13. Noah
13
NOAH
“ I wish you’d stop fighting it,” said an unexpected voice.
I blinked and found myself once again seated in front of Isaac’s desk. But the person holding my hand across the rich wood surface wasn’t Isaac.
It was Cory, the kid from the Balsam Inn.
The incubus .
He was watching me with huge, luminous gray eyes.
Granted, everything was faintly luminous in the trance Isaac offered. The room glowed a soft purple, and if I turned my head too fast, the world shimmered like a beaded curtain blowing in the breeze. But Cory’s eyes were something else.
He stood up slowly. Slim and slight, he couldn’t be more than five-eight, and I doubted he weighed more than one-thirty soaking wet. His hair was a tawny brown, with golden highlights and chestnut hues mixed together. It curled around his ears and at the base of his neck—he needed a haircut.
His wide eyes sat under delicate brows. Freckles scattered themselves across his high cheekbones and the bridge of his long, straight nose. His lips—God, his lips—were a perfect cupid’s bow, the bottom one plump and pouted. They parted slightly as he looked at me looking at him. I had the strongest urge to lean across the table and kiss him.
Instead, I leaned back in the chair.
“It would be easier if you would just let it happen,” Cory continued. He smiled at me, and it felt like dawn breaking in my chest. Fuck me, this was not good.
“No offense, but I’m going to need you to go.” I waved my hand peremptorily. The sooner I got him out of here, the better.
“You’re the one who brought me here,” he replied.
“Only because I was just talking about you with Isaac. I was still annoyed, and you must have been on my mind when I slipped under.”
“Then why haven’t I left yet?”
“Because I keep talking to you. Be quiet while I turn you into someone else.”
“If that’s how you want it.” Cory leaned forward, planting his hands on the desk. He was studying me intently now, and I didn’t like it.
I closed my eyes. “Lew. I want to see Lew. That’s who’ll be here when I open my eyes again.”
I opened my eyes. Cory was still staring at me, head tilted ever so slightly to the left. Fuck. I did not want this kid in the trance. I didn’t want him anywhere, but definitely not here.
Why couldn’t I bring Lew to mind? I knew every inch of his body, knew him far more intimately than Cory. There should have been no trouble imagining him here.
Maybe I’d just seen him too recently. Maybe my body was sated when it came to him. I needed variety.
I closed my eyes, firmly, and scanned through the Vesperwood student body mentally. There were plenty of students I was attracted to, and more than a few had insinuated that the feeling was mutual. A couple had even shown up at my door over the years. I’d never accepted their invitations, but this was just a trance. Surely that made it okay.
Except something felt off, in a way that was new to me. Eyes still closed, I frowned. Maybe I shouldn’t choose a student. Picturing any student might be too close to picturing Cory. It was probably smarter to pick someone else.
Another professor. That would do it. Someone firmly on the faculty side of the line. Vesperwood’s various professors and staff swirled through my mind, and I smiled, landing on someone I’d always been curious about.
“Seb,” I said aloud. Sebastian Romero wasn’t the type of guy I usually went for, but I couldn’t deny that he was attractive, and frankly, I’d always been a little curious about what was hiding beneath those tweedy blazers and wool sweaters.
“I want to see Sebastian Romero.” I opened my eyes.
Cory smirked. “Are you sure that’s who you want?”
“I’m sure I don’t want you .”
He spread his hands. “I’m a manifestation of your subconscious. If you really wanted me to turn into someone else, I would.”
“You’re a pain in my ass, is what you are.”
His smile was wicked. “You can be a pain in my ass, if that’s what you’re—”
“Go away .” I shut my eyes and refused to listen. Someone else. I needed someone, anyone else. Someone as far away from Cory as I could get.
Someone from my past, perhaps? Someone who—actually, no. That was a bad idea. I avoided thinking about my past for good reason. Even picking a hookup from high school felt dangerous—too close to what had come after that.
A woman . The idea popped into my mind. Not someone from my past, but someone here. Generally, I avoided sleeping with women these days. Ever since—no, we weren’t thinking about that—but the point was, just because I hadn’t fucked a woman in a while didn’t mean I couldn’t imagine one here.
Nat . That was it. Natalia Kazansky, another Vesperwood professor. She counted cards when playing poker, smoked truly atrocious cheap cigars, and would talk your ear off about mushroom hunting if you let her. She also had a phenomenal body underneath her froofy silk blouses and houndstooth trousers, from what I could tell.
“Show me Nat,” I said aloud. I opened my eyes.
