Page 12 of Hypnotized By Love

I blinked slowly. Was he really going to make me say it? Make me relive it? While pretending he had no idea what I was talking about? I wasn’t interested in playing this game. I didn’t owe him an explanation. I wasn’t going to embarrass myself any further.

“I’m not going to be a client. Let me have just one session,” he said, as if he realized I wasn’t going to say anything else. “And then I’ll go, and you’ll never see me again.”

Why was he pushing this so hard? I had a mixture of raging emotions—I still wanted him to leave, and I was latching on to his offer as a way to make him stay away from me permanently.

Which would be excellent, considering how many swirling, tingling, inexplicable things he was making me feel.

There was another part of me that wanted to prove myself. To show him that I was professional and good at my job. The competitiveness I’d felt toward him hadn’t disappeared, apparently. “I don’t think—”

He must have sensed my hesitation, because he moved in for the kill. “The Savannah Sinclair I knew never backed down from a challenge in her life.” He seemed to move closer, leaning forward with his hands folded together between his legs. His knee accidentally brushed against mine, his fingers so close that he could touch me, and it took all of my willpower not to wildly rear back. I wouldn’t let him see how much he could still affect me.

I knew what he was doing.

I knew it, and yet it was still working. The backs of my knees were sweating. As if wanting him were some teenage muscle memory that I couldn’t shake.

Like I was becoming that girl again, head over heels for him, ready to do anything he asked.

The best thing was for him to go. I opened my mouth to say as much, but no words came out.

“I read an interview where you said everyone is hypnotizable,” he said.

Some frantic part of my brain loudly worried,Why is Mason reading interviews I’ve done?But the rest of me was focused on the slightly flattered feeling that he had looked me up. That he wanted to know about me, even though he had to realize how much I despised him.

“I said ‘almost everyone.’ Some people can’t do it,” I found myself saying, against my will. Heaven help me, but I wanted to impress him. So many people looked down on what I was doing now, as if it were less than. Especially when comparing me to Sierra. We both helped people, but in different ways. But she was the noble one, the trained medical professional, and I was the woo-woo sister. “Most people move in and out of a trance state all day without realizing it.”

“Really?” He looked skeptical.

“If you’ve ever zoned out while driving, when you’re daydreaming, or been so caught up in a book or movie you blocked everything else out, that’s a hypnotic state.”

Mason looked slightly surprised. “So if that’s happened, then odds are you can be hypnotized.”

I nodded.

He smiled at me then, a real smile that made the edges of his eyelids crinkle. “Then I’m a great candidate. Let’s hypnotize me. Show me what you’ve got, Sinclair.”

Mason hadn’t called me by just my last name since high school. Again, I was melting and felt powerless to resist. Where was that steel backbone of mine? “There isn’t enough time. When I have a new client, I do an introductory session where we talk about how hypnosis works and what the client wants to change, and then we set up a hypnosis session for later.”

“If you check your schedule, I’m your eleven o’clock appointment, too. We have plenty of time.”

In disbelief, I picked up my phone and pulled up the app with my schedule on it. A Felix Morrison had signed up for the ten o’clock session, and Johnny Diamond at eleven o’clock. I felt really stupid. Those were names of characters from the TV show that Mason and I used to watch together,Late for Class.

We used to sit too close to each other, our hands nearly touching, our shoulders occasionally brushing. I used to read volumesinto our interactions, even though Mason hadn’t been writing a single word.

I looked up at him, that intense flame still burning in his eyes. This had to stop. I couldn’t revert back to my teenage self, and I most definitely could not get caught up in Mason’s charm.

It sounded like the best idea was to do what he asked. I knew how persistent he could be when he wanted something.

Shame he never wanted me,some part of me sighed, and I dismissed it.

It was easier to go along with it and give him what he asked for. Then he could go away and I would no longer have to think about him, or try to figure out what cologne he was wearing because it smelled really, really good, or contemplate the five-o’clock shadow that lined his sharp jaw, how it was the same caramel-and-light-brown color as his hair but had flecks of red thrown in, and wonder what it would be like if he kissed me, how that scruff would rub against my skin, and I literally gasped, shocking myself out of that daydream.

It didn’t help things that Mason was staring at me like he knew exactly what I’d been imagining.

His heated gaze dropped down to my lips, and they burned in response.

“Why?” The word was strangled, and I had to clear my throat. “Tell me why, and I’ll do it.”

At that, he leaned back slightly, breaking the physical spell he was weaving between us. “Let’s just say that I’m writing an article about hypnotists and thought you’d be a good place to start.”

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