Page 26 of Top Shelf

And this team isn’t my father’s.

These boys—thesemen—aren’t just players. They’re shadows of ghosts that haunt my dreams and have me repeatedly looking over my shoulder. They are cold fingers sliding up my spine and whispered breaths in my ear when I try to sleep.

At first, I think it’s nothing. A flicker in the air, a ripple in the silence. But it tightens something in my chest.

An itch between my shoulder blades.

A weight that wasn’t there before.

Straining my ears, I don’t hear anything; there’s just a shift…like the air has curved around someone else’s presence.

Tensing, my fingers tighten around the skate still in my hand, my body going on the offense.

My pulse kicks up.

Bracing myself, I whirl toward where he stands, hidden in shadow by the door.

I go still. Every part of me locks up for one heartbeat, then another. He doesn’t move. Just watches—a silhouette carved out of shadow and steel.

I can’t see his face, but Ifeelhim in the small equipment room. All that coiled violence, radiating from the doorway like heat off asphalt.

My fear surges, raw and immediate, before something colder rises to meet it. Something that doesn’t flinch, that strengthens my resolve and smothers that initial fearful reaction. I’ve been hurt before, which means I know how to survive.

Spine straightening, I adjust my grip on the skate, feeling bolstered by the weight of it in my hand. “Show yourself,” I demand, grateful that my voice comes out steady.

There’s a beat of silence, then boots scrape concrete, slow and unhurried. Lucian Caulfield steps into the light. Gray eyes like frozen storms. Dark hair wild like he just came from a fight. Broad shoulders with ink snaking under his collar. Every inch of him screams predator.

Fury rises up inside of me, along with a hefty dose of fear that I try my best to squash. “Didn’t I tell your buddy that I want all of you to leave me alone?” I snap.

Lucian doesn’t speak. Not at first. He just watches me, gray eyes unreadable beneath the low lights. Then, like he has all the time in the world, he slowly steps closer.

My spine stiffens.

Another step.

The sound of his boots is too casual, too calm. Out of place in the tension-riddled room.

Unconsciously, I mirror his movements, stepping back every time he steps forward. It’s effective…until my back hits the wall, leaving me with nowhere to go.

“Darkness strips everything away,” he finally says, voice low, rough. “No lies. No masks. Only the truth…”

He advances toward me, and I force my hand to stay still until he’s right in front of me. The cold metal glints under the fluorescents as I bring the blade to the hollow of his throat. I don’t press it into his skin, but I hold it there, the threat clear—that if he so much as breathes wrong, I’m not afraid to draw blood.

Unflinching, his eyes don’t leave mine.

I don’t look away either.

I should be scared. Maybe Iam. But the fear is buried under something stronger. Something wilder. I don’t even recognize myself in this moment.

“Give me a reason,” I dare, voice as cold as the steel I’m holding.

Something sparks in his eyes. Excitement. Challenge. It’s certainly not what I’d been expecting.

And then?

He smiles.

Not a kind one. It’s not one of amusement. It’s not even a victorious smile. It’spossessive. Like I just confirmed something for him he’s been dying to know.