Cory wasn’t smirking anymore—he was grinning, openly. He waved at me from his side of the desk.
“Me again. How much longer are you going to do this? Because I’m pretty sure you said you had a class to get to, and Isaac’s powerful, but he can’t keep this up forever.”
It had taken me a long time to truly believe Isaac when he said he didn’t see what I saw in the trance. He had to maintain it, he pointed out. It took so much energy to make the trance deep enough to mimic the incubus’s dreamworld that he had none left over for spying inside my head.
But thinking of him now just pissed me off. Isaac was the reason I couldn’t get Cory out of my brain. Isaac—the man who thought that my teaching Cory was anything other than a joke.
I’d been born half-human, half-incubus, but my ability to dream had been wrenched away from me, cut off like a limb. I couldn’t even dream simple, regular dreams anymore. And I had no way of accessing the particular dreamstate required to satisfy an incubus’s needs. I could sense it hovering in the back of my mind, just out of reach, but I’d never be able to touch it again.
It was a curse, and seeing Cory did nothing but remind me of all my failures.
“Get. Out.” I stood abruptly, the chair toppling over behind me. “I don’t want you here. I want anyone but you.”
“See, you say that, but then—”
“We’re not doing anything. I don’t want to see you. I would rather waste this trance and risk Isaac’s anger than touch you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I saw all that emphatic eye-closing a minute ago. Very impressive. Bravura performance. The only thing is, you’re looking at me now . And I can tell from your eyes that you’re not not interested, so…”
His eyes locked on mine as he brought a finger to his mouth and swirled his tongue around it. Then he dragged it down his chin and onto his neck, shimmying suggestively.
I snapped my eyes shut and folded my arms across my chest. In addition to being gorgeous, Trance Cory was apparently a brat. For a second, I wondered if the real-life version was too, before reminding myself that I didn’t want to know anything about the real-life version at all.
“Oh, so that’s how we’re doing this. Real mature.”
I said nothing.
“This isn’t stopping me, you realize. I’m still here.”
I ignored him. I’d meant what I said. I would rather run out the clock on this trance than give in to the urges of my subconscious.
The room was quiet for a moment, until Cory said, “Fine. I can work with this.”
A soft rustling arose from the other side of the desk. I frowned, but refused to crack an eyelid. I must have looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care.
Footsteps and the faint rub of fabric against fabric approached. I could feel the heat of another body directly in front of mine. Cory was inches from me. I could smell him in the air—clean cotton and vanilla—and I tasted blackberries on my tongue.
And then his hands were on me. Light touches at first. He stroked his fingers along my arms, traced them across my chest. I refused to move, to acknowledge him at all. But that only made him bolder.
One of his hands dropped to my right leg, running up my inner thigh, higher and higher.
“See, if you actually wanted me gone, it wouldn’t be so hard to get rid of me. Certainly not this hard.”
His hand brushed against my cock, straining up against my joggers, and I groaned in spite of myself. That felt too good. He palmed my bulge again, fingers slipping lower, adding a light squeeze, and against my better judgement, I opened my eyes.
Cory smiled, running his tongue along his lower lip, looking up at me with bashful eyes.
“Hi,” he said, his voice breathless.
It was an act. I knew it was. Less than a minute ago, he’d been brazen and pushy, teasing me about my desire. This tremulous innocence was just his next trick.
But dammit, it worked.
I’d never denied being attracted to Cory. Of course I was hard, of course I was enjoying this. My body wanted him—it was my brain that didn’t.
Except…except I couldn’t deny that he was still here, a place he could only be because I was imagining him. Clearly some part of my brain did want him here. Maybe it was time for me to deal with that.
If I was going to teach Cory—in combat class only, to be clear—I needed to get used to being around him. Needed to find a way for his presence to fade into the background. So maybe I should just give into this now? Maybe all I needed was to get him out of my system.
“You really are a brat, you know,” I told him, and that wide-eyed innocence vanished in an instant.
He grinned back at me. “So do something about it. Teach me a lesson.”
“You know…I think I will.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but I didn’t give him time. I was already dragging him to an elegant leather sofa in the corner of Isaac’s office. I sat and brought him across my knee, stomach down. I placed my right hand on his back, holding him in place, while my left went to work on his waist, tugging until I got his jeans and boxers down below his hips.
Cory yelped in surprise, twisting his head over his shoulder. “Are you spanking me?”
“You told me to do something about it. You have no one but yourself to blame.”
