Running Hot

said when they were seated.
    “I know.” He picked up the menu. “But it feels good. Look, I’ll try to answer your question but don’t blame me if things aren’t clear. It’s a very murky subject.”
    She raised her brows. “I’m listening.”
    “Manipulating sex energy is very complicated,” he began, assuming what he hoped was an air of scholarly authority.
    “More complicated than tweaking other elements of an aura?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “How the hell should I know? Blame it on biology.” So much for sounding scholarly.
    “You’re not getting off that easily.”
    “For starters, I can’t work with what doesn’t exist,” he said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “If a woman isn’t already attracted to me, there’s no energy. I can’t create it out of thin air.”
    “But what about her natural desire for sex? Couldn’t you just—” She made a little motion with one hand. “Enhance it a little? Put her in the mood?”
    If only it were that simple.
    “Maybe,” he said. “If she wasn’t concentrating on something else, like, say, painting or cooking or teaching a class in physics or listening to music.”
    “Why would that be a problem?”
    “Because sexual energy is a raw fuel that can be channeled into a lot of different engines or, in this case, passions. I might be able to heighten a woman’s sense of physical excitement under the right circumstances, but sadly, there’s no guarantee she would focus that excitement in my direction. She might decide that the guy she saw going down to the beach with a surfboard earlier in the afternoon looked a lot more interesting.”
    Grace pursed her lips, thoughtful now. “But if she was interested in you in a casual way, could you intensify that interest?”
    “Theoretically, maybe. But even if it were possible to get her into bed by fiddling around with her aura, what would be the point? The next morning she’d wonder what the hell she saw in me. That would not be good for the ego.”
    “There are men who wouldn’t care at all about what the woman thought the next morning.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m not one of them.”
    “No,” she said, very serious, “you’re not.”
    He frowned, unsure how to take that. “Even if there was no ego issue, there’s one other big reason why manipulating a woman’s aura in bed wouldn’t work well, at least not for long.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Viewing someone’s aura requires only a small amount of energy and effort. But take it from me, manipulating a person’s energy field requires enormous concentration and the maximum amount of power. The evening would be ruined for me because I’d have to work constantly every minute just to keep her interested on the psychic level. There wouldn’t be much left over to concentrate on the, uh, physical aspects of the situation.”
    She tapped the menu lightly against the edge of the table. “I hadn’t thought about the heavy energy drain.”
    “There’s no ducking the laws of physics.” He picked up his own menu. “Energy is energy. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you use a lot of power, it takes time to recover.”
    The waiter showed up with coffee, took their orders and left. Luther saw Grace glance at a nearby table. An oddly wistful look crossed her face before she turned back and picked up her coffee cup.
    He looked at the table that had drawn her attention and saw a family of four. The attractive, stylishly dressed blond mother was several years younger than her silver-haired husband. There was a lively little boy of about five and a small blond princess who was probably seven.
    He picked up his own cup. “Don’t know about you,” he said in low tones, “but when I was a kid, Granddad and I didn’t do vacations at ritzy hotels in Maui. Camping in a state park was about as fancy as it got.”
    Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cup but the expression on her face remained perfectly neutral. “That situation isn’t as perfect as it looks. Second marriage for him. He’s got kids by his ex-wife who are now adults and are not thrilled about having a couple of half siblings.”
    “Especially when it comes to sharing the trust funds and the inheritance?”
    “The battle over the inheritance will be all the more bitter because the first family didn’t get what the second family is getting.”
    He cocked a brow. “Lots of attention from a doting father who is enjoying a