Page 27 of Incubus
“Head out of the gutter, Grier. All you have to do is take my hand. You want to trust me, right?”
"Yeah, but...I’d rather not help give you a boner if it’s all the same.”
Sasha laughed again. "It's not like that. The circuit is coming from them. You’ll just feel what I’m feeling. It won’t do anything to me. Go ahead.”
Nathan stared at the offered hand, certain it must be some sort of trick, regardless of how much he wanted to believe Sasha.
“It's just an offer, Nathan. You won’t hurt my feelings if you say no.”
Curiosity burned in Nathan, if only to have a better grasp of what Sasha really was. Nathan would have called on Walter for his opinion if he were alone. Even invisible, Walter was always watching. Surely, if Nathan was about to do something truly foolish, Walter would intervene. Nathan even paused long enough for his Spirit Guide to appear, but nothing happened. Sasha was still standing there with an outstretched hand. So Nathan took it.
The reaction time was immediate. As soon as their skin touched, it was as if every nerve in Nathan’s body ignited. He was right on the brink, no build-up, just heat, raw heat pooling low in his stomach as if every inch of him was being touched and brought to rapture. His breath hitched as the feeling continued to pour into him, constant, like reliving the moment right before climax over and over again.
It was so overpowering, Nathan couldn't stay on his feet. He had no support other than Sasha’s hand, and that was only the barest touch. Before he could help it, the sheer breadth of feeling overwhelmed him and he started to sway.
Sasha reached out to catch Nathan, but that only intensified what Nathan was feeling and all of those hot, pulsing sensations surged through his veins like fire. The next thing Nathan knew, he was on the floor, looking up into Sasha’s worried face.
"Oh God, Nathan, are you okay?"
“What…was that?” Nathan asked, flustered by how strangely ragged his voice sounded.
“I’m so sorry, Nate, I wasn’t thinking. When you started to fall, I just…” Sasha shook his head. “Touching your hand is one thing, but when I grabbed you, all of my attention was on you. I probably forced about three thousand volts of raw sexual energy through your body back there. I am so sorry.”
In a different world Nathan might have considered it ridiculous for someone to apologize for something like that. Except that he probably needed to change his shorts.
The strange part was that he didn’t feel like he had just experienced a waking wet-dream. When he glanced down his body, he saw no sign of awkward stains or a raging hard-on. It really had been all in his mind. Nathan might have thought that was cool if he wasn’t so mortified.
“Nathan?”
“I’m good. I’m just…gonna lay here a minute,” he said, setting his head back on the carpet and letting his pulse slowly beat back to normal.
Sasha’s expression was about as humiliated as Nathan imaged his own looked right then, which actually made him feel a bit better.
“I just wanted you to understand that my kind doesn't have to be evil, even when we're feeding. I swear I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Sasha insisted.
“I know,” Nathan said, and the amazing thing was, he really did believe it. “If you wanted to get me on the floor, you’d be doing something about it,” he added with a laugh. Then, realizing that joking about this really wasn't helping, Nathan started to sit up.
“Here,” Sasha said, and offered Nathan a hand.
Nathan stared at it like the damn thing must be infected with the Ebola virus or some other horrible form of plague.
“Nathan, it’s safe,” Sasha said. “I severed the link. I promise it’s just a hand.”
After tonight, Nathan would never consider any part of Sasha to bejustanything. But no matter how he looked at it, he believed Sasha’s concern was genuine and allowed the incubus to help him up.
“You sure you’re okay?” Sasha asked.
Sasha was standing very close to Nathan. Something about that kind of proximity with another person, especially the person who was responsible for the most accidentally erotic moment of Nathan’s life, had him feeling a tad twitchy. He had to get out of there.
“Yeah. Really, I’m, uh…fine. So…I think I need to be…gone. You’re good here, right?” Nathan started to back away. “Consider trust issues covered. I’ll…see ya later.”
As Nathan finished his ramblings, he made a sharp turn on his heels and headed down one of the hallways. He wasn’t sure if it was the one they had come from, but he knew somewhere in the direction he was going there had to be a way back to his room.
“Nathan!” Sasha called after him.
“I’m good! Need se—sleep! See you in the morning!” Nathan said, increasing his speed. He heard another call from behind him but didn’t bother acknowledging it.
Nathan had basically handed himself over to Sasha as a ready meal and came out of the incident unscathed. He could believe that the incubus meant him no harm, but that did nothing to deter his sudden desire for a very cold shower.
