A Midnight Clear by Emma Barry & Genevieve Turner Page A

had the time or control to polish them.
    She understood the feeling.
    He put on his own helmet, and then he walked over to the motorcycle and kicked his leg over it. He released a part that was standing it up on the ground and then turned a key. It roared to life.
    Frances watched all of this appreciatively. Joe was easy on the eyes and he knew what he was doing with machines. She’d have to be blind not to know it. But this made her a bit nervous.
    She’d never been offered her deepest, most secret dreams before. It made her woozy.
    “Where do I…” She let the buzz of the engine eat the rest of her question.
    “Slip on behind me.”
    As carefully as possible, she did. But now she faced another hard choice. Should she put her hands on his shoulders… or his waist?
    Over his shoulder, Joe called, “You have to hold on to me.”
    She placed a tentative hand on his side where his body nipped in toward his hip. She exhaled. It was okay. This was just like dancing.
    Sort of.
    He took her wrist and tugged. She slipped forward over the machine into his back. He took her hand, flattened it out, and pressed it against his stomach.
    “Like so.”
    She felt his words more than heard them. The beating of her heart was blotting everything else out. He was so warm, so firm, and she was cradling him.
    She slipped her other hand around him and brought Joe completely within her embrace. Should she hold onto her own wrist or set this hand against his body too?
    She flexed her fingers and then rested her palm above her other one. He made a grunt of approval. Before she could process all of it, he fiddled with the controls and the motorcycle started to move.
    For a few minutes, they crawled. She grew accustomed to the machine purring between her legs and to the press of Joe’s body against hers, his back against her chest, his ribs under her hands. She’d never touched a man like this, completely, intimately. She’d never been on a motorcycle. It was a heady day.
    When she’d met Joe, she’d been introduced to this world of sensation. For the first time, she was attuned to another body. It made her more aware of having a body herself. From the Turkey Trot, to the chapel, to the bookstore, to the reception where it had all started, his eyes had made her breathless.
    But this, this made her ache .
    “Hang on,” Joe instructed over his shoulder when they reached the paved path.
    And then, they started to fly.  
    They whipped around a path. The wind whooshed over Frances’s cheeks and made her eyes burn. She shut them and curled into Joe’s back. He was solid and she’d never get to touch him like this again. She probably shouldn’t touch him like this now , but she couldn’t help herself.
    She could feel that they’d gone around another corner and she could smell the Bay, brackish and cold.
    “Open your eyes,” he called.
    Slowly, she did. “Oh.”
    The dappled sunshine on the water blurred into long streaks of lights. Leaves on the road spun up behind them and drifted into the woods and the water. A flock of geese in a tight V flew overhead.
    She loosened her hands around Joe ever so slightly so she could enjoy it.
    She felt… free. It was the world she knew, but at this speed—and to honest, with Joe pressed against her—it was different.
    The world didn’t have to be a thing around her, a thing with rules and limitations and obligations that pressed in on her. She was part of it. And she could go through it anyway she chose.
    Including flying on the back of a motorcycle with Joe.
    With Joe .
    She squeezed against him and took in the blur of colors: the water reflecting the sky, the leaves dancing in the breeze, and the world gamboling from one season to another. It, all of it, could be different, could change in ways she hadn’t known. Hence she could too.
    She still didn’t want what her parents had had—much as she loved them. She didn’t want to follow the rules, boost her husband’s career, and raise her