Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Dean
I should have been asleep.
Instead, I lay staring at the ceiling while Luka slept beside me.
He looked different asleep. Softer, somehow, less guarded. At some point he’d shifted closer without realizing it, one hand resting against my ribs beneath the sheets.
Verím ti.
The words drifted back through my head.
I trust you.
I turned carefully and looked at him.
The thing I couldn’t quite get over was how little any of this scared me.
Most of my life, attraction had arrived like a storm—fast, bright, impossible to miss. This hadn’t. Somewhere between the practice rink, the conversations, and the moments neither of us seemed able to walk away from, something had taken root before I’d even recognized it for what it was.
I thought back to that first morning on the ice. Luka standing by the boards, still, focused, and impossible not to notice.
At the time I’d called it curiosity.
Lying here beside him, listening to him breathe, I wasn’t so sure.
My gaze drifted to the window.
They monitor us.
The words hit differently now.
Jesus.
He’d spent ten years convincing himself that wanting something dangerous meant refusing to want it at all.
And now he was here, in my bed, trusting me.
That was the part I couldn’t stop thinking about.
This wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t some harmless Olympic fling we’d laugh about six months from now. There were real consequences attached to this, and I didn’t think Luka had exaggerated a single one of them.
My hand found the small of his back beneath the sheets.
Even asleep, he shifted closer, the movement unconscious. Instinctive.
Underneath all that control, all that discipline, all those years spent bracing for consequences, he was just a man who wanted to be close to someone without fear attached to it.
I swallowed and stared back at the ceiling.
Whatever happened after Milan, I wasn’t going to treat this like it was temporary just because the Olympics were.
Luka
I don’t know what woke me. Maybe it was the unfamiliar weight of another body close beside me. For one disorienting second, panic tightened through me before memory caught up.
Dean’s room. Dean’s bed. Dean’s arm still draped across my waist, heavy with sleep.
Except—
I stilled.
Dean was awake.
The room was dark enough that most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but I’d spent too much of my life reading small changes in breathing, posture, stillness.
Then I took a closer look. Dean’s eyes were open, fixed somewhere on the ceiling, his expression thoughtful in a way that immediately had my pulse racing.
“Can’t you sleep?” I murmured.
Dean turned his head toward me. “Nope.” His voice was rough with exhaustion. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No.” I reached for his face and found his cheek. “What is stopping you from sleeping?”
Dean was quiet for a moment before answering. “You.”
I felt that single word all the way through my chest.
I shifted onto one elbow, striving to sound calm. “That sounds dramatic.”
“It kinda feels dramatic.” Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and sat up slowly, the sheets slipping down his chest. “I could use a drink of water. Want some?”
I nodded, and he got out of bed, walking naked into the bathroom. I sat up, trying to steady the strange ache in my chest. The room still smelled of soap and skin and sleep. I was aware of everything—the brush of fabric against my legs, the cool air against my shoulders.
I can’t believe I stayed.
I knew why. I’d wanted to, and that desire had overridden common sense.
Dean returned with two glasses of water and handed one over before settling back onto the bed facing me, our legs overlapping, our knees touching.
My first time sharing a bed with anyone, and it didn’t feel awkward.
Dean took a drink, then leaned back, his weight on one hand. “I know a lot about you, Luka Davorin, but when you add it all up, it’s little more than a speck.”
I blinked. “And what do you know about me?”
He set his glass down on the nightstand and counted off on his fingers. “Five Grand Prix podium finishes, silver at Junior Worlds, bronze, then silver, then gold at the Europeans, bronze then silver at Worlds—”
I chuckled. “Okay, you spoke the truth. You know a lot.” I tilted my head. “You have been researching me?”
He grinned. “Sure. I haven’t even gotten to mention your terrifyingly consistent jump statistics—”
“Please stop talking now.”
“—or the fact that you’re known internationally for emotional restraint and freakish control—” I shoved my knee against his, and Dean laughed. “So… how old were you when you started skating?”
“Four.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Did you beg your parents for lessons or something?”
I stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh. “No. My parents put me on the ice because I was good at it.”
The words sounded colder out loud than they did in my head.
I rested the glass against my knee, turning it slowly between my fingers. “I was a strange child,” I admitted. “Very serious. Very… ordered.” I smiled. “According to my mother, I lined my toys up instead of actually playing with them.”
