With the moment charged and the barriers between us down, touching him also put me up close and personal withallof him. Even without a ritual or formal plea, our mystical properties mixed together for a moment. I wobbled forward as his power slammed into me. He put a hand on the small of my back to steady me, which somehow made my legs even shakier.
The potent, pure energy of Orion. God, it was something. It reminded me of silk ties and expensive liquor and steely confidence. Not inherently sexual, though definitely seductive, and it left me craving him and red wine again.
His lips parted, and he had to be feeling my magic, though he gave no other sign of what he thought about the full Rob experience.
Combined, our energies were a force to be reckoned with. I tried to reign it in, but it was too much. I jerked back—boom.The energy hurtled outwards and collided with his office wall. It punched right through. Damn.
"You are so screwed when you move out," I laughed.
"Hey, we did that together."
"I ain’t going halfsies for the damages.” My objections stopped as I realized what he meant. “Oh, you mean we caused that together, our energy.” A strong reaction. “Is that good?"
"I’d say it’s… promising. We’ll need to strengthen our partnership, but yes, this is a good start.”
Yeah. We managed to connect and dosomething.The reaction was about 10 times too strong, but we could work on that.
I smiled at him. “Maybe this won’t be so hard after all.”
7.Performance Anxiety (Don’t worry, it happens to lots of guys!)
Rob
Ugh, why was this so freaking hard?
Lex and I were linked together. That gave us a way to find him, but we still needed to prepare for what happened when we did come face to face. A power-hungry incubus on a killing spree wasn’t likely to give himself up just because we asked nicely. Orion and I needed to be strong enough to stop him.
Orion and I agreed to stop Lex together. But that was only the first step. We still needed to combine our energies and create magic together. Then work together to use that magic effectively. Once we were able to blend our powers and act as a team, we had to stop a killer incubus on a rampage. And we had to succeed without using a magical shortcut like a blood tieora natural ability like an incubus’s expertise with sexual energy.
…
Okay, I understoodwhyit was so freaking hard. But did it really have to bethishard?
"It’s not happening," I said.
"Keep trying."
"It’s not happening."
Orion cleared out his office for us to practice in. There were no chairs or other objects to get in our way, so I dropped down onto the floor.
Removing everything was a necessary precaution.
In the few instances we managed to combine our gifts, things tended to hurl themselves across the room and shatter or light on fire. Either that or nothing happened at all. We hadn’t managed any other reaction.
The weekend was coming up. We needed to be ready in case Lex decided to strike again.
"Do you feel anything yet?" I asked on our next attempt.
A wrinkle formed between his brow. "Let me concentrate.”
"What about now?” Surely the second I waited to ask was long enough.
"This isn’t uncommon.” Orion tried to be reasonable. “Not all magic gets along. There are exercises we could—"
"Like braiding each other’s hair and doing trust falls? Sorry, dude, you don’t have enough hair to braid."
Orion closed his eyes and prayed for strength. "Less talk, more magic."
