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The other Georgina was in a kitchen, one I didn't recognize It was bright and ine a non-cook likeMy dream-self stood at the sink, ares She was hand-washing dishes, which surpriseda shoddy job, which did not surprise me On the floor, an actual dishwasher lay in pieces, thus explaining the need for manual labor

From another room, the sounds of "Sweet Ho as she washed, and in that surreal, dream sort of way, I could feel her happiness She was content, filled with a joy so utterly perfect, I could barely comprehend it Even with Seth, I'd rarely ever felt so happy - and I was pretty daine what couldso dishes

I woke up

To ht and sunny I'd had no sense of ti The dream had seemed to last only a minute, yet the nearby alarm clock claimed six hours had passed The loss of the happiness my dream-self had experienced made me ache

Weirder than that, I feltnot right It took y I needed to survive, the energy I'd stolen froone In fact, I had less now than I'd had before going to bed with him It made no sense A burst of life like that should have lasted a couple weeks at least, yet I was nearly as wiped out as he'd been I wasn't low enough to start losingability, but I'd need a new fix within a couple of days

"What's wrong?"

Seth's sleepy voice came from besideme with a small, sweet smile

I didn't want to explain what had happened Doing so wouldon what I'd done with Bryce, and while Seth theoretically knehat I did to survive, ignorance really was bliss

"Nothing," I lied I was a good liar

He touched ht"

"No, you didn't You were busy with Cady and O'Neill"

His smile turned wry, but even as it did, I could see his eyes start to take on the dreaht about the characters in his novels I'dlife, yet some days, even my charms couldn't compete with the people who lived in Seth's head

Fortunately, today wasn't one of those days, and his attention focused back on me

"Nah They don't look as good in a nightgown That's very Anne Sexton, by the way Like 'candy store cinnamon hearts'"

Only Seth would use a bipolar poet as a colanced down and ran an absentood," I adht look better in this than I do naked"

He scoffed "No, Thetis You do not"

I smiled, as I always did, when he used the pet nay, Thetis had been Achilles' oddess won by a deterressivemy neck

"Hey," I said, putting up a half-hearted struggle "We don't have time for this I have stuff to do And I want breakfast"

"Noted," heSeth was a wonderful kisser He gave the kind of kisses that melted into your mouth and filled you with sweetness They were like cotton candy

But there was no realto be had, not for us With a well-practiced sense of ti that you could probably set a watch to, he pulled away fro his hands as well Still snified sprawl

I sret that always came at these moments of retreat

But that was the way it ith us, and honestly, we had a pretty good syste when one considered all the coh once had joked that all woh Inkiss would suffice Such was the life of a succubus I didn't y theft that came from intimate physical contact I could, however, control whether that physical contact happened in the first place, and I made sure it didn't I ached for Seth, but I wouldn't steal his life as I had Bryce's