Nocturnal Obsession (3 page)

“Maybe,” Desi reluctantly agreed. It was true that she was prone to wacky experiences and power surges near and on magical days like Halloween. These dreams could be some kind of subconscious message about tending to her love life. It sort of made sense that her mind would pluck a philosophy professor who specializes in love and lust from her cache of memories to influence her dreams and actions.

Lauren rose from the bed. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

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“I think you need to get laid. I mean a seriously spontaneous, dirty fuck. We’ve got the Moonlight Masque tonight out at the Sigma Phi Epsilon compound. You don’t need a crystal ball or tarot cards to tell you that you’re guaranteed to find someone.”

“I don’t know,” Desi wavered. “Aren’t we a little old for frat parties?”

“You’re not even twenty-four yet! And I’m still seven months away from turning twenty-five. We wouldn’t have received an invitation if we weren’t invited, and anyway, we’ve already bought our costumes. We’re going. End of story.”

“Fine,” Desi sighed, recognizing the folly of arguing with Lauren. Once her mind was set, there was little chance of changing it.

“Good. Well, I’m going to get dressed and head out. I’ll be back around six or so.

When do you get off work?”

“I have class until three and work until seven.”

“We don’t have to be out there until nine,” Lauren said. “That’s plenty of time for us to grab something to eat and get into our costumes. So I’ll see you later then?”

“Yeah. Later.”

Lauren nodded and strode from the room, shutting the door behind her. Desi unwillingly hauled herself from bed and walked toward the bathroom attached to her room. With every step, her thighs slid together, rubbing in the sticky cream leaking from her core, and while her clit felt inflamed, the overwhelming urge of desire was slowly fading.

Desi reached into the shower, adjusted the water temperature and then stripped.

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she took a moment to consider her reflection.

She saw skin the color of toasted almonds, green eyes with honey flecks, full lips, high cheekbones and loosely curled mahogany hair that hung to the middle of her back.

While not thin like Lauren, Desi hardly considered herself fat. Sure, she filled out a size twenty nicely, but as far as she was concerned, she carried the weight well on her medium frame. Others might disagree and point out the dimpling of cellulite along her thighs and the pudge around her tummy, but Desi wasn’t about to waste precious time 17

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obsessing over the roll of flesh padding her midsection. Besides, there were women out there who would pay good money for a rack like hers. Not every woman could have 44Ds or a rounded ass that just begged to be grabbed and swatted.

Turning sideways, she admired the way her tattoos accentuated every curve. A vivid tangerine tiger lily and a flamboyantly pink stargazer overlapped one another on her right calf, a Sanskrit protection poem spanned most of her back, and she wore the All-Seeing Eye on her nape. A solid purple triquetra on her left wrist symbolized the bond she shared with her grandmother and mother. The interwoven triple points also exemplified the natural progression of a witch through the maiden, mother and crone stages.

As she faced the mirror again, Desi saw tiny marks on her nipples that had escaped her earlier notice. Curious, she drew closer to the mirror and almost fainted. It was undeniable. They were clamp marks, impressions matching the ones the clamps in her dream would have left. And was it just her imagination or were there faded lines crisscrossing her thighs, arms and stomach?

Rope marks!

But that’s not possible
, her mind screamed. It was just a dream. Or was it? If her magical upbringing had taught her anything, it was that nothing was simple when it concerned a witch.

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Still seething with frustration, Ian stepped out of a frigid shower and yanked a clean towel from the nearby rack. Damn that meddling roommate! She’d thwarted his nocturnal advances four times in the last two weeks, and it was becoming most taxing.

He glanced in the slightly fogged mirror and noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes, the sallow pallor of his face. He shook his head in frustration. Being an incubus was already hard work without having to deal with interrupted liaisons where his astral self was robbed of the chance to spill his seed. That exchange of fluid with his prey formed the psychic link that allowed him to feed, and without feeding, he was expending large amounts of energy with no return.

