I think I could have kissed him forever, forgetting the outside world existed, but he used his knee to nudge my legs apart, then settled in between them. My pajamas had reappeared, but Lugh was still nude, that thin layer of silk all that separated my flesh from his. He pressed himself hard against me, and my hips bucked against my will.

I desperately wanted to rip off the pajamas, to feel him inside me, but I kept my hands buried in his hair to resist the temptation as his hips began to move, his cock stroking me hard over the thin pajamas. It shouldn’t have felt so amazing, not to a mature woman who was used to having sex with her boyfriend on a regular basis. But feeling him thrusting against me, his cock hitting my clit just right with each stroke, had me on the verge of orgasm in no time.

I arched up against him, wanting to take that next step into bliss, but he slowed his pace and lightened his strokes, tormenting me, playing with me, making me ache for release. I tried to hurry him along, but he would have none of it. And when I released his hair, meaning to hurry myself along since he wasn’t cooperating, I soon found my hands pinned above my head again. I’d have complained, but it was hard to talk with his tongue halfway down my throat.

He kept me hanging there, right on the brink of orgasm, for what felt like forever and a day. The anticipation tightened every muscle in my body, and every once in a while I had to remind myself to breathe. But it also felt so good to be on that brink, knowing with total certainty that he would eventually push me over, and that it would be worth the wait when he did. I almost didn’t want it to end, though that didn’t stop me from straining my body up toward him.

Just when I was beginning to think I couldn’t bear it for another moment, Lugh gave one last hard, perfect stroke, and the pleasure exploded through my body. I screamed something incoherent into his mouth as my back arched and my toes curled, and my heart threatened to hammer its way out of my chest.

He kept thrusting against me until he’d milked every last spasm of pleasure he could out of me and I lay there completely limp and panting for breath.

It was a while before coherent thought returned. When it did, I realized that as mind-numbingly good as it had been for me, Lugh hadn’t come. He was still hard as a rock against me. I opened my eyes—

not even having realized that I’d closed them—and saw a contented smile on his face, rather than the sexual hunger I’d been expecting.

He leaned down to kiss me again briefly. “Your body is my body,” he reminded me. “When you come, so do I. I just chose not to include a physical manifestation of it in your dream.”

Sometimes, these dreams were so damned realistic it was easy to forget they were dreams. The body that was still pressed up against mine wasn’t real, and if he had an erection, it was because he chose to create that illusion for me.

“So basically,” I said, still a little out of breath, “this is masturbation for you.”

His eyes sparkled with something like mischief. “Another one of those human hang-ups that don’t make a whole lot of sense to demons. Besides, since I feel your pleasure, it gives me additional incentive to do a good job.”

The heat in my cheeks told me I was blushing—hard to believe I still had a prudish bone left in my body, considering what I’d been exposed to since Lugh came into my life, but there you have it.

He rolled off me, and I finally gave in to the temptation to take a good look at his naked body, scanning him from head to toe. And, I must admit, spending more time than I should have studying parts in between. Another wisp of arousal stirred in my center, but I was still limp and satiated and doubted I had the energy for another go just yet. Even as I thought that, my eyelids felt heavy and sleep tugged at me.

“Time to sleep now,” Lugh told me.

“I am asleep, remember?” I murmured, but it was all I could do to suppress a yawn. How can I get sleepy when I’m already asleep? Beats me.

“We’ll talk more about what to do about Brian later,” he added as if I hadn’t spoken.

Actually, it was a good thing I was suddenly so overwhelmingly tired; otherwise, I’d have been alarmed by those words. As it was, my eyes slid closed, and I drifted away.

I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING GROGGY AS ALL HELL and mildly embarrassed about my encounter with Lugh last night. It was hardly the most embarrassing dream he’d ever given me, but it was much more … personal.

I zombie-walked to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, then stared at the pot as it brewed. It wasn’t until I’d finished my second cup that my brain cells started to wake up, and I noticed the glaring omission from last night’s conversation.

When I’d woken up in Lugh’s bed, I’d gone into seduction alert, and that had pushed all thoughts of the real world and our much larger problem aside. Lugh flat-out didn’t do things like that by accident. He’d put me in that bed and distracted me with sex either because he didn’t want to talk to me, or because he’d been driving my body while I was asleep. Lugh usually had no problems with talking, so my money was on the latter, even though I didn’t feel queasy at all—I never did if I wasn’t conscious when Lugh took over.

I talked to Raphael while you were asleep, Lugh confirmed.

I wondered if maybe the silent treatment had been better after all. Time for more steam to come out of my ears. I really hated being used like that. “Couldn’t you have just told me what you were doing?” I fumed. I felt silly having an argument with a voice in my head, but that didn’t stop me from arguing.

“Did you have to do the whole seduction thing and keep me in the dark?”

He didn’t answer, but then, he didn’t have to. I knew exactly why he hadn’t told me he was driving my body around. Even though I could now let him take control when absolutely necessary, everything in my psyche recoiled at the idea. When I was awake for the process, I had to make a conscious effort not to kick Lugh out. When I was asleep, all it would take was a tiny knee-jerk reaction, and I would pop awake, thrusting Lugh into the background once again.

I folded my arms across my chest stubbornly. “The last time you wanted to talk to Raphael like that, you let me wake up.” It had been hard as hell not to let my subconscious barriers go up when I awakened, but I’d managed it.

That was before you started getting so sick from the control changes. You were already feeling sickly. If you’d awakened while I was in control, you would have felt much worse.

I was running out of good reasons to complain about what he’d done, though I had to admit, the idea of Lugh and Raphael talking to one another while I couldn’t listen in wasn’t a comfortable one. I doubted they’d been reminiscing about old times.

“Care to comment?” I asked.

We were merely discussing our options, few though they are at this time.

“And what did you decide?”

We did not come to any firm conclusions. I heard an echo of laughter in my head. Strangely enough, Raphael and I had difficulty agreeing on anything.

I couldn’t help a short burst of laughter myself. The two of them had gone a long way toward repairing their fraternal relationship, but I doubted they would ever see eye-to-eye. Still, at least it was better than the open hostility they’d started with.

For now, we must content ourselves with finding Jonathan Foreman, the demon Cooper revealed as the leader of the illegal recruitment campaign.

The mention of Cooper didn’t make me happy. If he wasn’t as much of a chickenshit as I thought, he could have spilled the beans already.

That won’t be a problem, Lugh assured me, and something in his tone of voice set off all the alarms in my head.