“Proper motivation?”
Luke held out his spatula with a fresh pancake. “Food is calories. Calories are energy.” He tore off a piece of pancake and stuffed it into his mouth. “Sex requires energy. So eat up.” He slid a plate across the island with a wink.
Pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. My chest tightened. He’d made breakfast for me, but not just any breakfast. My favorite breakfast.
Seeing the food made my stomach grumble loud enough for Luke to hear and say, “Refuel. You’re going to need it for what I have planned.”
Picking up a piece of bacon from my plate, I waved it at him. “You’ve got practice this morning, PT this afternoon, and a charity ball tonight. Your schedule is already packed, so you’ll have to just make it through the day on the half dozen rounds from last night.”
Luke grimaced as I bit into the bacon. “I forgot about the charity ball tonight. Dammit.”
“How very charitable of you,” I teased.
“If I write a big check, do you think they’d let me out of it?”
I peaked an eyebrow at him. “The main reason most of those people bought one-thousand-dollar tickets was for the privilege of mingling with the San Diego Shock. Since you’re kind of the face of the team, I don’t think a check of any size will get you out of it.”
He glared at the skillet like those pancakes were to blame. Then his face lit up. “Will you go with me?”
“I’m part of the team. I’ll already be there.”
His head shook. “Will you go with me?”
“Oh,” I said, looking away. “If I show up with you and hang off your arm all night, won’t that kind of ruin our plan of keeping us a secret?”
His shoulders fell. “Maybe?” When I sighed, he added, “Probably. But I don’t care. I want you to show up with me, and I want you to hang off my arm all night. We don’t need to explain anything to anyone.”
“We won’t need to if we do that, Luke,” I whispered.
“I want to be with you, Allie. Not just behind a locked door. Not just in private. I want to be with you. Seen with you. With you, not without you like we’ll have to be everywhere we go in public.” He dropped the spatula, his hands going to his hips. After a minute of what looked to be deep thought, he sighed. “But I made you a promise. I’ll keep this a secret for as long as you want. If that’s what it takes to be with you, I’ll do it. I might hate every minute of it, but I’ll do it.”
“I thought you wanted to be discreet about this too?”
“I did, at least until I confirmed that the woman I thought you were is the same one you really are. I know who you are now, and I know I want you. There’s nothing discreet about that.” Rolling his head a few times, he went back to ladling pancake batter into the skillet. From the size of the batch he’d made, it looked like he was planning on keeping my “energy levels” up into the next decade.
“I love that you feel that way, Luke, I really do.” I leaned into the counter as I continued, “But us getting to know each other wasn’t the only reason for keeping this quiet.”
His jaw tightened for a moment. “I know.”
“I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I’ve put up with jerks hinting to downright claiming I screwed my way to the top, and if it gets out that I’m screwing Luke Archer, all of the credibility I’ve worked so hard for will be gone. And I’ll never be able to get it back. People will always see me as a joke. As someone who does her best work on her back. I can’t let that happen.”
He came around the counter and pulled me into his arms. I didn’t know I’d been so close to crying until I felt his comfort. “I’d never let that happen.” He rubbed circles into my back, holding me with both a strength and gentleness I’d never known. “I’m sorry. I’m just whining. Pouting because I want people to know that you’re mine.” He kissed the top of my head. “It’s the cave dweller ancestry in me.”
I laughed quietly against him, letting him soothe me for another minute. “Having you this close is reminding me of that affliction known as morning breath, and since I wasn’t planning on spending the night with you, I failed to bring my toothbrush. You might want to keep your distance.” Giving him a final squeeze, I wove out of his embrace.
“Lucky for you your ‘boyfriend’ just so happens to have a stockpile of new toothbrushes.”
“A stockpile?” I backed up a few steps because seeing him a few feet in front of me in nothing but his underwear, with that freshly fucked face he was such a fan of, was firing certain desires I should have chased into submission last night back to life.
“Zombie apocalypse planning. You never know when you might need a few dozen new toothbrushes.”
“Because who cares if droves of flesh-eating beings are trying to eat your brains? At least you’ll have clean teeth.”