Beast’s shoulders relaxed, and he no longer looked like a bull about to charge. “Oh. You didn’t say you were bringing a—someone.”
Gray spun around and pushed Shadow back with a firm shove. “Keep your hands to yourself!” He then stared back at Beast, and his shoulders fell. “No. It’s not like that. He’s... he’s a part of my pact.”
Beast’s eyes narrowed, and for a tense moment, they met Shadow’s gaze. “Oh?”
Shadow smiled, finding it harder than before to keep his hands off Gray. Now that he’d seen humans liked to maintain close contact and connect to others too, he couldn’t think of anything else.
“I’m his shadow. But I am also very human,” he added quickly.
Gray ignored him and briefly explained to Beast what happened in the past few hours. The severe, scarred face twisted and relaxed as Beast listened, from time to time sharply raising his gaze at Shadow. Now that Shadow knew the man wasn’t a threat, he noticed the air of authority he carried about him. Maybe he was this world’s Baal?
“He can have some of my old clothes,” Beast said when Gray finally stepped closer to Shadow and grabbed his wrist.
“Can’t we stay there? With the other people.” Shadow pointed to the door. Even the air inside there had been warmer.
Gray glared at him, his eyelid twitching. “No. You’re not here to ogle. We’re going to bed.”
Beast released a loud exhale. “Maybe have him take a cold shower beforehand?”
Gray blinked and briefly glanced at Shadow’s groin. “Oh, God. Yeah. And maybe give him some anti-Viagra. Goodnight, Beast.”
Shadow resigned himself to following Gray’s lead, but after witnessing what happened in the red room, even walking together was no longer the same. The leather vest Gray wore bore the picture of a crowned skull on the back, along with “Kings of Hell MC” written in bold letters, and while the piece of clothing was interesting, Shadow’s gaze lingered on the sway of Gray’s shoulders and how his buttocks flexed as he moved. His mind was bubbling with images of Gray no longer covered by fabric. He couldn’t wait to find out. Would he see that where they were going? ‘In bed’?
“Have you seen those people?” Shadow only realized he stroked Gray’s back once he was halfway through the motion.
The slender body pulled away immediately. “Don’t think about this too much. That’s only for real people.”
“Not for me?” Shadow’s face fell. If closeness of this kind wasn’t possible for him, then why was he feeling this way? His body had the same needs as anyone else’s, so why wasn’t he allowed to follow his instincts and satisfy the intense craving he felt whenever Gray’s scent flowed his way?
All thoughts of intimacy were shut down the moment Gray led the way out of the building and into a large grassy courtyard where sharp wind once more assaulted the bare skin of Shadow’s torso, licking him from each side.
His feet were the worst though—stiff from the cold, sensitive to anything he touched with their soles, and covered with an unpleasant, dry residue from the earlier trip to the tree. Every part of his body throbbed with discomfort, but most intensely of all—his cock, which Gray had repeatedly dismissed.
“No. Not for you.”
“Why not?” Shadow snapped, and sped up to join Gray inside a small two-story building in the middle of the courtyard. His whole body was a tangle of pain, yet it remained unpleasantly agitated on the inside, tempting him to touch Gray. To rip his clothes to shreds, pin Gray to a flat surface and pump his cock into that opening between Gray’s legs until he was no longer cold.
Gray stopped so suddenly Shadow almost walked into him, but the low hum his human gave surveying the room filled with exercise equipment wasn’t a sign of anything good. There were pieces of paper and other trash scattered everywhere, but Gray didn’t stay to pick them up and instead led the way to the narrow metal tube that contained stairs.
Shadow let out a growl. “I asked, why not?”
“Because you’re dead,” Gray said, and his voice echoed all the way up the shaft as he climbed the stairs ahead of Shadow.
Shadow stared up at Gray’s ass and thighs as he followed, increasingly angry with every step he made. What had he done to earn so much hate from the one person he needed? He was doing his best to be a good human. And Gray was wrong anyway, because he couldn't be dead if his body breathed and produced heat. In a crowd, no one would be able to tell he had no soul.
“Maybe you’re the one who’s dead,” Shadow grumbled to himself.
“What was that?” Gray asked, opening a door upstairs. His eyes flashed when he looked back at Shadow, lips in a thin line. How could one person be so mean and so enticing at the same time?