Wheeler (Seattle Sharks 8)

This side of him…it was far more dangerous than when he was sneaking innuendos into our texts to get a rise out of me.

After a flurry of movement, Lukas glided across the ice, stopping just outside the entrance into the team box. I automatically rose from where I’d been sitting, walking over to him like a magnet tugged at my center. Clearly, with the expectant way he’d looked up at me, he’d wanted me to come to him, but I wanted to, too. More and more, I was drawn to him in ways that were becoming more powerful than a silly girl’s infatuation. More than a fantasy, more than a craving. I liked him—liked the way he made me laugh, the way he challenged me, pushed me to be better, sharper.

We’d become...friends.

And I like him…a lot.

“We’re going to be another hour or so here,” he said once I’d reached him, my position on the elevated box making me almost as tall as him for once. He glanced over his shoulder, nodding to his hulking mass of a friend Axel. It was a marvel the kids weren’t scared of him—he looked like some combination of a biker and wrestler with his bulging muscles and long braided blond beard. But the kids flocked to him, giggling as they attempted to steal the puck from him as he soared across the ice.

“You can go,” Lukas said, drawing me back to him, and I deflated a bit. His eyes softened, noticing my involuntary reaction. “You must be hungry,” he said, reaching over to touch my arm with a gloved hand. “I know how you get when you’re denied food.” A smirk at that.

“I don’t mind waiting,” I said, but smiled at his perceptiveness. I was starving. I’d been so busy prepping his product launch meetings this morning that I hadn’t eaten before joining him here.

“Are you sure?” he asked, drawing his hand back. “I don’t want you to faint.”

“I won’t faint,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ve got a call with the manufacturer in about twenty minutes, anyway.”

“What for? I thought we’d already settled on an agreement.”

I tried to hide my smile. “Almost,” I said. “I may have been able to sweet-talk a couple of them to merit another call.”

“Sweet-talk?” He eyed me.

“I told them that with the added natural coverage your Sharks career will offer the line, they had an extra-wide media range Adrenaline launches from, and a damn good platform, too. More exposure means more sales…they can cut us a better deal.”

Lukas’s eyebrows raised, his signature smile shaping those damn lips of his.

“Impressed?” I asked when he hadn’t said anything.

“With you?” he shrugged. “Always.”

I couldn’t contain my own smile. I had contributed in a way a business owner would, not a personal assistant. “Besides,” I continued. “I don’t mind staying because I like seeing you this way.”

He arched a brow. “You’ve seen me on the ice countless times.”

“Not like this.” I glanced behind him, at the happy kids working and learning the game he loved. “Not so…free.”

“I’m free at home.”

Home. Something about his declaration of Seattle as his home warmed my insides that had gone cold from the chill in the rink. “Sure,” I said. “But here…you’re different. Same, but different.”

He tilted his head. “You like it?”

“Why does that matter?” I whispered.

“Do you like it?”

I nodded, heat flooding my cheeks.

“Good.” He motioned behind him. “I’ll take you out for a proper Swedish lunch after we’re finished here. If you’re determined to wait.”

“I am,” I said, a little too quickly. I cleared my throat. “I mean, yes. That would be nice.”

He skated backward, his blue eyes locked with mine until he had to spin around and rejoin the kids.

I retook my seat, wondering when he’d learned to read me so well—to know so easily when I was hungry or tired or sad or excited or…more intimate things. Had it been after weeks of working together? Or had he known before? After my ex wrecked my heart, Lukas had somehow known. Had sensed my rage and…

No. I couldn’t go down that path.

Couldn’t think about him as anything more than my boss, my friend, my way to gain career experience.

I just wish I could push all the ways he could help me gain experience from my mind—because that was one area he would always know more about than me and I hated how much I wanted him to change that.

An hour and a half later, Lukas—freshly showered and clothed in sleek black slacks and a sky-blue polo—escorted me into what he’d described as one of his favorite cafés in the city.

A mixture of smells—seafood and steam and rosemary—hit us as he held the door open for me, guiding me to a table tucked into the corner of the restaurant.

