It worked almost too well. Adam became instantly limp, and I had to close my lips over his again to muffle a snore. Well, that was a neat trick, but now what? It wasn’t like I could go up and ask Remy what to do. If someone found out what I was up to, I’d be toast. Going on instinct, I pressed my forehead to his and tried to see what was going on in there.
I was immediately thrust into a series of images in his mind, some cloudy, some distinct and fully formed. It was like wandering into someone’s cluttered bedroom, seeing all their stuff spread out over their furniture. Everything I needed and more was here, if I knew where to look.
I was temporarily distracted when I noticed my dream-self straddling Adam’s dream-self on the dreambed. My head was thrown back and he was grabbing my hair like I was the pony and he was my rider. Dream-Adam was pumping into me as hard and fast as he could, and Dream-me was squealing like a stuck pig.
Real-me made a face and hands went to my hips. “Oh, that is
Dream-Adam opened his eyes and looked over at Real-me, standing in the middle of his psychic bedroom. Every thought he’d had this evening was scattered in random fashion around the messy bedroom-I guess Adam still hadn’t grown up. Girly mags were strewn in one corner, a video game system in the far end of the room, and bouncing, red-haired succubus in the middle. Confusion settled over his lust-smeared face. “Two of you?”
Suddenly a second Dream-me popped into the room and started mauling down on him, licking his jawline.
“Oh, ew. If I sit on your face in this dream, you are in so much trouble.” I made a face and began to pick my way into the room, looking at the objects there for hints. I passed a half-eaten container of chicken wings and hoped that didn’t have any hidden meanings.
“What are you doing here?” He was coherent enough to ask that between moaning and slurping noises, and I tried not to look over there.
“Nothing. Go back to boinking the two of me. I’m just shopping around.” I picked through a stack of magazines slopped onto the floor, wondering what I was looking for.
“You’re so hot,” he moaned, sounding like a brain-dead surfer, and I looked over to see Me-Two jerk his head backward and stick her tongue down his throat.
Ugh. I moved over to Adam and pushed one of the slut-puppy versions of me out of the way. “Hey, I’ll turn this into a group effort if you share a little something with me.”
His eyes bugged out. “Oh yeah.”
I felt bad for about a nanosecond, then realized he was doing lewd and disgusting things with me in his dreams. “What’s your little gang of friends up to lately that would make the angels nervous?”
“Hmm?”
I had to pry Me-Two off him again. Damn, that bitch had a tongue like a heat-seeking missile. “You guys are up to something, and it’s making the other guys-you know, the ones with wings-a bit antsy.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Adam said, giving me a lazy smile. “You can climb on top now.”
A halo flickered into existence over his head, and I flicked his nose with my fingernail. “You’re a bad liar.”
“Ow!”
“I’m serious here,” I said, getting irritated with this man’s dream. “Are you guys plotting to take over the world? Stealing something? Burning down a church?”
He rubbed his nose and glared at me. “You’re mean.”
Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. I trailed my finger over his lips and played with his fangs, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the pleasure of it. “Why don’t you just tell me what sort of super-spy stuff you’re up to and I’ll let you go back to playtime, hmm?”
“Ex-ex-expedishn,” he said around my finger, sucking on the tip of it like some gigantic leech.
“Expi-what?” I pulled my finger out of his mouth and resisted the urge to wipe it on my dream-skirt.
“Expedition. Queen wants the halo.”
Huh. I’d thought he was just trying to be clever with the halo gimmick. “Got anything more than that?” I trailed my finger across his chin, staring at the glowing circle over his head. It looked … like a plain old halo. “Any other tidbits to tell me?”
“I love you,” he said, a dreamy look on his face as he stared up at my breasts.
Just then my corset top vanished, and I cursed as my breasts nearly bounced into his face. I’d be willing to guess that I was just about to lose control of this dream, and I jerked myself free.
I shivered back into my body, feeling the way a wet dog does when he shakes his coat free of water, and found myself straddling a horny, snoring vampire. Drool slithered down one of his cheeks and I backed away, slowly extricating myself from his lap and hoping no one noticed what we were up to.
A quick glance around the room showed that I was safe. Remy’s crowd of paramours at the bar hadn’t budged an inch, but I noticed her flick a look over at me. I got the hint and slid back down in my seat, trying to push my skirt back down. I poked Adam in the side, trying to look casual. “Wake up. You’re drooling all over the table.”
He didn’t wake up.
I poked him again, harder. The first stirrings of fear swirled in my mind and I pinched his side. Adam smacked his lips, smiled, and slumped against me. A snore erupted from his mouth and I froze, hoping nobody else heard it.
But not two seconds passed before Mr. Hideous Joel was back, scowling at me with suspicious eyes.
I tried to deflect him by cuddling up against Adam’s side and looking like the happy couple. “Mind leaving us for a bit? We’re just getting cozy.”
Another snore punctured the silence, and my lie burst like a bubble right in my face. Damn. I forced myself to keep the fake smile pasted on.
A hand snarled in my hair and dragged me out of the booth and across the floor. The room had become deathly silent, except for the sounds of my panicked breathing and the soft snores coming from Adam. My head was a mass of pain, my eyes squeezed shut to try to take the edge off it.
“Hey,” I protested, my hands clamping around his wrist to relieve the agonizing pressure on my scalp. It was a wonder my hair hadn’t ripped out of my head. “What’s the big idea?”
Joel hauled me to my feet and stared me in the eye. “Is there something you want to tell us, missy?”
I winced and tried to disentangle his fingers from my hair with my own. “Um, I’m a Scorpio and I like long walks on the beach?”
The next moment, I was kissing floor as my face slammed into the marble tile. It took me a moment to recover my breath, and I rolled over slowly, turning to find myself eye to heel with Remy’s stilettos. I followed the shoe upward and found her staring down at me, a chagrined look on her face. Two overly muscled vampires had her by the arms.
Joel hauled me up again by the hair, and I screamed in protest. “Ow! Lay off of the hair pulling! What did I do to you?”
I struggled to pull myself free without much luck. Succubi got the short end of the stick when it came to supernatural strength, and the vamps got it all.
Joel held me pinned against him, his lip pulled up in a snarl. “What did you do to Adam?” He shot a look over at Remy. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
Remy put her hands in the air, denying his words. “We just came down here to get a drink. You’re getting carried away. Is all this really necessary?”
He tilted my head back, exposing my neck, and pure panic shot through me. “Can’t we talk about this?” When I saw his head disappear under my chin, I squeaked in a last-ditch effort, “I’m positive for hepatitis, you know.” My eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the worst.
The feel of a warm, slimy tongue rasped against my neck and I shuddered with distaste. “I thought so,” Joel rumbled, then dumped me to the floor at Remy’s feet.
I rubbed my scalp, staring up at the people surrounding me, my panic threatening to turn into full-on crisis. “Thought what?”