And it was draining him more than he cared to admit. Normally he would have moved on to another woman, someone without an interfering roommate. Hell, he had never fed off one woman for more than two consecutive nights in his entire existence as an incubus, but when it came to Desi, he simply couldn’t stop. She was addictive, and quite frankly, he wasn’t ready to give her up.

Desideria de Soto. In his opinion no other woman had been more aptly named.

Desideria.
Desire.
She definitely lived up to her name.

Towel secured around his waist, he ambled to the bar and poured himself a scotch, neat, and downed it in a single gulp. He exhaled roughly as the fiery liquid rushed into his empty stomach. He refilled the glass and slumped into the nearest chair. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and immediately his thoughts were invaded by visions of Desi. Heat rolled through his stomach as he remembered the feeling of her hot, moist mouth wrapped around his cock, and the enticingly musky scent of her pussy filling his nostrils.

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Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that he would find his mate in Texas. Of all the places he had traveled and searched—Europe, Asia, South America, Oceana—he had never once met another quite like Desi.

Teaching philosophy at a college level was the perfect cover for an incubus. He got paid for doing something he enjoyed and, let’s be quite honest, his packed classrooms were literally a smorgasbord of delicious, nubile young things ripe for the plucking—or fucking, as it happened.

In his thirteen months at the university he’d already sampled hundreds of Texas’

best tarts, but he’d had a craving for something a little different. He knew that evening seminars on love would attract a different crowd than those who attended his lower-level courses. The payoff had been even better than he’d anticipated.

He’d been watching the small lecture hall fill up when she’d walked into the room that first evening of class. Sun-kissed skin, red tank top, wrinkled tan skirt with little bead embellishments and gold flip-flops. Her brown hair had been pulled up in a high ponytail with curls bouncing against her back, and the golden bangles encircling her wrist had jingled rhythmically as she walked. She had bubbled with vibrancy and had attracted the attention of just about everyone in the class that night. With every smile, Desi had enthralled him, too.

After class she’d introduced herself and as soon as their hands had touched, a jolt had coursed through him. He had been certain that she’d recognized him as an incubus just as easily as he had identified her as a witch, but she hadn’t. For whatever reason, it had escaped her. That had surprised him, too.

He’d visited her dreams that night, not to seduce her, but just to watch and probe her mind for information. She had been an open book of information and he’d quickly learned that she wasn’t by any means a magical novice. She’d been instructed in the Craft from birth by her doting grandmother and widowed mother and had acquired a great deal of skill in potions, divination and hexing. When her mother had later fallen in love with a New Age holistic healer, Desi had benefited from the vast store of practical 20

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knowledge imparted by her stepmother and had shown promise as a healer. He had seen that Desi planned to found a holistic healing and pagan supply center someday.

He supposed that was why she had chosen to pursue a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness and a Ph.D in horticulture.

He had started seducing her in her dreams shortly after that first dream visit. Her mind contained a plethora of erotic scenarios that she secretly wanted to act out—he was merely providing the conduit for experiencing those fantasies. And of course, with every sexual tryst, he had been able to recharge his batteries. Well, at least when he was able to finish their copulations without interruption.

That was another thing that had surprised him about Desi. Usually women visited by incubi felt physically and emotionally drained the mornings following their encounters. It was an unfortunate side effect of the dream mating and yet another reason Ian frequently switched partners. Less considerate incubi often fed on women until they were killed or driven to the point of madness before flinging them aside and seeking another.

But Desi seemed to be thriving on his visits. He’d been watching her for weeks now and she was far from wilting. He couldn’t explain why she was able to withstand his erotic assaults but thought that her maternal bloodline might hold the key. She was such a powerful witch that she barely missed the little bits of energy he drained from her. Until now, he’d never tasted a woman who could match his carnal desires.

