Each time she tapped into the aether, I felt the kiss of power and used every ounce of control that I had to ignore it. Being around pures had helped me build up some tolerance to the minor displays of power. And I’d experienced harder shit. For example, the erection this morning was one of them. Denying the level Josie wanted to take our relationship to was the exact opposite of easy, even when I wanted to . . . well, do right by her. Strange concept and all, but behaving myself was hard. So I got this covered.

But it was when we worked with akasha that I almost couldn’t . . . couldn’t ignore the allure.

There was nothing more powerful than that, and when it hit the air, it was like touching lightning. It called to me, sang to what existed deep inside me—this thing that needed aether as badly as a daimon did. How fucked up was that? Knowing that I shared something in common with the daimons was one of the things that kept me in check, kept this thing inside me locked away.

Josie was the other.

Once the dummy was back on the ground, I made her use the element of air three more times, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. With her, you never knew.

Josie turned to me, pushing a shorter strand of blonde hair out of her face. A tentative smile appeared as she bounced over to where I stood. “I think I finally got the hang of the air element.”

Truthfully, I couldn’t say if she finally did have control over it or not, and we wouldn’t know until she could do it several days in a row. Josie stared up at me, eyes bright and hopeful. I didn’t want to piss on her parade.

“Yeah,” I said, leaning down and pressing my lips to her forehead. “You did really good, Josie.”

Stretching up, she looped her arms around my neck and gave me a quick, tight hug before settling back on her feet.

I stood there. Stared at her for a few moments. Like a creep. Sometimes I didn’t know what to do with her. I could be touchy. Gods knew I had boundary issues. I had no problem being . . . affectionate, but I was not, under any circumstance, used to someone being affectionate with me. Not like this. When it was actually genuine, not forced for one reason or another, and went deeper than a physical thing.

Josie was free with the affection—the smiles and the touches, the soft kisses and the closeness.

She blew me away with all of that.