Dean huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that checks out.”
I arched my eyebrows at that, but kept going. “They took me skating one winter. I did not fall very much. Coaches noticed. Then more coaches noticed.”
“And suddenly you were Luka Davorin.”
“Not immediately.” I shrugged. “At first I was simply… useful.” Dean frowned, and I pressed on before he could interrupt. “Skating gave me language very early. Not verbal language.” He glanced up. “I was not very good with people.”
Dean coughed. “You still kinda suck at small talk.”
I shot him a look. “Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did.
“The rink made sense.”
Dean stayed quiet.
“People were harder.” I looked down at the glass in my hands. “On the ice, I always knew what was expected.”
“And off it?”
I flashed him a humorless smile. “Nobody seemed especially interested.”
Something shifted in Dean’s expression then, softer and sadder at the same time.
“By eight, I was training seriously,” I told him. “By twelve, the federation identified me as a national prospect. That is when everything became… intentional.”
Dean leaned back on both hands now, listening closely.
“They taught me precision.” I stared at him. “How to hold still under pressure. How to follow structure. How to give over control when it produced results. “And I was very good at it.”
“I know.” He smiled. “Research, remember?” Then he swallowed. “But I didn’t know any of this.”
I looked down at the water in my hands. “There is not much else to know.”
“That’s bullshit.” The words came out immediately, without hesitation.
I jerked my head up.
Dean shook his head. “You’re talking like the only thing that mattered about you was what you could do.”
Another long sigh. “In Velkarya, that is what matters.”
“That can’t be true.”
“But it is.”
Dean’s jaw tightened, and for a moment neither of us spoke.
Then he straightened with a sigh. “I started at six.”
I blinked. “That is late.”
He snorted. “Trust me, my coaches never stopped reminding me.”
I smiled before I could stop myself.
“I wasn’t some skating prodigy,” he said after a moment. “I was stubborn. My parents took me to a rink after I saw Nationals on TV and lost my mind about wanting to try it.”
“You begged?”
That grin again. “Oh, relentlessly.”
“That also… tracks.”
Dean pointed at me. “Hey, you don’t get to use my own phrases against me.”
“I am… improvising.”
He groaned. “You’ve been waiting to say that, haven’t you?”
I couldn’t resist smiling. “Yes.”
Warmth settled between us, easier now.
Dean stretched his legs, his knee brushing mine. “I fell a lot at first. We’re talking aggressively.”
I bit my lip. “You still fall.”
“Wow. Rude.”
I held my chin high. “It is an observable fact.”
Dean laughed under his breath. “Yeah, well. I got back up fast.” His expression grew more thoughtful. “I wasn’t the best kid in my group. There were always guys with bigger jumps or flashier skating. I was just…” He shrugged. “Reliable.”
There was an edge to his voice.
“You dislike that word.”
“I used to.” Dean looked down at our knees pressed together. “Reliable doesn’t get headlines. It doesn’t get people excited.”
“But it wins.” Dean glanced up, and I looked into his eyes. “You skate like someone people trust.”
He swallowed again. “You know, my coaches always said something similar.” He smiled. “Apparently when things go to hell, people look at me first.”
“And outside skating?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You take charge naturally.” I hesitated. “Even here.” I gestured to the bed.
“Oh.” A second later he rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I didn’t even realize I was doing that half the time.”
“I know.”
And that was the problem. Nothing in me resisted him.
It should have frightened me. Instead it felt natural.
That terrified me.
Dean huffed out a breath. “You know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“I think you and I learned opposite lessons from the same thing.”
I frowned. “Explain.”
Dean cocked his head to one side. “You learned hesitation was dangerous.”
The words hit with startling precision, and my throat tightened.
He saw it immediately. “There’s a reason that landed, huh?”
For a moment I considered avoiding it, then I remembered where I was.
Who I was with.
“At Junior Worlds,” I said slowly, “Mila and I were leading after the short program.”
Dean stayed quiet.
“In the free skate, I hesitated before a throw jump.” Another shrug. “Half a second. Nothing visible to most people.”
“But you felt it.” Dean’s gaze never left my face.
“Yes. Mila corrected for it. We stayed upright.” I swallowed. “We won silver.”
