life without gaining an issue or two along the way.”
Ildaria nodded at those words of wisdom, believing them wholeheartedly. She’d met a lot of people in her life, especially while sailing with Vasco. They’d lured a lot of people onto the ship, and almost all of them had had something in their minds that was distressing when she read them. Body issues, anger issues, memories of childhood abuse haunting their thoughts and actions. The few that had seemed well balanced and pretty much okay had been through some kind of counseling, easily read in their thoughts.
“Have you considered counseling?” Sofia asked softly.
Ildaria’s gaze shot to her and then away, but she just shook her head. She’d never been in a position to be able to afford counseling. Besides which, who could she go to? She couldn’t tell a mortal counselor or psychologist about being immortal.
“Marguerite’s son-in-law, Greg, is an immortal and some kind of psychologist or psychiatrist,” Sofia announced, obviously still picking up her thoughts. “Maybe he’d be willing to work out some kind of payment plan you could handle,” she suggested, and then added, “Failing that, Elijah says the university offers free counseling services to students. He’s taking medicine at the uni. Plans to be a doctor.”
“Si, he mentioned that,” Ildaria said. “But I can’t talk to a mortal counselor, Sofia.”
“Not about being an immortal, no,” she agreed, but then pointed out, “But a lot of your issues around sex seem to come from your childhood, when you were mortal. So if you stuck to that, the free counseling at university could work. Just avoid mentioning that your childhood was nearly two hundred years ago and you should be fine.”
Ildaria frowned at the suggestion, not at all comfortable with the thought of getting counseling.
“It’s up to you, of course,” Sofia said lightly, and then asked, “But would you really rather continue to carry around the trauma of your childhood for the hundreds or even thousands of years you might live?”
She let Ildaria think about that for a minute, and then said, “Hurry up and eat. Then get dressed. We’re going shopping.”
“Shopping?” Ildaria jerked her gaze back to the woman.
“For a nice little negligee or something. And romance novels.”
“Romance novels?” Ildaria asked with disbelief.
“They have lots of sex in them,” she said, as if that should explain the matter. It didn’t, and when Ildaria’s expression showed as much, she patiently explained, “For pointers. Maybe ideas on how to seduce him, or at least what to do with him. We need to move this train along before it goes off the tracks.”
Ildaria started to shake her head. “I can’t afford—”
“It’ll be my housewarming gift to you. I haven’t given you one yet.”
“No. You—”
“Ildaria, you’re running out of time,” Sofia said, her tone serious. “G.G. has been avoiding you as much as possible since the dreams started.”
Ildaria dropped her eyes, a frown tugging at her lips. She had noticed that she saw less and less of G.G. during their waking hours. It was only in dreams that they spent time together and while they did some talking and sharing, most of the dreams were taken up with sex. Constant, heart-stopping, wake up sweaty and exhausted sex.
“He’s really struggling with his attraction for you, I mean seriously struggling. He’s starting to fantasize about kidnapping you and having his way with you and it’s scaring the crap out of him. He’s afraid he’s becoming an obsessive stalker type guy. Which he kind of is. I mean, all life mates go through it, but he doesn’t understand that’s what’s happening, and just thinks he’s turning into a freak,” Sofia told her unhappily, just reaffirming what Ildaria had picked up on in the latest dream. “You need to get him into bed soon, or he’ll fly off to England to avoid you, or to save you from him. I’m not sure which it is. He’s pretty messed up right now.”
Ildaria bit her lip and admitted, “He mentioned something about England in the dream, but—” But her memories from the dream were already getting fuzzy. They always did. The only thing that remained long was the memory of the sex. What they talked about before or after, always faded quickly.
“He’s thinking about heading back home to London, England,” Sofia said quietly. “The original plan was for him to stay through the summer and spend the winter in England at the other club, before returning for the summer here again. But he’s started making noises about flying back