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“I’m so embarrassed I even went on a second date with him.” I shook my head, then shrugged as I gave Brian a sly smile. “But at least it got me into Cratos that night.”

He blushed right on cue, making my heart stutter with growing affection.

“I swear I’m not a violent person.” He cringed. “Not usually. I fight there because it’s like…”

“A release?” I was an incubus. I understood that sometimes, emotions or hormones could make a person act out of character until everything culminated in some kind of release, whether it was sexual, physical or emotional.

Brian cocked his head, watching his hands as he shredded his napkin in his lap. “More like… an escape. From my own head. I’m, uh… I have a lot of anxiety, I guess.”

His shoulders hunched, and he kept his eyes downcast. All I wanted to do was climb into his lap and squish his head into my chest in a big hug, but we probably weren’t quite there yet.

“I understand. It lets you feel like a different person for a while.” I paused. “Or maybe more like a different version of yourself.”

He glanced up, nodding. “Yeah. That. It’s like… sometimes I just wish so fucking hard that I wasn’t the way I am that it makes me seek out opportunities to not be, I guess. Even if those opportunities aren’t the… smartest. If that makes sense.”

Fuck, I wanted to hug him so bad. “It does. But there’s nothing wrong with the way you are.”

He hunched up further, picking at the armrest of his chair. “I got so nervous around you all those other times that I could barely even speak. And I came across as a… rude asshole.”

“You didn’t. And we were strangers. That’s understandable.” I smiled at him even though he wasn’t looking at me. Hopefully he’d hear it in my voice. “You’re speaking to me now. I really like talking to you, Brian.”

He finally looked at me, his expression a little desperate, a little hopeful. My chest ached at the sight of it.

“Me too,” he said hoarsely. “And I… I’d love to, um… you know…”

He trailed off, but I got the sense that he wasn’t done, just working up the nerve to spit out what he wanted to say, so I waited patiently in silence.

“I’d love to take you out,” he eventually blurted, averting his gaze again as his pale face flamed pink. “If you want to. On a date, I mean.”

“I’d like that.” I nodded, my heart pounding so hard and fast in my chest he could undoubtedly hear it. “I’d really like that.”

“Okay.” His mouth twitched, then spread into a huge grin for a second before he sobered and gave me an earnest look. “And I promise I won’t do anything, um, you know, weird again. Like dropping my towel or…” He cleared his throat and said in a somewhat decisive tone, “No sex.”

The happy smile that had been plastered on my face abruptly dropped. “What was that?”

“I want to show you that this isn’t just because of sex.” He cleared his throat again. “I don’t want to be anything like the assholes who treat you badly just because you’re an incubus. So I promise I won’t try and… This isn’t about sex. I want to date you. I want to get to know you before we… you know, do any of that again.”

In some ways, this was what I’d always wanted. I’d yearned to hear those exact words. To have a beautiful man telling me he wanted to date me for me, not just because I was an incubus and he wanted to fuck me.

But at the same time… what the actual fuck? No sex? Like, none at all? Not even a little?

I forced myself to nod, managing to paste a wobbly smile back onto my face. “Okay. Great. That sounds… great.”

Seriously, none? Like… not even handies?

Brian cleared his throat and reached for the stack of cardboard boxes. “Ready for pie?”

“Sure.” I held back my long-suffering sigh.

He knew what being an incubus meant, right? Like, he knew I needed to absorb some form of sexual energy to survive and be healthy? I mean, yes, sure, I didn’t need to actually have sex—I could feed off the residual energy of others, like I sneakily had with Crossbody and Vince before—but still.

Having sex myself was the more fun way of nourishing my body and soul, to be honest.

Having sex with Brian again would be the most fun way of doing it.

I decided I’d carefully bring that up another time—maybe toward the end of our first official date, when we were near a surface or even just a bush, I wasn’t picky—but right now, I was going to enjoy this evening for what it was. A nice night getting to know each other. With lots of pie.

“Wow.” I laughed as I watched him unpack about a dozen different slices. “Oooh, they do all look so good.”