Velvet

“Caitlin,” he said, crouching down to make eye contact. “I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”


I searched his face. He wasn’t lying. At least he didn’t seem like he was lying. I honestly don’t think there was a way I would have known at that point, but his face looked like one of those sincere, non-lying faces.

I nodded. “Okay.”

We slipped out the barn doors. I grabbed his arm so I didn’t fall into the man-size potholes littering the dirt-and-gravel parking lot. He didn’t seem to mind. Once we got to his bike, it occurred to both of us that I was wearing a dress.

“Hmm,” I said, contemplating the logistics. “This will work. Just don’t be staring at my business.”

Holding on to him, I hiked my dress up and swung my leg over, the fabric bunched up to my thighs, the leather of the seat freezing against my skin. Adrian grabbed his coat from one of the saddlebags and put it over my shoulders.

“Won’t you be cold?” I asked, already shivering.

“I’ll be fine. I’m just worried about you. I forgot to factor in the whole”—he looked at my legs—“dress issue.”

“I’m fine if you’re fine.”

He stared at my legs again. “I’m fine.”

I shivered, waiting for him to get on the bike.

He cleared his throat. “Right.”

I shoved my helmet on (did he always carry around a spare helmet?) and slid my arms around his waist.

It felt a lot different when he wasn’t wearing a jacket.

Adrian had very nice abs.

I poked them just to make sure they were real, and he turned around to look at me strangely. I decided to stop poking him.

The headlight cut through the night as the Harley revved away from the barn, the beat of the music fading quickly behind us. We picked up speed until I was sure we were breaking the limit by a good twenty or thirty miles, or maybe it just felt like that because my eyes couldn’t focus on anything.

God, it was cold.

My arms were fine because of the cloak and Adrian’s jacket, and my face was fine because it was completely covered by the helmet, but my legs felt like they were being whipped with lashes made of ice. Overhead, the moon shone brightly through a few clouds and cast the road ahead into odd shadows, making the whole strange night even more bizarre. The woods on either side of the road were like zippers pulling closed behind us. If we didn’t go fast enough we’d get eaten up in their teeth, crushed in cold leaves made of metal.

Sometime later, the silence hit me, and I realized we’d stopped. Adrian pulled his gloves off and put his hands over mine, presumably to warm them up. We sat like that for a while until I could move my fingers, then Adrian stood, removing his helmet. Still numb, I shoved my helmet off, too, and let it drop to the ground.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

He didn’t say anything, just lifted me off the bike like I was a child. He carried me up some stairs, through a door, and into a warm, dark room where he set me down. I immediately curled into a ball and shivered while he closed the balcony door, then rustled through some drawers.

“Caitlin,” he murmured a moment later, placing a hand on my arm. “When you can move, put these on.” He tucked something next to my hands and then said, “I’m going to go downstairs to make some hot chocolate. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

His hand left my arm, and a moment later I heard the door close.

I sat up. With the moonlight coming through the French doors, my eyes finally adjusted and I found a pair of drawstring sweatpants, some thick wool socks, and one of his deliciously soft sweaters. I buried my face in them and breathed deeply. They smelled like Adrian. It was a very good smell. I wobbled to the door and felt around for a lock, then switched it. I reached for the zipper on my dress, then paused, a thought finding its way to the surface of my sluggish brain:

I would be mostly naked, however briefly, in Adrian de la Mara’s room.

I would be without clothing. In Adrian’s room.

Naked.

I think I snorted.

Searching for any sort of sounds from the house and finding none, I shimmied out of the dress and threw it on the bed, tried three times to unhook my bra (because let’s face it, sleeping in a bra is pretty much the worst thing in the world), succeeded, threw it somewhere across the room with far more velocity than I’d intended, then reached for the sweater and pulled it over my head. I finally got around to the pants and fell trying to get them on. Then I had to sit still for a minute because my head was spinning. I was just pulling the socks on when there was a quiet knock. I made sure the tie on the sweatpants was tight so they wouldn’t fall off and then opened the door. He looked to make sure I was dressed, then slipped inside, carrying two mugs.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, handing me a mug.

“Warmer,” I admitted, tucking my feet underneath me on the bed. “What time is it?”

“A little after two.” He sat in his desk chair.

“Hmm,” I mumbled, then took a sip of hot chocolate. “This is yummy.”

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