“You’re slipping away,” he said. “I was hoping we’d have more time, but it looks like we’re hitting your limit.”
“My…limit?” I repeated the words in a daze.
A growl escaped him. Instead of answering, his hand moved to my face, cupping my chin. His eyes really were purple. I could barely keep mine open.
“Deep breath, Cory.”
He whispered a word that I couldn’t catch, and a ripple of cold ran through me, like jumping into a glacial lake. I shivered, then blinked. The entire room was tinged with a violet hue. And suddenly, I felt much more awake.
“What—what did you do?” I asked him.
Dean Mansur didn’t answer me at first. Instead, he turned my head, first this way, then that, his long fingers holding my chin. He must have seen something that satisfied him, because he nodded and finally withdrew his hand.
“I brought you into a trance,” he said, laying his hand on his knee.
“A what?”
“An altered state of consciousness,” he said. “Not quite a dream, but close enough for our purposes. For tonight, anyway.”
He inhaled, and his nostrils flared. His posture was still that of a man completely at his ease, but his chest rose and fell visibly, like a runner at the end of a sprint. Whatever was happening took effort from him.
There was the slightest trace of a flush in his cheeks, which only served to make the rest of his features stand out more. I hadn’t noticed before just how good-looking he was, but now that my head was clearer, I had a hard time not staring. A confidence that bordered on arrogance rolled off of him, and I couldn’t help noticing how attractive that was.
“You were biddable, which helps. It’s much harder when someone fights. I’d rather avoid force, if possible.”
“Force?” I asked, my words breathier than I’d expected.
“Suffice it to say, anyone can bemadeto enter this kind of trance, but not everyone surrenders to it quite so easily.”
I swallowed. His body was long and lean and still relaxed in his chair. He hadn’t moved an inch in my direction. And yet, the moment he’d mentioned surrender…well, I’d gotten hard.
I didn’t want to look down. Didn’t want to call attention to it. But I knew the thin wool blanket wasn’t doing much to mask my current state of affairs.
“Why did you make me—I mean, why did youbringme into a trance?” I wondered if he could hear the nerves in my voice. I certainly could.
“Because you were on the verge of slipping into a coma, and I did not invest all this time in you simply to lose you now.”
“Coma? But I just woke up! Why would I—”
“I told you, your incubus nature has needs that go beyond your human body. To be frank, an incubus can only go so long without having sex in the dreamworld. And I fear you’ve reached your limit.”
“My limit?” I stared at him, my heart pumping wildly in my chest. “But I haven’t—that is, I’m not—I mean, I haven’t evenhadsex. Ever.”
The deantskedagain. “I misspoke. I haven’t worked with anyone this new in quite a while. Sex need not include penetrative intercourse. An orgasm, Cory. How long has it been since your last one?”
Oh, God. I wanted to die. Why did learning to control my powers—if that was even possible, if all of this was even true—require spilling my most embarrassing secrets to a man I barely knew, and an intimidatingly good-looking man, at that?
“The dream at the rest stop. The one you told me about. Was that the last time?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Meeting his gaze was unbearable. “Um, no. No, there was another one—right before I got here, actually. At this place called the Balsam Inn?”
“Were you asleep or awake at the time?”
“Definitely awake,” I said quickly, before pausing. Was I sure I could tell the difference? “At least, I think so. There were these two other guys there, and I saw them, and one of them said—it doesn’t matter what he said. He just—he talked to me, and then I, well, yeah.”
“The other men. Were they acting normally?”
“They were total strangers,” I protested. “I have no idea what’s normal for them. Is it normal to suck another guy off in a bathroom? To call him agood boy?”
