Using my torso like a drawing board, Shadow starts to outline a logo.
“You’re talking about the MC full colors.That’s what I was wearing on the night we met.We don’t call it a logo.It’s a patch on the back of a ‘kutte’”—he spells it for me—“those are the leather vests we wear when we ride, from the German word for cut, and obviously pronounced the same way.I’m not wearing mine at the moment.It’s being repaired.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.Did you spill something on it?”
Or did someone get into a fight with you, Shadow, and spill their blood on you?I wouldn’t be surprised.You can lighten your hair and shave your scruff, you can’t hide your wild nature…
“I took a fall when Muohta ran into the road to stop me on the first night we met.It was too dark for you to see the damage, I guess.Had to get a new paint job for the bike on the mainland, too.That’s where I’ve been.”
Hearing his name, my naughty dog woofs.
He turns his head slightly to acknowledge Muohta.Shadow flashes the Samoyed a smile.“Yeah, you cost me a new patch, Mu.”Then he gives me all of his attention again as he explains.
I watch the corners of his firm mouth curl up as he smiles while drawing a circle on my belly.I giggle and wiggle, but it’s not because I don’t like it.
“Some say the garment is called a kutte because the patch is cut into three pieces, or because the sleeves are cut off the jacket.”It feels like he’s dividing my torso into three parts as he dissects the top and middle from the bottom.
His fingers nonchalantly slide over my breasts in an arch, like it’s no big deal.
“The top rocker says ‘Midnight Riders.’Simple and sweet.”
That makes me get sassy again.“Ha!Simple, maybe.But sweet?”
He smiles to let me know he gets that I’m teasing him.“Fair enough.And then the bottom rocker, it gives our location.Landslide.”I give a little shiver when I feel him touch below my belly, his fingertips flutter close to the plump mound where my secret cleft lies hidden.“But we have other identifiers besides the rockers and the patch.As you know, we are the Keepers of the Curfew.The First Seven.And”—Shadow points to the image on his t-shirt—“the Midnight Sons.”
The name jogs my memory.“Don’t they call the Arctic Circle the ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’?Because the sun never sinks beneath the horizon in summertime.”
Tapping the middle of my tank top and ignoring my sharp intake of breath, Shadow explains.“No sun, thanks.Our patch shows the moon rising over the mountain.”Pressing his lips against my forehead, he kisses me there.“Because all the best things happen after midnight.”
Is my blood freezing inside my veins?He is so cold, and yet so alluring.
He placed me on his lap.He touched my body with a careless caress.And now he just kissed me on the forehead.
I’ve lost track of time since my phone battery went dead.I have no way of knowing how close we are to midnight right now.
Answering Tempest’s mail.Finding out more about the inn and the island.All of that has gone out of the window.
Summoning my courage, I say out loud what I believe both of us are thinking.
“Do you want to spend the night?”
ChapterTwelve
Shadow
My dark desires rise up.
This is what I love about women.Each one has their own particular smell, and every single one of them is uniquely delicious in their very own special way.
I want to lift a thick sheath of Luna’s hair to my face and inhale the aroma of sebum, shampoo, and scent.The hair always holds the second best parts of a woman’s fragrance.The strands seem to pull the essence straight out of the skull and into the scalp.And from there, the perfume seeps down the hair shaft until it reaches the end.
I could shoot my load from the smell of a woman’s hair alone.
And here she is, Tempest’s niece, inviting the rough and ready Midnight Rider to follow her upstairs to spend the rest of the night lying between the grace of her pale thighs.
I must refuse her in such a way that her pride does not suffer.How I wish I could tell her about the barrier between us.
No, it is not a barrier.It is an insurmountable barricade.A problem that only Tempest has ever been able to solve.
