Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Lila
I was not fine.
Oh, outwardly, I was doing all the right things, hitting all the correct metrics, leading the meetings I needed to, connecting with the organizations Fairbanks Enterprises needed me to connect with…
but inside, I kept thinking about that night in the apartment, and the dozens of times since then, when Kardok’s gaze landed on my lips, and I felt something zing from my nipples to my lady bits.
It was an inconvenient reaction, especially when I was trying to charm shareholders or wine and dine a potential donor.
What’s more, I couldn’t help but think…
Look, my father didn’t own the Teal Terrors, but part of his real estate empire was the complex where they practiced—where I’d practiced. I hadn’t exactly grown up around orcs, but I knew enough about them to know that their senses were like four times more powerful than humans’.
And I wondered if there had been some way that Kardok had…had known. Had recognized my arousal, and if that was why he hadn’t kissed me.
No, that’s stupid.
Right. This was Kardok the Wicked. He was known for his kisses, and that thing he did with his tongue. There’s no way he’d turn down a kiss from a willing female, right?
So yeah, my thoughts kept going in circles.
He’d known. He wanted to kiss me. He didn’t want to kiss me. He was clueless.
It was incredibly unprofessional, and by the following week, I was ready to put that part of me in the corner with a stern talking to. I needed to be in control, not totally racked with obsession.
Besides, it wasn’t as if we’d done anything I hadn’t done dozens—hundreds!—of times before. His hands on my waist, his strength as he lifted me effortlessly. The way we meshed, the way we worked together, the way he looked at me as if he was wondering how I would taste—
You’re doing it again.
Right.
I decided that the sensible interpretation of said events is that they meant nothing. We were just rehearsing.
However, I was well aware of the fact that I’ve also decided this seventeen times already, and I kept having to decide it again.
Gah.
But in terms of obsessing, you know what was giving me the most grief? I wasn’t sure which version of Kardok I was the most in trouble with.
Was it Kardok the Wicked, the fierce enforcer who fought like he didn’t have anything to lose and could drive a crowd into a frenzy? The male I’d been secretly drooling over for years?
Or was it the Kardok who sat at my table and talked about his brothers and nephew or who went all quiet and soft when he spoke of his mother? The male who stacked dishes without being asked.
Which one was my body reacting to?
All I knew was one thing—no, wait, two things.
One: I’d made use of my ridged dildo at least twice a night since that not-a-kiss moment in my apartment.
Two: I was, for some reason, skating better than I had in years. Better than I have since I gave up professional competition in order to go to work for my father. It was like…with this exhibition, I’d found my love for the sport again.
Which is why I was so blindsided when Maddie stuck her head out the door as I was hurrying on my way to pop in on my father. “You got a minute, Lila?”
I probably should have said no, but what came out was, “Sure! Is it about the exhibition?”
The teal-haired woman was beaming when she gestured me into her office. “Ticket sales are already moving. Like really well. You’ve got a line on some more comfortable seating?”
Right. This was standard charity gala stuff. I’d handled conversations like this a dozen times, and I didn’t have to mention lips or hands or calloused fingers on my skin.
Right.
Maddie and I had worked together enough that we didn’t need a formal meeting. I had all the details we needed between my phone and my notebook, and the two of us shot numbers back and forth.
She was right; if ticket sales continued this well, not only would we be able to put on an incredible gala, but the donations to the youth league would be substantial.
“You’ve talked the team into attending?” I asked, checking things off my list.
“They’ll all be back in town by then—training camp begins the week before the exhibition. There’s a few I haven’t heard back from, but I’m confident coach will convince them.” Her expressive mouth twisted. “Dakvaar told me he didn’t need a penguin suit.”
I didn’t bother hiding my giggle snort but raised a brow as I jotted his name with a question mark. “Tell him if he doesn’t want to wear a tuxedo, his team uniform would be good enough. And tell him that attendance is completely voluntary—”
“But it’s compulsory voluntary?”
I smiled again because Maddie expected it.
“I don’t know him personally, but if the rest of the team will be there—”
“Oh, he’ll be there.” The older woman glanced down at her phone, as if she needed to check notes. “Especially if it means getting the chance to see Kardok figure skate. How’s that going, by the way?”
