Deep End(104)

“How can you be bad at shaving?”

“I’m okay doing my face. But the rest . . . there’s so much fucking hair, Scarlett.”

“Aww. Poor, innocent, seven-feet-tall baby.”

“I’m not seven—”

“Hyperbole. Get in the shower, Bigfoot,” I order.

He raises a surprised eyebrow, but I don’t back down. “Seriously, I’ll make you as smooth as a nineteenth-century brothel’s satin sheets.”

“Graphic.”

“The king will make me a knight of the Swedish empire.”

“Like I said—”

“But you gotta shower first. Open up those pores.”

He inches closer, looming, and pulls me in the shower with him.

Twenty minutes and some fooling around later, I straddle him while he’s face down on a towel on the floor, and start the long process of de-yetifing him. It’s fascinating, having him at my mercy, unusually passive and relaxed. Taking care of him for once. “Your thighs are currently smoother than the Danish electoral process. Gösta could never.”

“You’re killing it with the rhetorical figures.”

“With the shaving, too.” I work in silence, thinking, churning. Then: “Did they date?”

“Who?”

“Callum and Pen.”

He laughs. “They didn’t. ”

“Turn around, I need to do the front of your legs—thanks. So they . . . had a thing?”

“Sex, yeah.”

“Oh.” When, though? The timeline doesn’t add up. “Were you guys ever in an open relationship?”

“Nope.”

“Then when did she—” I drop the razor. “Did the three of you . . . ?”

“Yup.”

“Oh . . . wow.”

Lukas props up to his elbows, clearly finding my shock diverting. “For someone who’d be A-OK with me tying her up and keeping her in a closet for an undetermined length of time, you’re easily scandalized.”

“You’re right. Why am I being a prude?” I massage my temple. “I’m just surprised.”

“Why?”

“In the list, you said that . . . you weren’t that interested in threesomes.”

He sits up in a flurry of golden skin and abs. “I’m not.”

“Pen is?”

He nods. “It was a couple of years ago. When we saw each other a handful of times a year it was hard to tell, but once we were living in the same city, we realized that our sex life wasn’t great. We tried stuff.”

“With Callum?”

“Among others.”

Others. “How many?” His eyes lift to the ceiling in concentration—like he’s counting. “That many, huh?”

He shrugs.

“I have a lot of questions about the logistics.”

“I see.”

“All of them inappropriate. None of them my business. ”

He smiles. “Let’s hear them.”

“How did you choose . . . ?”

“It was mostly Pen who . . .”

“Spearheaded the project?”

He snorts. “She’d find someone. Ask me if I agreed. Come to me when the plans were made. Some guy who was in her class. Tracy—he used to be on the team? Backstroke? Callum. Others.”

“Always guys?”

He shakes his head. “It was pretty even.”

“Did you . . . ?”

He nods.

“And?”

“It was fun. Good, even. Though I’m not as attracted to men as I am to women.”

“Tragically straight?”

A soft laugh. “Or thereabouts.”

I pull up my legs and prop my chin on my knees. How did I never hear about it? Then again, who would tell me? “I might need a list of the Stanford people involved, or I’ll be wondering every time I talk to someone. The twins. Billy the maintenance guy. Coach Sima. Dr. Smith.”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “None of them, Scarlett.”

I sigh. “You know, I wish I was more like the two of you.”

“In what way?”

“You’re just . . . rational. Never jealous. I don’t think I could . . . share.”

“It’s not that simple at all, Scarlett.”

I shrug, forcing myself to move on from something that could get very sad, very fast. “Break’s over. Before the pores close, we—”

His fingers close around my wrist. “I asked for you.”

“What?”

For a few moments, his jaw works. “Every single person Pen and I had sex with was her choice, and I was okay with it. But when you joined the team, I asked her if she could approach you.”

“I . . .” My cheeks glow, on fire. “Why?” But I remember something I haven’t thought of in months: Pen’s words at Coach Sima’s barbecue. I know you think she’s hot. You said so.

“You were beautiful, but that wasn’t . . . You seemed so quiet and reserved. We have this saying in Swedish, ‘In the calmest of waters . . . ’ I couldn’t stop thinking that you were hiding something. That there was a secret in there, something everyone else was missing. And . . .” A silent laugh. “I was right. It was there. Same as mine.” He looks at the slowly setting sun. “So I asked Pen about you. It was the first time I did anything like that.”