Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 152 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 152

Chapter 152 Taking Clothes Off

Lady Flourish’s POV

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Damian answered the call on the second ring, his voice dropping into something clipped and low that I recognized from earlier that night – the tone he used when he wasn’t performing for

anyone.

“Understood. Keep the perimeter tight and call me the second you find anything else.” He listened a moment longer, jaw tight, then ended the call and turned back to me. “Fenwick’s people traced the scent as far as the main road before it vanished into traffic. Whoever it was, they knew exactly how to disappear.”

“So nothing,” I said.

“For tonight.” He rubbed a hand across his face, some of the earlier tension bleeding back into something more like exhaustion. “Come back inside. There’s no reason to stand out here freezing while a dozen wolves comb every hedge on the property.”

I let him steer me back up to the bedroom, my nerves still humming from the scent that had cut through the quiet only minutes ago, though I noticed his own composure settling faster than mine, the particular, practiced calm of someone used to danger finding him and choosing not to let it show.

He climbed back onto the bed and, with absolutely no warning, reached down and started tugging the blanket lower.

I turned my back so fast it bordered on rude, stretching one arm behind me without looking. “Hand it over. I’ll take it down to the wash.”

There was a low note of amusement in his voice when he answered. “Appreciate it.”

The moment the fabric touched my palm, I fled up the stairs without so much as a glance back, my pulse doing something entirely unreasonable for a man I’d already seen half-dressed twice tonight.

By the time I reached the landing, my breathing had gone ragged in a way that had nothing to do with the stairs.

I slowed, frowning at myself. Who takes their shirt off in the middle of a conversation? And a man supposedly still recovering from a car accident, no less. At this point I genuinely couldn’t tell which of us had the higher temperature.

When I came back down, he hadn’t bothered getting dressed at all, sprawled against the headboard, blanket nudged even lower than before, every hard line of muscle on full, unapologetic display.

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A smug little curve touched his mouth right up until he noticed me standing in the doorway.

“Aren’t you freezing?” I asked, flat.

He cleared his throat, twice. “My mistake. Would you mind grabbing something from the dressing room?”

I didn’t answer. I crossed the room instead and pressed the back of my hand to his forehead again, my voice dropping several degrees. “It’s not warm at all.” I held his gaze, slow and knowing. “You never had a fever.”

Caught, and clearly enjoying it far too much to actually feel guilty. “No fever?” He rubbed his own forehead, the picture of wounded innocence. “Then why does my head still ache?”

That was the last of my patience. I snatched up the empty congee container. “If you’re not actually sick, I’m leaving.”

“Wait.” His fingers closed gently around my wrist, all the teasing gone from his voice in an instant. “I wasn’t trying to mess with you. Your congee probably helped more than I expected, I really am feeling better.” A beat, quieter. “And you remember the accident yesterday, don’t you.”

My resolve cracked despite myself. He had posted about it. There’d been no reason to fake something that public just to lure me over with a bowl of fish congee – the payoff wouldn’t have been worth the effort, not for a man who could summon a private chef with one phone

call.

“Fine,” I said, softer. “But you should at least get dressed.”

“I am dressed,” he said, entirely too pleased with himself. “My shirt’s currently in your hands, if you’ll recall. That’s on you.”

Then, just as fast, his tone shifted, polite, distant, careful in a way that didn’t match the man who’d had his hands around my wrist thirty seconds earlier. “It’s getting late. You should head home. Thank you for coming. I’m sorry for the trouble tonight.”

The whiplash of it caught me completely off guard. “It wasn’t… a hassle,” I said, though every instinct told me staying any longer would be a mistake I couldn’t easily walk back. “I should go.”

He didn’t stop me a second time, just watched me leave with an expression I couldn’t quite read, something heavier than his usual easy confidence.

I gripped the steering wheel the entire drive home, my thoughts refusing to settle into anything resembling order.

How had I ended up crying against his chest without even noticing the moment it happened? How had that turned, somehow, into him half-undressed in front of me twice in one evening.

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and a scent outside his window that still had my wolf pacing, restless and unconvinced the danger had actually passed?

“Focus,” I muttered to the empty car. “He’s Harold’s cousin. You’re using this to your advantage. That’s all this is.”

The words felt thinner every time I repeated them.

By the time I pulled into my own building’s garage, I’d almost managed to talk myself back into something like composure. I climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator, needing the movement, and let myself into my apartment on autopilot, keys already halfway back into my bag.

I froze in the doorway.

The door hadn’t been locked. I was certain -‘certain’ – I’d locked it myself that morning, the same as every morning, the habit too deeply ingrained to have slipped even on a day this chaotic.

My wolf went utterly still, every instinct sharpening at once, some faint, unfamiliar trace of scent still hanging in the air of my own front hall.

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