She cleared her throat. “Is something wrong?”
“Not at all.”
“You are… um… staring at me.” She plated the food and walked to the table, taking the seat across from him.
“How could I not stare?” Jason flashed his practiced smile. “You’re exquisite.”
For a moment, she blinked at him, her body leaning closer as she studied his face and inhaled deeply through her nose. Then all at once she broke from his gaze and shook herself. “I’m also celibate, Jason. Your condition is going to make you see things that aren’t there for a while. You might even see me as a potential target of your vice. But that’s not who I am.”
He swallowed a bite of breakfast, fixating on her full lips.
“Who are you then?” he asked.
“I’m the one who decides when you get to leave this apartment.” There wasn’t a hint of humor in her voice, her back straight, her jaw tight.
Under her unwavering gaze, Jason continued to eat, surprised how hungry he actually was. “What’s in this? There’s an aftertaste.”
“It’s an herb designed to support the healing process. The bitterness you taste is valerian root. It has a calming effect on your sympathetic nervous system.”
“You’re trying to drug me?”
“I’m trying to make it so you can sleep.” She lowered her voice and turned her attention toward her food. “I heard you last night.”
He swallowed the food in his mouth, mortified at the possibility she’d heard him pleasure himself. “What exactly did you hear?”
“You were showering in the middle of the night,” she said matter-of-factly. “I presume the physical withdrawal symptoms were to blame. Racing pulse, sweating, crawling skin.”
“I thought you said you’d never done this before?” In fact, he’d had all of those symptoms at one point or another last night.
“Not with a vice like yours. I have never treated a sexual vice, but I have studied alcohol addiction in werewolves. There are similarities.”
God she was beautiful, but she addressed him like a toddler. Was she judging him? Pitying him? The way she’d brushed off his advances was cold as ice, rigid, all kinds of palm up and no way. It made him horny as hell. Not only was she beautiful, she’d proved herself feisty. How he longed to tame her, bring her to her knees.
He took another bite, enjoying the fantasy that played out in his head. Selene on her knees. But even as he reveled in it, the vision warped from a sexual one to something else entirely. Selene on her knees in her ceremonial robes, praying to the goddess.Fuck him. She was an acolyte. What was he thinking, lusting after her? The guilt drove into him like a freight train.
“Once you’re finished, we’ll begin stage one,” she said.
“What’s stage one?”
Selene’s violet stare cut straight to his soul. “I take you apart, so I can put you back together.”
9
Selene hadn’t meant her words to sound threatening, but from the way Jason’s face paled and his fork hit his plate, they fell sharp and heavy on her target. What was she doing, saying it like that? Only, he’d shaken her to the core. That chiseled face, the charming smile, the way his gaze raked over her… His words and actions promised delights she’d only dreamed about. She’d caught herself leaning into him, practically begging for his lips. She’d smelled his desire for her, musk and spice, a heavenly scent that made her insides want to liquefy. Thank the goddess she’d caught herself before things went too far.
“Take me apart?” Jason said. “What will that entail?”
The scent of desire was gone, replaced by the sharp tang of fear. Good. She pushed her fruit around her plate. “Attachments like yours don’t develop overnight. This started with your wolf, true, but most vices are harmless, mild. Yours has morphed into a twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week human addiction. For that to happen, there must have been a trigger. My job is to find that trigger, that cancer hiding in the dark recesses of your subconscious, and bring it into the light where we can address it directly.”
With a shake of his head, Jason laughed. “No. Selene, it’s just a vice. It’s a vice I’ve indulged, sure. Why wouldn’t I? Because of Nickelova, I need to quit for a while, but I’m not addicted, not in the human sense.”
“No? So, your need for sex exists onlybeforethe full moon, when your wolf is most active? Strange you weren’t able to turn down Nickelova so soonafterthe last shift when your wolf should have been buried deep within your subconscious.”
He shifted, leaned back in his chair like a reticent toddler, and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You don’t have to answer me. I know the truth. Silas filled me in on your… schedule and how it has increased over the years.” She sipped her coffee and waited for him to deny it. He didn’t. “So what we need to do is unravel exactly why this vice was able to get its hooks into you so deeply. The root of every vice is an unfulfilled emotional need.”
“You’re going to psychoanalyze me? What, do I lie on the couch and tell you how I lost my virginity?”
