If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(38)

Ziggy doesn’t help anything. She glances toward my bed and blushes. Her eyes widen as she spots the prostate vibrator I inadvertently left on my nightstand after trying to work off this edge I can’t seem to shake. “What is that—”

“Nothing.” I slap a hand over her eyes and drag her out of the room.

“That was definitely not nothing!” Ziggy says as we start down the stairs.

“It was none of your business, is what it was, Sigrid.”

A laugh jumps out of her. “Not even if I play the ‘friends would tell each other’ card?”

I fight a smile, walking ahead of her. “Especially if you do that.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Ziggy turns toward my coat closet, where a garment bag hangs off the top. Carefully, she unzips it. “Before we go, and since you have quite the eye, Mr. High Fashion, I wanted your formal approval of this for the after-party. Thoughts?” She tips her head, stepping back, shoulder to shoulder with me as she peers at the outfit. “Oh, and picture this with tan heels, not my rainbow high-tops. Obviously.”

I blink, staring at a dark-green dress that makes my mouth water, just picturing it hugging her curves. Over it, a silk wrap that shimmers orange one moment, blush the next, the soft peach-pink of sunset spilled across bare skin and rumpled sheets. The fabric’s covered in roses the same rich red as her hair, winding vines that match her eyes. I can see her in it, picture how she’ll look—achingly beautiful.

I glance from the garment bag to her, marveling at her lovely profile while she frowns in thought at her outfit.

“Absolutely perfect,” I tell her.

She turns her head my way, beaming. “Yeah?”

Don’t look at her, that voice inside me snaps. Don’t drink her in. Don’t want her.

I can’t help it any more than I can help the need to breathe. I’m so completely fucked.

Swallowing roughly, I glance away, back at the outfit. “Yeah.”

Satisfied, she strolls back to the closet and zips up the garment bag, then unhooks it from the door and throws it over her shoulder, a wide smile warming her face. “Well, if Sir Fancy Pants approves, then I can rest easy.”

“I’m not a fancy pants,” I mutter, opening the door that leads to my garage. “I just have sartorial standards.”

“Ooh, sartorial.” She stops right at the threshold, bracketed beneath my arm, so close I can see every freckle splashed across her nose. “What a great word.”

Her gaze dances down me, then back up, a blush on her cheeks. “Speaking of sartorial standards,” she says quietly, adjusting the bag draped over her shoulder, “you look handsome, Sebastian.”

Goddamn her. It’s so sincere. And sweet. So…her. It makes my pulse slam like a drumbeat, the way only filthy words spoken in the dark, the most depraved whispers, should.

I take the bag from her shoulder, then nudge her across the threshold. “And you look like a fucking goddess. Now let’s go.”





Ziggy smiles as she drives, but as we get closer and closer to the rink, it becomes more of a grimace. “So, uh—” She clears her throat. “How are we going to play this?”

“Just be yourself. Give me shit when I deserve it, smile your fantastic smile, and I’ll be there, trying my best not to be an asshole. We’ll tell people we’re friends, and act friendly. That’s it.”

She sighs. “It’s just this is the first time we’ve had a live audience, besides K?hler. I don’t want to give us away or make a mistake. I know we’re not really friends, but no one else does. We have to make sure it stays that way.”

We’re not really friends.

Those words shouldn’t feel like a gut punch, but they do. I breathe through their impact, spinning my rings on my fingers.

“Where’s this coming from?” I ask. “We’ve done fine so far. We’ll do fine tonight, too.”

“Group settings are a different animal for me, Sebastian. They’re chaos; they defy patterns and predictability, and I tend to rely heavily on patterns and predictability when it comes to human interaction.”

“What do you mean?”

Ziggy glances at her side-view mirror, before easing into the passing lane. “Has Ren told you…anything about me?”

“What do you mean?” I frown. “Like personal stuff? No. Just funny family anecdotes.”

“Right.” She nods. “Because I, uh…didn’t know if he’d mentioned I’m autistic.”

I blink at her, brow furrowed. I don’t know much about autism, have no personal experience of it with anyone in my own life. “No,” I finally tell her. “He hadn’t.”

Ziggy tugs her lips between her teeth. “Well, I am.”

“Can you…explain it to me? So I can understand? Is that all right to ask?”

She nods, blowing out a long, slow breath. “Yeah, it is. And I can.” After a quiet moment, she says, “I have a lot of social anxiety because people…are strange to me, more than they are to someone like you, unless you’re neurodivergent. I shouldn’t assume.”

I shake my head. “I’m not, far as I know, at least.”

She nods, eyes on the road. “So…when you meet someone, it’s easier for you to read their nonverbals, to pick up on their tone, to read between the lines of what they say, to engage and understand them. In fact, someone like you is probably amazing at it. You’re very…charismatic with people.”