Page 112 of Inception

That he is, I thought, biting down the words. Sucking in a deep breath, I pinched the wound shut with my thumb and forefinger before driving the needle into his flesh.

“Gah!” I squealed as hair-raising tingles zipped down my spine. I think I felt the entry more than he did.

“You’re doing fine,” he said, trying to reassure me. He was the one getting his skin sewn together by a high school student and he was trying to keepmecalm. Figures.

“The calmer you are, the better it is for me,” he answered.

Startled momentarily, my eyes shifted to our connected body parts as realization set in. “You know, this reading my mind thing is going to take some getting used to.”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind working on it with you.”

Private one-on-one sessions with him flashed through my mind, making me blush. I thought I saw him smiling from the corner of my eye but I was too mortified to look up and confirm it.

“Does it ever bother you?” I wondered, curious to know more about his ability. “Hearing other people’s thoughts?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “I hated being touched as a kid. I didn’t know how to block it out.”

I couldn’t imagine being constantly bombarded with other people’s mundane thoughts and noises every time I made contact with someone. “It must be horrible.”

“It’s not all bad.” He shrugged it off. “It has its advantages, too.”

“Like what?”

He let his seductive gaze pour over me, slow like molasses. “Use your imagination.”

I pulled my hand back just as my mind derailed. I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking, and I sure as hell couldn’t focus when he looked at me that way.

His eyebrows rose.

“Stop it.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he laughed coyly.

“You’re distracting me and if you don’t stop it and let me concentrate, I’m going to end up sewing your belly button shut!”

The hint of a smile graced his face as he looked down at me, seemingly fascinated.

“No more messing around!” I ordered.

He nodded solemnly as though he had every intention of obeying my orders. After a brief pause, he craned his head to me, filling up the air with his all-consuming presence. “You know, you’re nothing like what I expected.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know,” he said, wetting his lips. “Something else. You’re…different.”

Different? I narrowed my eyes. “What do you meanI’mdifferent?”

He seemed amused by my outrage.

“You’re the one who’s different from one day to the next!” I shot back unable to hide my indignity. Frankly, it was a little hard to take coming fromhim. I’d yet to meet a moodier guy than Trace Macarthur.

The whites of his eyes flashed. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“Oh.” My cheeks reddened. “So did I.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I just meant that you’re difficult to read sometimes. Some days it seems like you don’t want anything to do with me, or at least that’s what you tell me. And then other times, I think…I don’t know, something else. It’s hard to keep up.”

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