An elderly waiter hurried over to us, his smile wide and his Swedish fast. He spoke to Lukas like he knew him, and I could only watch the exchange with the awed eyes of a tourist completely out of her depth. Sure, I’d learned a few words, but I doubt I’d ever be on their level.

Lukas paused mid-conversation, looking at me. “Is it alright if I order for you?”

I grinned. “Of course,” I said, surprised he hadn’t done so already. The fact that he took the time to ask, to see if I would object to it, made me melt inside. “Thank you,” I said after he’d spoken some more with the waiter, who had rushed off to the kitchens to place the order.

I scanned the quaint café, taking in the sea-green walls, the thick stone pillars scattered throughout the area, and the patrons quietly chatting and eating at the other tables. No paparazzi waited outside the doors. No adoring fans stormed our table begging for his autograph.

“This must be such a nice break for you,” I said.

Lukas tilted his head. “You call flying to another country to work on my second career a break?”

I laughed, grateful that our table was tucked in the corner, away from anyone who could overhear it. “No,” I said. “I mean the ease of having lunch without being stormed by people. Women. Paparazzi.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “It is…simpler here. Gives me a quiet mind.”

I swallowed hard, noticing the distance in his eyes. He was somewhere else entirely.

“But Seattle,” he continued, returning focus to me. “It is my home, too. I fit there as equally as I do here. Despite you saying I’m different.”

“I said you were the same too.”

“Well, now that that is all cleared up...”

I smiled, again. It seemed, lately, whenever I was with him I was smiling. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been this…happy—both in my job and with my new friend.

Friend. I could call him that, right?

Lukas smoothed a fingertip between my brow, the contact jarring and soothing at the same time. “What are you working on in there?”

I sighed, his touch searing, his eyes open, focused, wanting.

“Thinking about the youth camp and how the media should focus more on projects like that, instead of reporting on which supermodel is on your arm which night,” I blurted before I could tell him the truth. Before I could say that not only did I enjoy the thought of being his friend, of having him in my life, but that I’d come to depend on it. That I looked forward to his texts, to our playful banter, to our time together. And I knew it would end when the season started back up—when he no longer needed me and I needed to open my business.

He might say he wanted me and only me, but I’d seen him operate for the last few years. With Lukas, it was all about the chase. Then again, I’d never heard of him going more than a week without sex

, let alone nine months.

He sat back in his chair, the waiter bringing our food and setting it before us. Lukas thanked him, and he nodded before leaving us to it.

“This looks phenomenal,” I said, surveying the crispy bread slathered with warm sauce—prawns and whitefish resting delicately on the top. A sprig of rosemary completed the dish, and a silver teapot with hot, steaming tea complimented it.

“Toast Skagen,” Lukas said, his accent thick. “One of my favorites.” He watched me take my fork and knife to the plate and tracked the movement to my mouth.

I moaned around the fork, the flavors bursting on my tongue.

Something flashed behind his eyes, and I straightened in my chair. “Delicious,” I said once I’d swallowed, and reached for the tea he’d poured for me. I took a fast sip, the floral notes accenting the fresh fish dish perfectly.

“Quite,” he said, working on his own, his eyes still on me. After a few moments of contented silence while eating, he said, “It bothers you, no?”

“What?” I tilted my head while cleaning my plate. Swedish food was quickly becoming my favorite kind of food.

“The women,” he said. “You’ve brought it up before.” He took a casual drink of his tea as if he hadn’t just called me out.

I parted my lips, the words clogging my throat. “It doesn’t,” I said. “I only meant…” What had I meant? “The media should see the real you.” I shrugged. “That’s all.” I held my teacup with both hands, letting the warmth radiate into my slightly trembling fingers.

“Maybe I don’t need the world to see the real me.”

“You like being portrayed as a wheeler? When there is so much more to you?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I don’t care at all what other people think of me. People tend to see what they want to anyway. I’m happy with who I am. I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin, and I’ve never seen a need to deny myself anything that brings pleasure.”

I huffed, shaking my head. “That’s the truth,” I muttered.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Faith.”