“That’s still huge.”
“Not at home.” The words came out flatter than I intended.
“What happened?”
I laughed softly, the sound chill. “Federation review.”
Dean’s expression darkened.
“They said my hesitation was emotional.”
“Jesus.”
“Not technical. Not physical.” I lowered my gaze. “Emotional hesitation under pressure.”
Dean sat very still.
“And you know what the worst part was?” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “They were correct.”
The silence thickened around us.
“That half-second stayed with me,” I admitted. “I learned doubt was visible.”
Dean stared at me for a long moment. “That’s not healthy.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it was effective.”
Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. “My almost-year was Nationals.”
I tilted my head.
“I got silver. Again.” Dean’s mouth twisted. “Another guy landed a quad I didn’t have yet.”
“But you skated clean.”
“Yep.”
“And?”
He rolled his eyes. “And apparently consistency isn’t sexy.”
The bitterness underneath the joke made my chest tighten.
“Media started calling me reliable like it was another word for forgettable.”
“That is absurd.”
“Tell them that.”
I shook my head. “They were wrong.”
Dean’s gaze held mine. “I think you actually mean that.”
“I do.”
Something warm and almost helpless crossed Dean’s face then.
“My coach kept telling me I needed more spark. More edge. More risk.” He laughed quietly. “Then last year at Worlds I skated injured and suddenly everyone loved me because I pushed through it.”
I stared at him. “You were injured?”
“Hip flexor strain.”
“And yet you still competed?”
Dean shrugged. “I needed the points.”
I gaped at him. “That was reckless.”
“Probably.”
“You could have worsened the injury permanently.”
“Probably.”
I gave him a mock glare. “You… you are impossible.”
Dean grinned. “Says the guy risking international scandal for a make out session.”
The offhand comment robbed me of breath and landed somewhere deep.
The humor faded from Dean’s face. “That came out wrong.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It didn’t.”
That was the truth of it.
Dean’s expression softened. “Hey.” I looked at him then, and he expelled a breath.
“This isn’t just sex to me.” He leaned closer, his hand covering mine. “I know we don’t know what this is yet.” His voice was low and firm. “But I know it matters.”
My throat tightened painfully.
Dean brushed his fingers along my jaw. “You said skating taught you how to disappear into expectation.”
I swallowed, and he closed the gap between us to press his lips to mine in a chaste kiss. Then he pulled back and looked me in the eye again.
“What if you don’t want to disappear anymore?”
The question settled deep, and between the dark and the quiet and Dean’s hand against my skin, the answer came to me.
I didn’t.
“And now I have to be brutal.”
“Yes?”
He cupped my cheek. “Both of us need sleep, but especially you, because you have to skate for glory in the morning.” His lips twitched. “Except it already is morning.”
Relief swamped me, but I managed to fire back at him. “You expect me to sleep after this?”
Dean’s eyes gleamed. “I do have a suggestion. Something that works for me every time. I bet it’d work for you too.
” His gaze flickered to my cock, then back to my eyes.
“You know what? We could… administer that particular sleeping aid at the same time. And we’d also have something else to cross off your list.”
My breathing hitched. “You know I have a list?”
The urge to tell him I used the same sleeping aid was huge.
Dean laughed, the sound loud and bright in the small room before he quieted hurriedly. “Don’t we all?” His grin widened before his gaze slipped again. “Better than a sleeping pill any day.” His thumb grazed my cheek. “Trust me, Olympic Village statistics support my theory.”
I seemed unable to stop staring at him. “There are statistics?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he declared, his voice deadpan. “Somewhere out there is a deeply traumatized official counting empty condom boxes and wondering what happened to athletic discipline.”
A startled laugh escaped me, and I didn’t try to hold onto it.
Dean’s expression warmed in a heartbeat. “There you are,” he murmured. “I was starting to think Velkarya had outlawed fun completely.”
“Maybe it did.”
“Good thing you’ve defected temporarily, then.”
I shook my head, still laughing under my breath as he pulled me against him.
“Sleep.” He pressed another kiss to my forehead. “Tomorrow you win gold.”
I closed my eyes, letting myself settle against him.
“And after that?” I asked, my voice low.
Dean’s arm tightened around me.
“After that, we continue your education.”