Free Tangible (Dreamwalker) by Jody Wallace

experienced such immediate desire. Karen had come onto him for weeks and he’d succumbed, swayed by the tangible and confident her training was going well.
    He’d been wrong on all counts and he had the wounds to show for it. He couldn’t afford to be wrong again. Yet here he was, mentoring Maggie when he was so attracted to her the mere thought of her gave him an erection.
    The shower cranked off. Pipes clunked and groaned, an echo in the night. His team was deployed in the house and alley in the event things went awry. Again. Then there was the brother to contend with. Maggie hadn’t said much about Hayden except he worked in DC and would be annoyed if he stumbled across a field team lurking around the house. They’d do a background check on him too.
    If his team could handle Maggie’s vampires, they could handle her ornery brother.
    The real question was whether he could handle Maggie.
    The bathroom door opened, spilling light and steam into the cold bedroom. He dragged the blankets to his chin and propped up a knee—not out of modesty but to conceal his hard-on.
    “Can you step out of the room?” Maggie asked through the crack in the door.
    He sat up, instantly suspicious. “What for?”
    “I need to get dressed and...” Maggie paused for a huge yawn, tried to finish talking, and yawned again. “Jeez. My clothes are out there.”
    He leaned across the bed and clicked off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness.
    “I won’t watch,” he lied. If she was yawning that ferociously, she was exhausted, and disciples had been known to keel over mid-sentence during phase one.
    Maggie, wrapped in a towel, switched off the bathroom light and hurried to her dresser. Terrycloth whispered against her skin, her feet against the hardwood floor.
    “It’s really cold,” she murmured. A board creaked as she shifted her weight. A drawer opened.
    He punched his pillow and then fluffed hers. “Don’t cover too much of yourself.”
    “It’s twenty degrees outside. As you kindly pointed out, the heat in this house is not evenly distributed.”
    “You aren’t about to freeze with both of us in a double bed,” he said dryly. “I need your skin.”
    The dresser drawer thunked. “Lillian and I held hands.”
    “That worked out real well.” He didn’t add that it might have been fine without a preexisting tangible. “If you put on too many clothes, I’ll have to take them off you, Maggie. Don’t be a pill.”
    She didn’t respond. He could barely distinguish her outline as the towel hit the floor and a garment drifted down to conceal her. Another drawer opened and shut. Her body bent as she stepped hastily into panties, PJs—something on her bottom half.
    “Come to bed.” He flipped her side of the heavy covers back, careful to keep his midsection under wraps. It wouldn’t help her relax if she knew how turned on he was. “We have work to do.”
    She inched onto the edge of the mattress. The scents of soap and vanilla teased him. As she fiddled with the clock on the bedside table, he suppressed the urge to drag her into his arms.
    “Should I set an alarm?”
    “Nah, they’ll wake us if they need us.” Zeke rolled onto his back. Maybe he should grab a cold shower before they tried this. Or stand outside in his underwear for five minutes.
    Maggie hugged the edge of the bed like it would save her from the night ahead. He closed his eyes. Shutting off his visuals sharpened his other senses, and his awareness of her grew instead of faded. The sounds of her nervous breathing, her body settling into the sheets. The smell of her hair and skin, warm and sultry. The incline of the old mattress, urging them together.
    When he touched her—and he had to touch her—would she startle right out of bed?
    “This isn’t going to work,” he began.
    “We haven’t even tried,” she said, a little panicky. “You don’t know for certain you can’t connect with me. Just tell me what to do. I don’t want the