Page 58 of The Midnight Order
“Enjoy,” Karen says, leaving us and moving back into the kitchen.
“I don’t think you need any more caffeine,” I tell her, tentatively sipping from the coffee. I let the notes of the flavors slip over my taste buds.
It’s been so long since I’ve partaken of anything that wasn’t… Well, blood.
“Oh.” I pull the mug away from my face, looking at it in surprise.
“Told you. I’ll take my thank you now.”
Silverand I meander down Main Street together, the warmth from our coffees long gone. The chill of the coming winter is brisk as the breeze cuts through us, and Silver shivers, tightening her thin jacket around herself.
Shucking out of my suit coat, I place it over her shoulders as she’s peering out over the small lake beyond the gazebo to our left.
She startles, gazing up at me with a smile. “You’ll be cold.”
“I’ll be fine, I assure you. We feel the cold much differently than you do.”
Realization flickers across her face as if she just remembered what I am.
I outstretch my arm toward the gazebo. “Shall we?”
She slips her lips back into an easy smile as she leads me inside the wooden structure, painted white but chipping from the weather.
“It’s so beautiful here. The air is so…”
“Clean,” I finish for her.
She laughs softly. “You’ve been to the city, then?”
“A very long time ago.” Wind rustles through the spaces between the beams surrounding us, and she closes her arms around herself, snuggling further into my jacket.
“I’m sure it was much more beautiful and less… crowded when you were there.”
“Maybe.” I turn her, tightening my jacket around her and securing the button in the front. It takes a moment for me to realize she’s staring up at me.
“This town has such a magical feel that I don’t know if I’m getting swept up in that or if everything I’m feeling and experiencing is real,” she whispers up at me as I rub warmth into her shoulders.
She steps closer, pressing her chest to mine.
My arms wrap quickly around hers. Too easily.
“It’s all real. As real as a town full of magical immortals can be.”
“With witches and curses?” she jokes, but my eyes have wandered to her lips, tracing between their plushness and the space where a dimple drills into her cheek.
Her beauty is transcendent.
“We’re as real as you are.” My whispered words carry on the wind to her, and her pupils dilate.
“Prove it.” Her hands come from beneath my jacket, her hands bracketing my sides as I feel her heat seep through the thin fabric of my shirt.
I’m still riddling out what she means when she gets on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.
At first, I grow rigid.
Until her tongue parts my lips, and then I turn her, slamming her back into one of the pavilion’s beams, kissing her back as a growl claws its way out of my throat.
It doesn’t scare her.