It felt good to show him that I had limits. Even if this was all in my head. Besides, I was too busy marveling at his perfect, plump ass to pay much attention to his indignation.
His skin was pink where his clothes had rubbed as I’d pulled them off, and warm to the touch. Each cheek was firm and rounded and fit perfectly in my hand. Fuck, I wanted to see what hid between them.
Cory whined in pleasure as I kneaded first his left cheek, then his right. I pinched him, then brought my index finger to the top of his crack. He shivered as it dipped in between his cheeks, then down, until I finally reached his hole.
“Oh God, yes,” he moaned. “Push it—”
I pulled my finger away, then lightly smacked his left cheek.
“Ow!” He gave me a wounded look over his shoulder, which I knew was just for effect. I hadn’t spanked him that hard.
“You’re not in charge anymore. You don’t tell me what to do.”
I spanked him again, and again, and again. I paused between each light smack, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for almost a minute, savoring the way he never knew when my hand would come down next.
I loved how red and hot his skin grew. Loved the little gasps and moans that slipped from his mouth each time my palm connected. Loved the feel of his cock growing harder and harder against my leg. I stroked his ass between strikes, moving his cheeks lightly, catching little glimpses of the tight, smooth hole in between them.
Cory was enjoying himself as much as I was, if not more. He pushed his ass up into my hands as I rubbed him, begging for further attention. I spanked him a little harder the second time he did that, to remind him who was boss.
In response, he whined, “Harder, Daddy. I need it harder.”
I froze, my hand in mid-air. Something squeezed tight in my chest.
“Don’t call me that.”
He twisted his neck, looking up at me. “It’s just a—”
“ Don’t call me that ,” I repeated. I could barely breathe.
“Jesus, fine.” His eyes said I was being unreasonable. “But if you’re not going to go any harder, can we at least move on to something that might be more fun for both of us?” He gave my crotch a significant glance. “I’ve got a hungry hole, and I know just the thing to fill it.”
And just like that, I was annoyed again. This kid was too cocky. He needed to be taken down a peg.
“What’s it going to take to teach you that I’m in charge?” Before he could answer, I imagined him naked, on all fours on the floor in front of me, ass pointed right at my crotch.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, his tone far too amused for my liking. “Though you’re not nearly as naked as I am. Last time I checked, you couldn’t fuck people through clothing.”
“Last time I checked, I told you to stop talking.”
“You didn’t technically tell me to—”
I imagined a piece of duct tape over his mouth, and it appeared. Cory glared at me, affronted.
“That’s better.”
I took a moment to appreciate the scene. Cory, naked and kneeling in front of me, slim body shivering slightly. Whether it was from the cool of the wood floor, or simple anticipation, I couldn’t tell. His cock was rigid, pre-cum leaking from the tip as it pointed straight down to the floor.
“If you want this to stop, you just stand up and walk away,” I told him. “You got that, right?”
It felt silly, worrying about consent with a creation of my own subconscious mind, but I couldn’t help it. It was like locking the door even if you were only stepping out to check the mail. I didn’t want to develop bad habits. Cory rolled his eyes.
“Good. Now, I seem to recall you saying something about a hungry hole.” I paused for a moment, taking time to craft the idea in minute detail in my mind before imagining a large, pink dildo sticking out from the base of the couch. “That’s perfect, because you’re going to fuck yourself on that.”
Cory looked at me, horrified. The dildo was huge, and I hadn’t done anything to prep him to take something that large.
I smiled. “You said I was welcome to be a pain in your ass, after all.” He glared at me, and I laughed. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling generous.”
I imagined a large dollop of lube on the dildo and watched it drip down the sides like icing on a cake. Then I leaned back, spreading my legs and freeing my cock from my joggers, stroking it as I watched his dismay.
“I’m supposed to teach you a lesson, aren’t I?”
His eyes narrowed, and I wondered if I was being too much of an asshole before reminding myself that none of this was real. Not in any sense that mattered to the real Cory, anyway. He’d never know what I’d fantasized about doing to him.
“Well? You said it yourself—Isaac doesn’t have all day. Get on with it, or get out of my head.”
Slowly, head still swiveled over his shoulder, Cory backed up on his hands and knees. The base of the dildo was between my calves, offering me a perfect view. His hole was so tight, and for a moment, I wondered if I should change my fantasy. Did I really want to deny myself the chance to be inside him?
