"Uh… hello? Can you hear—whoa! Where did you come from?"

The small monkey named Beppo—at least, I assumed it was the same monkey; I couldn't get close enough to see if he wore the same leather collar—raced across the room and jumped onto the desk. The man had been in the process of sitting back down, but he shot up again at my words, his head turning back and forth as he scanned the room. A chill rippled through me as his gaze approached me. I was suddenly very, very afraid, and wanted nothing more than to be away from that room. There was an aura of something powerful around him, as if he suddenly presented a threat. I tried to tell myself that I was being ridiculous, that there was nothing anyone could do to me in astral form, but my brain didn't want to listen.

I froze when the man's eyes met mine, holding my breath as if that would make my invisible self even more invisible. He held out his arm for the monkey, going still when Beppo scrambled up to his shoulder.

Then he smiled at me. Slowly. With so much menace that a scream built up inside me. Just as it was about to burst from my formless lips, a voice in the distance called my name.

"Samantha!"

The man snarled something and lunged toward me, but my ethereal body was yanked out of the room, whisked back toward the voice that so imperiously demanded my attention. "Samantha, you will answer me!"

The trip back to my body was conducted much more quickly than the journey out—the world seemed to shimmer and blur, shaking itself for a moment, then suddenly I was sitting in Paen's car, my neck tingling, my body tight and tense as if it had been on the verge of an orgasm.

"Welcome back," Paen said dryly.

"Hi," I said, touching my neck. There didn't seem to be any open wound, so I gathered he had some power to heal up any signs he had been dining at Cafe Sam. "Oh, thank you. Thank you so much."

"For what, boring you?" he asked, reversing the car, turning so we were headed back into the hills.

"Boring me? No, Paen…" I put my hand on his arm, slightly surprised to find that I was shaking from my encounter with the dark man. "I was thanking you for pulling me back. I… there was someone I would not care to meet again, and you anchored me when I needed it, so thank you. But I wasn't bored with you—it's not that at all. It's just… I have… oh, it's a little difficult to explain."

"Is it?"

I sighed, rubbing the chill from my arms. Just being near Paen seemed to drive away the nightmarish quality of my out-of-body experience. "The truth is that it's all my mother's fault."

His jaw tightened as he drove. "Indeed."

"I didn't mean that it's her fault I'm here, and thus with you—I meant it's my mother's fault because she passed on a couple of elf traits to me. I was born with her pointy ears, elf-tipped eyes, talent for finding lost things, and a really warped version of her ability to do out-of-body trips. Unlike Mom's skill with astral projection, however, mine only hits whenever I'm sexually aroused."

He looked at me in patent disbelief. "You what?"

I nodded, then pointed to the road. He turned back to it, but glanced curiously from the corner of his eye a couple of times. "Whenever I get aroused, my body and consciousness part ways, and I go drifting off while it has all the fun. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is."

"I can imagine," he said dryly.

"Oh, you think you can, but I doubt it," I said mournfully. "It's awful, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried everything, too. Once I'm gone—pfft! I just have to wait it out. No one has ever called me back like you did. That was pretty amazing."

"Hmm." He didn't look like he disbelieved me, but he didn't look like he was buying everything I was saying, either.

"The worst is when I come back and find out that evidently I've been having wonderful sexual experiences, but wasn't there to enjoy them."

He shot me a curious glance. "Are you saying this happens every time you engage in sex?"

I nodded. "It doesn't even have to be sex. Just doing what we were doing is enough to send my brain into astral mode."

"So you've never actually… er… for lack of a better phrasing, been there for any of the times you've had sex?"

"No."

"Not any of the times?"

"None. It's not like I've had tons of sex, though. I pretty much gave it up after I realized what was going on. I mean, what's the use? Just when I start getting into it, whammo! I'm taken off and return to find my body either apparently fulfilled and no longer interested, or tense and frustrated, while my boyfriend is snoring away."

"I see."

"I've only had three boyfriends," I said, compelled for some reason to make it absolutely clear I wasn't a thrill-seeking trollop. "But I tried everything I could think of to stay there for the whole thing, and never had any luck."

"Perhaps the fault lies with them, not you," Paen said, his eyes back on the road as we drove.

"What do you mean?"

"Were your partners mortal?"

"Yes. One was a Diviner, but he was mortal all right. He died last year in a plane crash."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"So was I. He was a nice guy. Not a great Diviner, but a nice guy. But what do my boyfriends being mortal have to do with me drifting away during the fun time?"

He shot me a silver-eyed look that was completely unreadable. "You have immortal blood. Perhaps you would have better luck with a man who shared that trait."

My jaw dropped for a moment before I had enough wits about me to snap it back. "Are you offering yourself as a potential partner?"

There was a pause. "In the interests of scientific understanding, yes, I would be willing to undertake that role."

He noticed the surprised look on my face.

"I don't normally proposition women in this manner, but I will admit to being physically attracted to you, and believe that you feel likewise."

"Oh, really." We were deep in the heart of the country now, heading into a rural area with patches of forest and wilderness, so there were no streetlights. The only light illuminating Paen's face was that from the dashboard, but it was enough for me to eye his profile. It was just as handsome as the rest of his face.

His jaw tightened. "I see. I have misread your interest in me, then. I apologize for—"

"No!" I interrupted, not wanting him to misunderstand. "That 'oh, really?' wasn't challenging your statement about me being attracted to you—I am—but more just… well, annoyed."

"Annoyed?" A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. "Are you always annoyed when someone tells you he finds you attractive?"

"Of course not, but you have to admit that someone telling you they want to go to bed with you purely in the interests of science sounds a bit condescending. I mean, sheesh, talk about martyring yourself…"

His lips thinned. "I didn't intend for you to take my offer that way. I am a man. I find you an attractive woman, and since you apparently reciprocate that feeling, you are not presently dating anyone—" He paused and gave me a quick glance.

"Nope, not dating," I said.

"—and as you appear to be of legal age—"

"Thirty-four in September."

"—then I assumed I could express my interest without you taking offense."

"Oh, I'm not offended," I said, smiling. He was so cute when he was in a snit. "Just surprised."

He said nothing.

"Tempting as your offer is, I hasten to point out that you are immortal, and I just did do the astral thing, so the answer to what I would do with you is pretty evident."

"Not necessarily. I was feeding, not attempting to arouse you. It would be different if I were to focus my attention on bringing you pleasure."

I digested that morsel for a moment and admitted that he could well be right. "We just met, Paen. Yes, the physical thing is there, but we haven't known each other for more than a couple of hours at most. I've never been one for casual relationships. In fact, I was madly in love with all three of my boyfriends before we ever got physical."