"No, you aren't," he said, lacing his fingers through mine. "You're wonderful and capable. But you can't do everything."

"I just wish I could do something else besides shape-shift and look good. I wish I could, I don't know, shoot laser beams out of my fingers or something."

"You think that'd stop Nyx?"

"No. But it'd be cool."

"Me, I always wanted frost power."

"Frost power?"

"Yeah." Seth gestured dramatically toward my coffee table. "If we're talking superhero abilities. If I had frost power, I could wave my hand, and suddenly that whole thing would be covered in ice."

"Not frost?"

"Same difference."

"How would frost and/or ice power help you fight crime?"

"Well, I don't know that it would. But it'd be cool."

I laughed and snuggled into Seth, feeling better. I could wait this out.

"Are you hungry?" I asked him. "Yasmine and Vincent have been waging their own version of Top Chef around here."

We went to the kitchen and found it stocked with more food than it had ever had since I moved in. I unwrapped a plate of what appeared to be slices of freshly baked shortcake. Seth pointed to the refrigerator.

"If there are strawberries in there, it's proof of God's existence."

I opened the door and peered around. "Get ready for a religious experience," I told him, pulling out a bowl of chopped-and-sugared strawberries. With the other hand, I pulled out a larger bowl covered in plastic wrap. "And homemade whipped cream."

"Hallelujah," he said.

We piled plates high with shortcake and strawberries, and suddenly, dream entities seemed downright comical. I unwrapped the whipped cream, and Seth promptly dabbed a finger in it.

"Savage," I scolded.

"Heavenly," he countered, licking off the cream.

He stuck another finger into the bowl and held it out to me. I leaned forward and ran my tongue over the tip. Rich sweetness flooded my mouth.

"Mmm," I said, closing my eyes.

"Mmm," said Seth.

I opened my eyes. "Are you talking about the whipped cream?"

"Not exactly."

"You talking about this?"

There was still whipped cream on his finger. I took it into my mouth and sucked gently on it, cleaning up the last of the cream and stroking Seth's skin with my tongue. When I finished, he exhaled a held breath.

"Thanks for the cleanup."

"Cleanliness is next to godliness, I hear."

"I think I have more on me, though," he said.

"Really?" I asked. "Where?"

He swiped his finger through more whipped cream. "Right here."

I licked that off too, sucking and kissing all of the fingers on his hand—not just the guilty one. Finished, I flipped the hand over and kissed the top of it.

"There. Sparkling clean."

Seth shook his head. "Oh no."

"What?"

"You've got some on you too."

"Do I? Where?"

He dipped into more whipped cream and dabbed it on my lips, my chin, and the side of my throat.

"Everywhere," he said.

Before I could formulate a response, his mouth was on my neck, licking and kissing with as much sensuality as I had just used on his fingers. The eroticism of it astounded me—and I was hardly one to be caught by surprise with such things. I instinctually moved my body toward his, arching my neck back as his lips continued moving up. I felt his tongue, warm and amazingly skilled, clean up every drop of the whipped cream on my throat before sliding to my chin and finally to my mouth.

We kissed harder, dessert (of the food nature) now forgotten. I felt his lips fit perfectly with my own. My back was against the counter, and Seth pressed his body against mine, trapping me. When I finally pulled back from the kiss, I could scarcely breathe.

"Wow," I said, eyes wide. "This is why I don't cook. It only leads to trouble."

Seth, still right against me, glanced left and then right. There was a heated, feral look in his eyes that made me shiver. "I don't see anything too bad happening."

"Not yet," I admitted. "But you know the drill."

He shrugged. "Yeah. But nothing bad is happening now."

"It will if we—mmphf!"

Seth was kissing me again, and this time his arms went around my waist, pulling us closer still. I wrapped my own arms around his neck, tilting my face upward to get more of the kiss. It was hot and dangerous and amazing, and I couldn't get enough. I knew, though, that I'd have to get enough of it pretty quickly here and was contemplating how to stop it when Seth broke away first.

"Ah," I teased. "You've come to your senses."

Seth smiled at me, and my heart raced at the juxtaposition of the animal desire and trademark laidback look on his face. "Nope," he said. "Let's see how far we can go."

"You already know," I said. "We've timed this before."

That was a bit of an exaggeration. We'd never had a stopwatch or anything, but we'd gained a good sense of how long and how deep a kiss could go before it was time to part.

He shook his head. "Not kissing. This."

I wore a black tank top with a red cardigan over it. Seth reached out and unfastened the sweater's three large buttons and pulled it off of me. Letting it drop to the floor, he then rested his hands on my arms, fingers warm against my bare skin. He looked at me expectantly.

"We're timing how quickly you can take off my sweater?" I asked.

"Wrong answer. It's not always about you."

Removing his hands, he caught the bottom edge of his Cap'n Crunch T-shirt and pulled it over his head. He'd pulled me to his chest before it even hit the floor, and suddenly, I was face to face with golden, delicious-smelling Seth skin. Lots of it. Resisting the urge to start kissing his chest then and there, I looked up into his face and attempted levity.

"Is this like strip poker? Except…without the poker part?"

"This, Thetis," he said, grabbing the edge of my tank top, "is a test. A test to see how far we can go on all dimensions. Not just kissing."

I should have stopped him, but the feel of his hands sliding up my torso was too intoxicating. The tank top went over my head and joined the other clothing on my kitchen floor.

I laughed. "So…we know how much kissing we can do. Now you're trying to see how much naked we can do?"

"Yes," he said. He was attempting a dignified air. "It's a scientific experiment."

"Mostly it seems like you pulling off my clothes."

"That's part of it. We know how much we can kiss. But can we kiss naked? How long can we kiss naked? Is it the same?"

"I don—"

Again, he cut me off with a kiss, and my whole body tingled as my breasts pressed up against his chest. There was nothing between us, just skin on skin, and it was incredible. Between that and the kiss, I felt dizzy.

And so, Seth's experiment progressed. He removed articles of our clothing one at a time, then would kiss me, pause, and examine the results. When we were both completely naked, he stepped back and admired my body, his face gleeful and smug.

"I don't think the succubus thing is working," he said.

"Oh, it works, believe me," I said, suddenly nervous. Every inch of me wanted to be touched and caressed and ravaged. My skin burned. And the hunger within me—the instinct that urged me to feed off human energy—was raging, realizing just how close it was to dinnertime. This had started out as an amusing game, but it now occurred to me how dangerous this had become. "It's less about naked and more about us not kissing so much. Remember that time we started making out in bed? I got some of your energy then, and we were dressed. Push this enough—or start doing things with other parts of our bodies—and it'll be game over." I stepped back and reached for my shirt. "But you made good scientific progress tonight, I'll give you that."

Seth caught my wrist before I could get the shirt. He pulled me back to him. "Just a little bit more. Just to see." He still had the same intensity and arousal all over him. I'd seen it in him before but never like this.