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“I bet you don’t.”
Adrik gives a shrug of his shoulders, no doubt intended to shift the slabs of muscle beneath his tight black t-shirt.
“I don’t want to overeat. In case I need to exert myself later.”
Unlike the waiter, his eyes stay fixed on mine—no crude up and down over my body. But the hunger is all over his face. He wants me.
I’ll admit—I’m tempted too.
Adrik and that Ducati sitting outside have a lot in common. Both exotic and powerful, with enough octane to blast me into space. A ride like no other.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, no longer interested in my steak.
Like Adrik, I don’t want anything weighing me down.
I stand up from the table, the cool ocean breeze lifting the hem of my skirt, dancing it around my thighs.
This time, Adrik can’t help looking.
While he’s distracted, I take a quick glance over the outline of his jeans. I see plenty to catch my interest, but not what I’m looking for.
“It’s getting cold,” I say.
The sun has long since sunk below the ocean, plunging Old Town into a deep, purplish twilight. The lamps along the sea wall glow like a hundred golden globes strung on a long, thin wire.
Adrik lifts his jacket off the back of his chair, throwing it over my shoulders. Its weight surprises me. I’m enveloped in the rich, wild scent of him, mingled with gasoline fumes from his bike. Like the gasoline, Adrik’s aroma carries a wicked edge: head-spinning, heart-racing, incendiary.
I slip my hands in the pockets of his jacket, searching.
My fingertips find only air.
“Where are we headed now?” I ask Adrik.
“Culture Club. Have you been there?”
I nod.
Before I boarded the ship to Kingmakers, I spent my last night in Dubrovnik dancing at Culture Club until four in the morning.
Adrik throws down cash on the table, not waiting for our server to return.
I stride ahead of him, down the stairs, out to the courtyard where the strings of lights suspended over the cobblestones glitter off the windshields of the many expensive cars parked by the valets, and the long berth of bikes and mopeds capped by the Ducati that outshines them all.
Dangling from the ignition, I spy what I was looking for.
Motherfucker left the keys in it. Fuckingtemptingsomeone to try to handle this bike.
I hear Adrik’s heavy tread behind me.
Turning, I say, “You just leave the keys?”
Adrik smirks. “I’d like to see someone try to steal that bike.”
He’s not wrong.
There’s a saying for the young bucks that think they’re gonna hop on the biggest engine they can find:too much bike.
You have to practice on the old mare before you can ride the bronco.