My, “Good,” came out two octaves higher than necessary, so I swallowed and tried again. “Good. He’s doing…great. His strength is impressive.”
“Right, his strength.” Maddie didn’t look up from her phone, and her tone was carefully neutral, so maybe it was my imagination that she was leering. “You think he’ll be ready in time?”
“Oh, definitely.” Now she did look at me, a hint of skepticism in her eyes, so I hurried to reassure her.
“We could go out there right now and do a three-minute show with what we know so far.” Granted, it would be all skating while holding hands, plus those three lifts we’d been practicing on and off the ice, but still.
“Given the weeks between now and the exhibition, I’m confident Kardok will be able to wow any doubters. ”
Maddie watched me without speaking for a few beats longer than necessary. As if she was trying to decide what to say and how to say it.
Then: “And how about you? Will you be ready?”
I blinked. “Of course. That’s my job.”
“It’s your job to make this charity event happen,” she said gently. “No one expected you to skate again—that’s you just helping us out.”
“No.” I closed my notebook with a snap. “It’s my job to make Fairbanks Enterprises”—Make Daddy—“look good, and that’s what this will do. I know many people are just showing up to see if Kardok can learn the control he needs, but I promise, this is going to look epic.”
The head of the team’s Public Relations studied me, then finally nodded. “I think you’ve oversimplified your role, Lila. Your father—”
“Expects epic things,” I said firmly. “And I will deliver.”
Except…
After I’d left her office, I stopped in the hallway, thinking about something Kardok had said that night at dinner.
That’s a lot of I’m sorry.
Daddy expected great things from me…right? That’s why he’d made certain I had every opportunity, had been sent to the best schools and given the best tutors and etiquette coaches and debutante balls.
He wanted perfection from me, so I could make him look perfect.
Right?
I chewed my lip. Daddy was in his office here at the ice complex today, but suddenly, I didn’t have the bravery to face him. I turned on one of my stiletto heels and hurried down the hall.
When I found myself outside the door to the upper stands of the larger rink, I hesitated. The Terrors hadn’t begun their regular practice season yet, but I knew most of the guys would be in there scrimmaging, keeping their skills sharp.
I took a deep breath, and before I could stop myself, pulled open the door and slid inside, perching primly in my heels and skirt on the edge of one of the bleachers.
Maybe it would have been easier if I’d told myself I was just there to study Kardok’s skating style, or natural movement or something.
But apparently, even in the deepest part of my mind, I wasn’t ready to lie to myself. Not about this.
I gripped my notebook to my chest and watched, wide-eyed, the players below.
Because this wasn’t careful, cooperative Kardok, the one who showed up at four o’clock and held my hands and tried—with great concentrated effort—to relax his knees.
This was the other Kardok, the original. The one whose poster hung in the hallway downstairs, which I’d looked at far too many times before eventually printing one of my own and hiding it behind my costume closet door.
He was magnificent.
Loud, physical, exuberant—he crashed into opponents and bounced off laughing, trash-talking in what sounded like two languages, occasionally letting out a sound—a howl—that was less human and more apex predator when he made a particularly vicious play.
His teammates gave back as good as they got, and the whole rink was alive with it, the violence and joy of orcs doing what they were built to do.
I was gripping the bleacher with both hands.
Daddy was right; the Orc Hockey League had known exactly what they were doing when they’d signed the Terrors.
I knew this feeling. I’d felt it watching Kardok on screen for the last few seasons, while wearing my turquoise pajamas and throwing popcorn at the television.
I felt it every time he turned to the glass and did that thing with his tongue and the entire female section of the arena collectively wet their panties.
Breathless.
That was the word for it.
He was wild and wicked and absolutely, completely himself, and every controlled, considerate thing I’d told myself about keeping this professional dissolved somewhere around the second line change.
I shifted on the bleacher.
Right.
Because the inconvenient truth—the one I’d been addressing with some regularity and a certain bedside drawer appliance—was that watching Kardok be Kardok did things to me that I had absolutely no business feeling while sitting in a public facility in a pencil skirt.
I pressed my notebook to my heart and tried to remember my own name.
And then Kardok…stopped.