But he’d earned this. If he wanted to act like a brat, I would treat him like one. Besides, watching his humiliation, and the hint of fear in his eyes as the tip of the dildo brushed against his hole, was a bigger turn-on than I’d ever imagined. I was certain he’d be biting his lip, if the duct tape let him.
“That’s it,” I told him, stroking my cock. “Just remember. You brought this on yourself.”
Cory whimpered softly, and something warm broke open in my chest.
“You can do it,” I told him gently. “I know you can.”
His cheeks flushed pink, and his eyes filled with something like hope. I had a sudden urge to rub his back, to tell him how proud of him I was. It felt so real that for a moment, I forgot I was in a trance at all.
Cory nodded slowly, then pushed back against the dildo, allowing the tip to breach his hole. His hole was so tight, I wondered if he’d ever felt so much as a finger inside him. Trance Cory might act confident, but a hole like his was too pretty to have seen much action.
He groaned as the bulbous head of the dildo pushed into him, his hole straining to stretch wide enough. He was breathing heavily, and a high-pitched moan emanated from behind the duct tape. I took pity on him and added more lube to the dildo. His hole stretched wider, wider, and just when I thought it couldn’t possibly open anymore, the head slipped inside with a wet pop, his anal lips closing around the shaft with relief.
God, how I wanted to be the one to show him how good a real cock could feel. I stroked myself, imagining for a moment plunging into his slick, hot channel. But no, I couldn’t give in to that.
Even if this were just a fantasy, some things felt too dangerous to contemplate. If I got a taste of his ass here, I might want it even more back in the real world. It was better to just watch and appreciate.
Cory’s chest heaved with exertion, and I waited until his breath slowed before speaking again.
“Did I say you could take a break?”
He whined but began pushing farther back onto the dildo. His hole was a thing of beauty, sliding down the girth of the dildo, over one thick ridge, then another. It stretched wider still as he neared the final bump, straining to reach the base. He had to be near his limit, but that was the beauty of the trance—I didn’t have to worry about doing any real damage to the kid.
He groaned as the final ridge slipped inside of him, bottoming out against the base of the dildo. Again, I waited until I was sure he could handle it before I told him, voice cold, “I told you to fuck yourself on it, I didn’t tell you to stop.”
I was getting close to coming, and try as I might to savor this, I knew I couldn’t last much longer. Cory’s face was permanently flushed now, sweat sliding down his cheeks, hair slicked to his forehead. His knees were red where they pressed against the hard floor. His thin chest expanded and contracted as he gasped in pleasure, working the dildo in and out of his hole.
“Slide it all the way out next time,” I told him when he bottomed out again. “Let me see that pretty little hole of yours all stretched out.”
Cory obeyed, rocking forward, pulling off the dildo. He groaned as the head started to emerge, until finally, it slid out of his hole. At that second, he came, splattering the wood floor underneath him.
For a few glorious seconds, his hole gaped wide, and something inside me exploded with desire. I came, filling my hand as my mind was filled with the gorgeous sight in front of me. How I wanted to be the one inside him, the man who made Cory groan with pleasure for real.
I ached to touch him, to tell him how sweet he was, how perfect. But he was already fading. His slight form dissipated into mist as the room around me swirled. In the blink of an eye, Isaac’s office reappeared, minus the violet light. I was no longer on the couch, but right back in the chair where I’d started, in front of his desk.
Isaac’s nostrils were flared, and his breath was a trifle labored. Other than that, he looked unperturbed, like he’d simply been meditating as he waited for me to emerge from the trance. I inhaled deeply, trying to exhale slowly—it was always disorienting, coming out of the trance. Isaac glanced at his pocket watch before slipping it back inside his suit.
“That took longer than I expected.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. I didn’t need to defend myself to him. It was bad enough, needing his trances to keep myself alive. I wasn’t going to make it worse by telling him what had just happened.
What would I even say? Sorry, my subconscious decided to mutiny on me.
“You good?” I asked instead, standing up. “It wasn’t too much?”
“Not at all.” Isaac smiled blandly. “And you? Did you get what you needed?”
I knew what he meant. An incubus who could no longer dream was a dead man walking. Incubi needed dreams—needed sex in dreams—to survive. If it weren’t for Isaac and his help every week, I would have died long ago.
But still, it was like living off watery gruel when you used to feast every night. The trance paled in comparison to the dream world itself. Every time I came out of it, I was reminded of what I’d lost. And now, I had even more reason to dislike it, if Cory was the kind of trick my subconscious was going to play every time I went under.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice gruff. “Yeah, I did.”
As I walked out the door, the lie curdled on my tongue.