Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 by Jody Wallace Read Free Book Online

culture between missions. Homework that didn’t suck.
    “That show’s a gore-fest.” Zeke was careful not to tell Heather yes or no. “Maggie, you watch that one?”
    She opened his closet door, where her practice gear hung alongside his. Neither one of them had much stuff, and half the space was empty. “I don’t like gore.”
    “I do,” Heather assured him. “Sex, violence, and rock and roll.”
    “I believe it’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” Maggie corrected, sounding like the professor she used to be.
    “I don’t do drugs,” Heather said with a shrug. “Anyway, Zeke, I’d rather watch it with somebody than alone, so let me know.”
    “You bet.” If pressed, he’d tell Heather he didn’t have time. As offers went, a TV date was easier to dodge than a woman simply asking if he wanted to fuck. That was hard to refuse.
    After Heather left, Maggie slammed the closet door the same way she’d slammed the door to the room.
    “What are your drawers in a wad about?” He specifically said drawers, not panties, so she wouldn’t yell at him for being sexist.
    She kind of laughed. Truth was, he could think of a number of reasons for her to be pissed, but he wasn’t about to bring any of them up.
    One thing for sure, she wasn’t jealous of Heather. Maggie might feel some pull toward him because of the tangible, but she didn’t like him anymore.
    He’d made sure of it.
    “As if you didn’t know,” she said.
    “I don’t.”
    “You’re a shitty teacher.”
    So, this particular huff was directed at what he’d done in the dreamsphere. Maybe. Women—hell, humans—didn’t always say what they meant. “I wasn’t lying when I told Heather you improved. That makes me a good teacher.”
    “That makes me a good student. You could still be shitty teacher.”
    “You are a decent student,” he agreed, “except for the fact you’re slow as molasses. That thing you did with your shield? Pushing me out, walking away, locking me out of it? Smooth. But you should have been able to do it four weeks ago.”
    She stared at the ceiling. “Lord grant me the strength not to strangle him.”
    “Again,” he corrected. “Strangle me again. You already did once today.”
    “I can’t possibly get my own bed too soon. Maybe you’re the one who needs to step up.”
    “Maybe we both do.” He liked going to sleep beside her, waking up beside her. He liked the faint, sweet smell of her vanilla shampoo on his sheets and his spare pillow. He liked knowing it would be the two of them alone in the dreamsphere—harmonious in a way they weren’t in the terra firma. But he’d boost her to phase two and out of his bed in a heartbeat. He prayed it would ease his sexual frustration.
    She draped plain blue sweats over her arm—the sweats that clung to her ass in a way he shouldn’t notice—and fetched her mesh bag of toiletries from the top of her hamper. Some employees wore standard issue gray for physical training, while some preferred their own clothes. When Maggie picked yoga pants and a tank top, it was hard to keep his brain above his belt.
    “Would you rather share your bed with someone else?” she asked. “Someone in particular?”
    “No, you’re more than…” Wait a minute. She was glaring at him. Was he wrong? Was she jealous? “What are you trying to say?”
    She arched a brow. “You’ve told me a thousand times you don’t want to mentor anybody. Once I’m gone, you either have to take on students or lose the room. Bunk rooms make privacy iffy.” While some alucinators commuted, most opted for the convenience of living at the base or waystation where they worked.
    “I won’t lose my room. I can pull rank over nearly everyone here.” They’d let him keep the room after the Karen fiasco—with the implicit understanding he’d one day return to training. If his lame-ass job on Maggie exempted him from taking students, he might indeed lose his space.
    Well, shit. He liked this