tipped up as she began to move, sliding up and down while her thumbs circled his nipples.

Christ.

Fuck.

Yes.

She was so tight and so fucking hot, he had to clench his teeth to keep from shooting his load.

Elli’s hands roamed his sensitive skin, carefully avoiding his ribs and shoulder. She leaned forward, putting one hand to the mattress and nipped his bottom lip.

God, this woman.

He thrust up, filling her, and she sat up fast, her head flying back.

Lukas put his thumb to her clit, and Elli cried out as she came.

ELLIETTE

Twenty minutes later, after Lukas finished and we both had time for our heart rates to settle, I went to the bathroom to clean up while Lukas went back to the living room to collect his bags.

When I re-emerged, I found him standing at the end of the kitchen counter, going through the stack of his mail that was mixed in with notes from my job search.

He stopped when he came to an envelope that I’d completely forgotten about.

“What’s this?” he asked, holding it up for me to see the side with my name written on it.

“Oh, yeah.” I entered the kitchen. “I don’t know. Obviously, I never got around to opening it. ”

“There’s no stamp or anything,” Lukas observed.

I made my way to him, then looked down at the envelope in his hands. “Kiera found it in the hallway, outside your door. Open it.”

Lukas slid his finger under the seal, and he pulled out a three-by-five index card. His expression hardened.

“What is it?” I pulled his hands down lower so I could see what he was reading.

There were five words written in dark lead pencil: Remind him: he was warned .

“Lukas?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Who is ‘him’ and ‘he’?”

Lukas gave me a hard look that said I should already know the answer.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, made two taps with his thumb, and a second later, a muffled male voice on the other end said, “ Hello? ”

“Rogue?” Lukas asked, and he flipped the phone to speaker mode so I could hear. “You okay?”

I moved in closer, and my pulse kicked up a notch.

“Yeah,” Evan said, his voice rough with sleep. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I sagged into Lukas. Lukas’s body relaxed too, but only a little.

My brother’s mattress creaked, then he groaned, “Christ, man. What time is it? You do know we’re not in the same time zone.”

“Your sister got another message,” Lukas said. “This one a threatening note. Delivered right to her door.”

I snatched the note out of Lukas’s hand and read it again. It was definitely weird, but was it a threat? It didn’t say, “Remind him, or else .”

And it didn’t say anything about me at all. Or about Evan, for that matter.

“Tiny?” Evan asked. “How do you—? Where are you?”

“In my apartment. With Elli. We’re together. And she’s getting more threats about you. And now, whoever’s sending them knows where she lives.”

“What do you mean, you’re together? What do you mean ‘where she lives? ’” Evan’s voice was even louder now. “You’re alpha of the Bakken clan.”

“Not anymore,” Lukas growled. “And stay focused. What kind of shit are you into?”

“Put Tiny on the phone,” Evan demanded.

“You’re already on speaker,” Lukas said.

“Um…Evan?” I asked while reading the note a third time. My little finger trembled, and I had to grab onto it to keep it still.

“Are you okay?” The angry tone Evan had been using with Lukas softened to one of concern.

“Fine,” I lied. “But are you still in trouble?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. What did the message say?”

“Only that I’m supposed to remind someone that he had been warned.”

Silence.

“Evan?”

“It must have been for someone else. That has nothing to do with me.”

“The envelope had my name on it.”

More silence.

Lukas brought the phone closer to his mouth. “Rogue, whatever this is, get it sorted. If you need money?—”

“I’ve got money!” Evan snapped back. “We play in the same league. Or did you forget? ”

Lukas didn’t respond to that. Everyone knew that playing in the same league didn’t necessarily mean earning the same kind of money.

Human players were barely hanging on to their spots on team rosters, and it reflected in their salaries. My brother wasn’t broke—not by a long shot—but he didn’t own original artwork like Lukas or collect vintage cars.

“I don’t know what this is about,” Evan repeated. “Tiny shouldn’t be involved, not that there’s anything to be involved in,” he added quickly.

“Tell me who I need to talk to,” Lukas said. “Maybe my message didn’t get through to the person who needed to hear it.”

I shuddered, remembering the sound of ripping flesh in a dark, dank warehouse.

Lukas wrapped his arm around my waist, assuring me I was safe. Despite a torn shoulder, stitched face, and three broken ribs, he would take care of me. Nothing would harm me when he was around.

Evan sighed heavily. “Lukas… I’m not giving you any names. And it’s not because I’m trying to be a dick, but I honestly think that’ll only make things worse. I’ll talk to Tuttle and Petey.”

“They’re in on this too?” Lukas asked.

“No one’s in on anything,” Evan said. “There’s been a mistake. We’ll fix it.”

“You said that before,” Lukas said, holding the phone close to his mouth.

“That goes both ways,” Evan said. “Like how you said you’d be staying away from my sister.”

“Evan,” I said, rising up on my toes to get closer to the phone, “there are some things you don’t understand.”

“That also goes both ways,” Evan said .

“Then tell me what’s going on,” I pleaded. “Explain it so I can understand.”

“Again,” Evan said, “the less you know, the better. This is me taking care of you, Tiny.”

I pinched my lips together and looked up at Lukas, sure that he was going to have something to say about that.

To my surprise, he kept his mouth clamped shut. He disconnected without saying goodbye, then set his phone on the counter.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

His chin jerked back. Apparently, my vote of confidence took him by surprise.

“But it’s not over, is it?” I asked.

Lukas didn’t have to respond. We both knew the answer to that.

The end…for now.

Stay tuned for Book 2 - Netting the Nymph

Coming August 2025!