MELTING HER MIND: An Erotic Hypnosis Mind Control Brainwashing Novella

Chapter 1

Stacey

No matter how hard I tried to forget his words from a year ago, my mind forbid it.

"Enjoy your brain cells this next year, Carmichael. Because the next time we meet, I'm taking them away."

As my rival in every mathlete competition, Archer Bagdley hated to lose to me the year before. We had met as teenagers, competing against each other over the years: me on the U.S. team and Bagdley on the British team. And even now in our mid-twenties, that accent of his...was distracting.

Most mathletes became friends, no matter if they competed against each other. Maybe it was a "nerds stick together" mentality. But Archer had never wanted a friendship with me. The way he looked at me... It was not hatred. Not disgust.

He stared at me with a kind of darkness in his already dark eyes. A hot yet cold darkness that made me shiver whenever I was around him. Whatever was in his eyes was a little bit too intense. A little too possessive.

His dark gaze made me feel things I so did not want to feel.

I was the only one who had a problem with Archer. To everyone else, he was just another wealthy, intense genius who happened to be attractive at the same time. Damn him. His mouth made me forget my multiplication tables. Being around him made me feel a little bit...dumb.

"Enjoy your brain cells this next year, Carmichael. Because the next time we meet, I'm taking them away." The memory of his past words shot through me once more.

I was about to see the handsome, intense man for the first time in a year at this competition. We would be sleeping in the same hotel for ten days while prepping and competing.

I wanted to avoid him at all costs.

"Why are you so tense?" my friend Rob asked from beside me at the long table. Several of the other professional mathletes from other regions who we had made lasting friendships with sat around us at the nice hotel restaurant.

I feigned a half shrug. "I am not tense."

"You're so tense, if I throw my ice water into your lap, you might actually relax."

"That makes no sense," I said, defending myself, but the truth was: I was extremely tense.

Because I kept glancing at the restaurant entrance.

Because I awaited seeing Archer Badgley for the first time since he said he would "take" my brain cells. I mean, what did that even mean?

And then he appeared. Like some kind of dark phantom, Archer Badgley glided into the sophisticated restaurant, striding with a confidence that suggested he knew he was the smartest person in the room. A confidence that said, "Try to maintain eye contact with me without melting to the floor and stuttering over your every word. I dare you." Maybe that was how he planned on taking my brain cells. Through his sheer sexual animal magnetism?

I quickly shook my head, my short black hair waving around because I had left it down tonight instead of putting it into a tight ponytail like normal. Damn it, had I been compelled to leave my hair down because I thought Archer might prefer it that way? You're being dumb again, Stacey.

His expensive shoes clacked against the floor as he approached our table. He glowed in the dim lighting like some kind of deity. A small smirk stretched over his lips as he glanced at me. His gaze never strayed from my face as he walked.

Sweat agitated the back of my neck. Another reason I should have worn my hair up.

"Why, if it isn't little Stacey Carmichael." Archer's British accent hit me like a wall of sexual bricks. My body quivered against my will. "I've missed you," he said.