He was almost too frightened to even hope that he’d finally found The One, a mortal woman who could live as his mate. Having been born of hellfire after The Fall, Ian had known only how to torment and had made the mistake of a lifetime when he seduced and ruined the daughter of an ancient Sumerian conjurer. The conjurer’s punishment had been swift and of a sort that could be considered a mixed blessing.

When that primordial conjurer had drawn him forth from the pits of Hell all those centuries ago, Ian’s black soul had been implanted into a human body. With his new human form, Ian had retained his incubus powers but had gained free will that would 21

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always be tethered by the rapacious hunger for female psychic energy. From his southerly vantage point, Ian had always viewed humans as weak and simpering, but while living among them, he had become envious of all that was humanity.

Wanting Ian to suffer just as his daughter had, the ancient conjurer had included a single clause in his creation spell that would torment Ian for centuries with the promise of something he could never have.

During the full moon’s void, free of malice or duress, claim Hecate’s daughter in the flesh,
obtain Cupid’s pledge, and forever shall you be bound like Hades to Persephone, and only then
shall you escape your unnatural hunger for innocents.

The clause was simple enough. As a witch, Desi fulfilled the role of Hecate’s daughter, and if he could just convince Desi to sleep with him and declare that she loved him, Ian would finally be free. Desi was intelligent, witty and never ceased to amuse or amaze him. She was, in short, the perfect mate.

So he’d been testing the waters, visiting her dreams, giving her pleasure and teaching her to trust him. Tonight, the full moon, the Blood Moon, coincided with the moon’s Void of Course—the time period between the moon’s exit from one astrological sign, Aries in this case, and entrance into another, Taurus, tonight. Hardly an expert at astrology, Ian had consulted his online astrologer who assured him that the conjurer’s prescribed lunar alignments occurring tonight would not happen again for another seven decades. Ian took it as an incredibly good omen that tonight was also Halloween.

Surely he would find success.

He had one chance to get this right, to make love to Desi free of duress or malice and coax her to say those three little words sometime during a five-hour span that began just before one a.m. In the great scheme of things that was an incredibly short window of time. But a normal life—a loving wife, kids, a house, a dog, even a picket fence—were within his grasp, and he was about to claim them.

* * * * *

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When he arrived at the sprawling Sigma Phi Epsilon compound later that evening, the party was in full swing. The lavish ten-acre estate was crawling with thousands of co-eds, including hundreds of barely legal delicacies in tantalizing costumes. It was hard to differentiate the faces behind their costumes. For his own part, Ian had chosen to rely on an old staple—black silk pajama bottoms, burgundy smoking jacket with black shawl collar and platinum toggle fasteners, and his favorite pair of claret leather Tod’s. It was a comfortable ensemble, perfect for what he had in mind this evening.

Scouring the crowd for Desi, Ian had to admit that college students were incredibly creative. There were dozens of the requisite sexy nurses, trampy witches, abs-baring firemen and velvet-draped vampires, but Ian also spotted a milk carton, a calculator, a Rubik’s Cube and even a voodoo doll. It was entertaining to say the least.

Navigating through the bustling crowd on the massive flagstone patio was tricky. If revelers weren’t bumping and grinding against one another to the rhythm of booming hip-hop, they were chugging plastic cups of keg beer or nursing colorful cocktails. A small, brave group had taken the plunge into the heated pool where they were doing things he hadn’t seen since the days of Caligula. Curious onlookers stood along the edges of the pool to indulge their voyeuristic penchants, some of them so aroused they pawed their partners with the same insistency as those gyrating in the pool.

He shook free from the lust-induced stupor that overwhelmed him. Environments like this tested his control over his demonic side. If he wasn’t diligent he might accidentally out himself as an otherworldly predator, and that just would not do.

Especially not tonight, not when he was on a mission to find Desi, make love to her in corporeal form and persuade her to accept him as a mate. He glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight and he had yet to locate her. The Void of Course would begin soon, along with his five-hour window. He had to get moving.