“No! Not for a one-night stand. Dinner, maybe? Drinks? Coffee?”
Piers’ headshake didn’t quite hide his smile. A faint dimple formed in his cheek. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Not when I want something badly.” Or feel that he might die if he walked away and never saw this man again.
Piers stiffened, smile vanishing into a scowl. “Something?”
Uh-oh. Poor choice of words. “To get to know you. Look, when I go home, people always want something from me. I have to watch every word, every action. Here, no one cares what I do. I want to enjoy my freedom as long as I can.” Wycke all but pleaded. Why was seeing Piers again so damned important?
Piers waited a few moments, questioning gaze boring into Wycke’s. He let out a loud exhale. “I wish I could, but I’m working the next five nights straight.”
Not an outright “no.” “If I come back here, will you at least give me another dance?” Maybe actually dance with Wycke this time?
After several long moments of intense scrutiny, Piers finally answered, “If the boss lets me.”
Wycke would make sure the boss did. “I guess I can’t ask for more.” He dropped his gaze to the snoring woman. “Is she going to be okay?” Jess reminded him of a certain captain of the guards back home, who’d drink any officer under the table, always appearing bright-eyed the next morning.
Almost made one believe in, well, magic.
Piers smiled down at his sleeping friend, traces of tenderness on his face Wycke wanted for himself. “Yeah. Give her another week to get over her loser ex. It’s just going to be a rough week.”
“Tell her I said goodnight.” Wycke met Piers’ gaze. Something shifted in the vicinity of his heart. Gods, the man was so unpretentious, seemingly unaware of his charms. “Goodnight, Piers.” Saris always stressed the importance of using people’s names to make them feel important while portraying himself as sincere. This time, he didn’t have to pretend.
“Good night.” The night had taken its toll, leaving Piers a bit disheveled. He moved with the effort of the exhausted. “Wicked.” For one brief moment, he summoned a grin.
Oh, gods, that grin. Wycke somehow managed to cross the floor without tripping over his own feet.
“Wait a minute,” a deep voice called.
Wycke turned, crashing into a solid wall of muscle. He looked up. And up. And up. At the top of all the muscle sat the head and face of the ogre he’d noticed earlier.
The ogre scowled. “You. Me. Outside. Now.”
No one ever accused ogres of being chatty. Before Wycke could protest, he found himself dragged toward the back of the club and out a door. The ogre lifted him off the ground, securing him with a massive hand to his chest and a wall at his back. Wycke rifled through memories. Had he made an enemy somehow? Well, of course, if this ogre harbored ill-will against the Bertillians.
“What do you want with the man behind the bar?” the ogre growled.
“The what?” Oh. The bartender. Not a war costing millions of lives. Dear gods! Just Wycke’s luck to encroach on an ogre’s lover. May he survive the encounter. He readied defensive spells.
Which would probably backfire spectacularly.
The ogre put himself nose-to-nose with Wycke. His breath smelled of whiskey. “I want to know why you’ve been watching the bartender.”
“He… he’s gorgeous,” Wycke managed to get out.
The ogre grew so close both his eyes merged into one in Wycke’s vision. “Is that all, Prince Wycke?”
Wycke’s hard swallow didn’t dislodge the boulder suddenly trapped in his throat. Damnation. He really should have hidden his hair. Then again, impossible to hide behind glamour with an ogre. “Um… yes? I mean, yes!”
“No other reason?”
“None!” Except for Piers’ inexplicable pull on Wycke.
With a grunt, the ogre set Wycke down, perhaps too heavily. Wycke grabbed the wall to keep from falling. “What did you think I wanted with him?”
“I don’t know. The other magicals noticed something about him but can’t say what. There’s an energy to him, thrumming low. He seems unaware, but it’s there.” The ogre scratched his head.
Wow. The most articulate conversation Wycke had ever conducted with an ogre. No. Not right. He’d never actually conversed with an ogre, simply gone by what others told him. “What are you, his personal guard?”