And that made it all the worse when I had to lie to her. In any other situation, I would have advised a friend to take control of her relationship, to corner her man and not be used. And maybe . . . maybe I should have. If I advised her to break up with Seth, that would clear the way for us. Did I want that again? I didn’t know. I still wasn’t thinking past the day I would turn into a succubus again. I was living irresponsibly, focusing on the now, and continued that here with Maddie.

My next words were spoken so winningly, so convincingly that there was no way she could ever think I didn’t have her best interests at heart. I might have been relying on my succubus abilities to smooth my hair all this time, but charming and persuading people was a core part of my personality. She never stood a chance.

“A week?” I gave her a gentle smile. “That’s not very long. You can’t really base a major crisis on that yet—especially when you consider who you’re dealing with. I mean, like you said, you’ve seen him get so busy with work that he cancels or even forgets things, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, sniffling in a continued attempt to keep back her tears. “It’s just never been like this. I don’t know. I’ve never had a serious relationship. I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.”

“You guys have only been going out for, like, four months. It takes longer than that to really get to know someone’s patterns.” With a pang, I realized she and Seth had dated longer than he and I had. “This may be one you’ve got to get used to. He’s probably stressed, and sex is the last thing on his mind—as hard as that is to believe. Give him some time. If it keeps happening, then it might be time to worry. But it’s too soon now.”

I could tell by her face that my words had given her hope. “Yeah . . . you’re probably right. But . . . do you think . . . do you think I’m doing something wrong? Should I do something different? Act differently? Dress sexier?”

Oh God. I so did not want to be advising Maddie on how to seduce Seth. “Well . . . I wouldn’t worry about any of that quite yet. Overthinking it’ll just stress you out more. Just wait a little bit. If something’s on his mind, it may take him some time to work through it.”