Page 31 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Sasha’s brow furrowed at the question. “Technically...yeah, this time. It depends on the glamour. I wouldn’t really need clothes at all if I didn’t want to bother.

I could just make people think I was wearing them and no one would know the difference.

But I like actually wearing clothes. Touchable or not, I would still feel naked.

” He glanced down his body again. There was still the covering but that didn’t cover much. “Uhh…maybe I should get something on.”

“No!” Nathan said a little too desperately. He forced a casual smile when Sasha’s expression turned doubtful. “Just stay like this. I never get to see you like this. Not unless bad things are happening around or to us anyway. It’s nice to be able to…see you.”

Sasha’s concerned expression softened and Nathan wondered if there was more to what he was saying than just the pheromones’ desperation.

“You know...my whole life I’ve thought that anything other than Jim that wasn’t human had to be evil,” Nathan said, more candid than he would normally allow.

“Other kids got to go to monster movies and think, how cool, while I had to live with the truth. But you’re one of the good guys.

For the first time I can think, how cool, and it’s okay.

I mean…that sounded wrong. You’re not some sideshow attraction to me, I just… ”

“It’s okay, Nathan,” Sasha said. “I know what you mean. I don’t mind being something like that for you.

You’re kind of the same thing for me. A person I can let my guard down around, something I’m so used to being dangerous, but with you it isn’t, so I can just…

enjoy it. You and Jim are the only humans who have ever seen me like this. ”

Nathan nodded dumbly. He knew he had to be smiling like an idiot so he gave a little cough and tried to shrug the sentimentality off of him. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Nathan allowed his gaze to travel along the contours of Sasha’s wings, awed by them. “Do you...feel different when you’re like this?”

Sasha grinned. “Why don’t you touch me and find out,” he said.

It was obvious that Sasha meant the comment in jest, much like most of his more playful advances, so it was understandable that he looked rather surprised when Nathan responded, “Can I? I just mean…your wings. I’ve been wondering what they feel like. Unless that’s too weird.”

Of course it’s weird , Nathan thought. He knew he was acting on pheromones. He shouldn’t even be in the room anymore, but being so close to Sasha destroyed all of his previous resolve.

Something of recognition flashed across Sasha’s face, as if he realized finally that Nathan was not in full control of his actions. But although Sasha’s brow was tightly knit, he extended one of his wings closer to Nathan and said, “Go ahead.”

For a moment Nathan had no control at all.

There was no little voice in the back of his mind to warn him or talk him down as he reached out and his fingers grazed the very edge of Sasha’s wing.

He thought it would feel like a bat’s but it didn’t.

It felt like skin, only a little rougher than the skin on Sasha’s chest, which was amazingly soft, Nathan noted, as his other hand touched Sasha there.

He told himself it was just to compare, maybe even said that exact half-truth to Sasha, and then his hands were moving, one along the skin of Sasha’s chest and the other over the inside of Sasha’s wing, feeling the groves and changes in texture.

Nathan was going to ask Sasha what it felt like to be touched like that, whether or not having his wing touched felt like touching other places on the body.

When Sasha gave a slight moan at Nathan’s caresses, he was pretty sure he had his answer.

Red eyes stared back at Nathan hazily, clouded. Nathan hadn’t realized how close they had gotten. The smell of Sasha was all around him.

Nathan wanted to touch Sasha more. He wanted to touch everything. So he reached up to touch the horns black and curling from Sasha’s temples that were firm and smooth, like bone.

“Nathan,” said a voice that was not Sasha, maybe Walter , only Nathan didn’t want to listen. The voice was too far away.

Nathan’s body moved and he could do nothing to stop it.

His chest was flush against Sasha as he moved his hands to Sasha’s slightly pointed ears and traced his fingers around the shape and cartilage to their tips.

His touch was light. Too light. Teasing.

Intimate . Sasha made a strange noise like a deep-throated purr, and Nathan smiled.

This was what he wanted. He knew now. He lifted up onto his toes since Sasha was so much taller in this form, moved his hands from those ears to grab Sasha by the back of his neck, and leaned up toward the lips he so loved kissing.

Nathan could feel breath on his face, see the intensity behind Sasha’s red eyes as they looked at him, but before he could find the kiss he so desired, Sasha spoke.

“Nathan…”

Nathan loved the way his name sounded coming from a growl. “Yeah?”

“I think…it’s time you went back to your own room now.”

Nathan blinked and the spell was broken. The pheromones still lingered, still made his blood pump a little hotter for how close he was to Sasha, but his mind came back to him with a screech and he realized what he had been doing. “Yeah…” Nathan said, pulling away. “Sorry. Just…sorry.”

Nathan turned for the door, gripped by panic and guilt as he all but ran from Sasha’s side. He knew he could blame the pheromones, knew Sasha would let him blame them, but it wouldn’t change what he had almost done.

Breathing hard with his skin burning hot, Nathan fell back against Sasha’s door as soon as it closed behind him. Something choked in his throat but he would not let it rise. He wasn’t that weak.

Walter was there beside him, saying his name, asking, “Couldn’t you hear me, Nathan?”

“Leave me alone, Walter,” Nathan said, and turned away.

He didn’t look at Jim when he returned to their room. He didn’t respond with more than a grunt when Jim tried to talk to him. He crawled into bed and faced the wall, longing even more for morning and for all of this to have been a bad dream he could somehow forget.