Page 22 of Power of the Mind

Diem cursed, jerked the door open, and went into the hallway to hang it up while I headed straight for the desk, plunking down on the faux leather chair and kicking my feet up like I belonged there. His fedora caught my attention, so I snagged it and put it on, tipping the brim low and peering out from the shadowy underside.

When Diem reentered, still muttering obscenities under his breath, and saw me intruding on his personal space and wearing his hat, he stalled.

I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know exactly how he felt about me sitting in the chair at his desk with his treasured fedora skillfully balanced on my head. It was written all over his face. But when I hit him with my trademark smirk. The one full of sultry mischief. The one that made him flounder and sputter and not know where to look. The one Kitty was convinced would get me anything I wanted from the man, he snapped, “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting into character.” I adjusted the hat and cranked the seductive look in my eyes to an earth-shattering level ten. “What do you think, Guns? Does it suit me? We’re partners again. I’ll be the Scully to your Mulder, the Watson to your Sherlock, the Hutch to your Starsky, the… Did Dick Tracy have a partner?”

Diem’s chest heaved. He fisted his hands at his side. His nostrils flared. Then he closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and audibly counted back from ten.

I waited, amused and doing all I could not to laugh.

The power was going to my head.

It was too easy.

6

Diem

Ididn’t know if I wanted to throw him over the desk and fuck the look off his face or toss him out onto the street and tell him to never come back.

The former.

Definitely the former… and he could wear the fedora because holy hell it looked good on him. A little big, but it didn’t matter. I’d already run a new fantasy reel in my mind. Tallus sprawled across the love seat in the other room, naked as the day he was born, except for one thing. No, two things. The fedora and his come-fuck-me glasses. Smooth, flawless skin on display. One knee bent and falling to the side to display the goods. Arms folded behind his head as he gnawed seductively on his bottom lip and peered from under the hat.

Good Christ almighty.

I closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose, and counted backward from ten as heat climbed my neck. Ten months and the desires were out of control.

This was all going to shit, and Tallus hadn’t been in the office for thirty seconds. The man was my Achilles’ heel. My kryptonite. My glass jaw. Tallus had a stranglehold on me that no one in my thirty-five years had managed to achieve. I was putty in his hands, and he knew it.

Calmer, I exhaled a final breath and opened my eyes. He was still there, a delicious mixture of sin and salvation. Before he arrived, I had every intention of telling him that investigating his whacked-out theory of mind-control murdering psychics was not fucking happening. I had better things to do with my time. My business was not a joke.

But the words fled, and I remained mute as Tallus took control.

He swiveled the chair back and forth. Hands folded, he brought his pointer fingers to his lips and tapped them. The fedora slipped over the brim of his glasses and covered his face. He flicked it up again, revealing the knee-weakening smile I couldn’t get enough of.

I growled.

He smirked. “Okay, Guns. I learned something today, so before you get allGrr, we aren’t doing this because mind control and brainwashing are fake, listen to what I have to say. Kitty has clarified a few things. She explained how mind control and brainwashing aren’t possible.”

He held up a finger, shushing me before I could grunt, “I told you so.”

I snapped my jaw shut as he continued.

“But what mimics and has been confused for mind control and brainwashing in the past is an exceptionally powerful form of manipulation. To me, it all sounds the same. Potato potahto. But Kitty’s, like, a hundred and ninety-billion years old, so I figure she knows a thing or two.”

“You think,” I mumbled.

“Hush. No comments until I’m done.”

I crossed my arms and stood taller, aiming for daunting, imposing, or menacing—I failed at all three. Tallus raked his gaze up and down my body like I was a chocolate-covered dessert he wanted to devour.

The attention made me shuffle and lose the edge I was aiming for.

“Don’t distract me with your bulging biceps, Guns. We both know where my weaknesses lie, and we have work to do. Anyhow. I no longer think Madame Rowena mind-controlled people.”

“Good because—”