She wasn't using him.

In truth, she actually lacked the emotional capacity for such a feat, not to mention experience and talent and guts, so what she was essentially doing could actually be described and perceived as a logical and clever use of resources to help a woman in need, Kikyou. Yes.

So why did it feel like she was using him?

…

The Law of the Universe

Chapter 3 – A hunch

….

Mere eye contact had never been so empowering.

Shivering in a way she never had before, her whole body partaking in the action, Kagome moistened her lips and parted them, about to say something and break the already awkward silence, but the handsome man in front of her beat her to it.

Throwing a grand smirk her way, Inuyasha molested the girl's sanity with his intense gaze as his voice caressed her ears like a skillful lover. Jesus Christ, he was already channeling her inner Aphrodite, and she hadn't even known she would ever want to be sinfully wanton. He was so familiar just standing there, talking to her, that she couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. It was kind of ironic – she, a renowned ESP weirdo, completely bedazzled by something as common as this man entering her dream and altering her reading.

Wait, he was talking.

"-know if you're going to believe me or not, frankly I'm just kinda hoping you won't slap me, but I have a... strange confession to make."

Swallowing thick liquid, Kagome barely registered his body stepping further into her personal space, invading every part of her senses. Now her mental alarm bells had the good grace to throw a 100+ decibels party inside her mind, successfully shutting down all reason. The fact that he was oozing pure sexiness didn't help much, either. Neither did the occasional flashbacks of their intimate, naked time together, unreal as it was.

"Go ahead," she said, her voice sounding surprisingly confident given the circumstances, but she had, after all, learned to disguise whatever was fazing her.

"I had this dream not long ago," he started and she blinked slowly, already knowing where this was going. Cogs were turning along her neural pathways as she nodded mutely, trying to concoct an answer beforehand. Smiling minutely, she listened to him tell her, "As much as I'd like to cushion this, it's gonna come off weird anyway, so here we go. The dream was a wet dream."

He paused to gauge her reaction, and perplexed to find none whatsoever he continued, "It involved you. And me."

After his confession, the girl looked at him with a thoughtful gaze for a while before deciding to finally give a reaction. In that time, countless thoughts revolved around his head, most of them curious about her lack of shock. Her mind was not more peaceful than his, though. A feeling of wrongness scratched at her skin even before she lied like she was going to, but she couldn't just let him think she'd seen him naked in a dream. If she wanted to learn the real reason behind his disturbance of her reading, she had to play Miss I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about and find out, from him, the details of said dream. Disguising the deep breath she took, Kagome bluffed,

"That has got to be the most inappropriate pickup line ever. Are you by chance a Professor here?"

"What?" He furrowed his brows, confused at how she'd moved from one subject to another, honestly not having expect this reaction. "Yeah, I teach Anatomy, but I don't see how-"

"Well, Professor... Takahashi, was it? That is no way to hit on a girl. If I were a student here I would report you right away. But I'm not, so," she pushed passed him slyly, surprised at her own cunning, whispering, "goodbye."

Unwilling to accept such a disappointing outcome, the young Professor seized her wrist as she passed him by, effectively turning her around, making her collide with his chest, their faces inches apart. Both of them purposefully ignored the tiny sizzles that erupted where their skin made contact as they grew more and more aware of their breaths intermingling and their lips getting closer inch by inch.

The young man sighed, suddenly looking spent.

"Hear me out, will you?" he more or less pleaded, eyes searching into hers for some sort of understanding. Miroku would have a field day after all this was over, with how pathetic he surely looked now.

"Hm," she conceded, pulling away from him to cross her arms over her chest. "But that doesn't mean I'll believe a word you say."

"Okay, I can deal with that," he nodded and Kagome mentally cheered, thanking Kaede's repeated advice and deep insight on human psychology.

'Right in the palm – no. I'm not using him. Am I?'

"What do you think he's doing?" the tall woman squinted to asses the situation better. Miroku's friend had grabbed her friend's wrist when the young girl had walked away from him, and Sango couldn't be more puzzled.

"Um," Miroku started, desperately trying to come up with an answer that didn't involve dreams, sex, and those two who were almost nose to nose a few feet in front of them. In reality, he was as surprised as Miss Houko witnessing Inuyasha's attitude. His pal seemed desperate to keep that girl there, to convince her of the truth in his words. "Maybe they know each other," was the best he could come up with.

"Hmm..." Tilting her head to the side, Sango pondered for a moment before nodding. "I think I should go give Kagome a hand."

Just as she was about to start walking in the twosome's direction, Miroku grabbed her shoulder, intent on stopping her.

And thank God for that, too, he thought, noticing Inuyasha's creased brow. Impulse sure was underrated.

He took a deep, preparatory breath, mostly to stall a bit so he could put his thoughts in order. He had no idea how to convince this woman – no, more like girl – to give him a chance and at least get to know him. And why did he care, anyway?

Regardless of the reason, he knew he had to know more about her. This kind of thing didn't happen in real life, at least that was what he'd previously thought, but it had happened, to him, and he wasn't about to let this woman go so easily. Girl. She was easily throwing upside down every notion he had about reality.

"Listen, if you're not a student here then this gets really odd. I never believed in such things before – actually, the only things I ever believed in were stem cells, genetics, and biochemical mechanisms of the body, but this is something I can't explain. I do know you from a dream, I swear. I won't get into the details of it, cause that'd be really weird, but I kind of obsessed over you the last couple of days. It just didn't make sense, the way I had your image so clear in my mind."

Kagome sighed, disguising the goosebumps traveling up and down her arms from the intensity of his words.

"You know how dreams are. Maybe you think I look like the woman in your dreams because you want to find her. It can't have been that clear – her image."

"No," he shook his head, squeezing her wrist still in his hand, "it was you. I'm positive. Unless you have a sexy twin," he said with a smirk.

Smiling back, she shook her head. His voice dropped an octave and he stepped closer to her when he said with complete confidence, "Then it's you."

Unconsciously parting her lips, Kagome's hands fell to rest on either side of her body as her eyes connected with his.

A flashing light pierced the hallway then and seconds later a thundering sound startled Kagome so greatly that she jumped towards him and Inuyasha caught her arms, taking advantage of the moment to pull her closer. Immediately, the scent of her perfume invaded his senses, seducing him with vague images of what he knew could happen, and the instant he had her so close to him, they were both struck by a distant memory from the dream.

Lightning struck the sky, but Kagome was too enraptured by his eyes to notice. In the seconds that had passed he'd managed to take off her shirt and bra, so she found herself naked to his gaze now, vulnerable in every sense. The thunder caught up soon after, making her jump in surprise, collide with his bare chest as he caught her, fingers gripping her arms gently. His touch was that of a lover's and his lips were like sin on her fumbling ones, stealing her oxygen and making her moan with passion.

He saw fire in her eyes. His heart beating crazily, Inuyasha realized they really shared something powerful. Squinting suspiciously, he tried to get into her head, smoldering her mind with his gaze – because maybe she'd dreamed of him, too. Maybe she was lying. This was what he thought he saw in her wide orbs now – the same recognition. The same awareness, the kind that brought shivers of the most luxurious type throughout the entire body. The flashback had been so overwhelming that he'd lost it for a second, but so had she.

And he could read the desire in her dilated pupils.

"Let me get to know you?" he asked again, voice tentative.

"Ok," she replied with a squeaky voice, immediately disentangling herself from him and turning around towards her friend and the lecher. A flash of anger erupted inside of him, appalled that she'd leave without much more than a meek word. But it had been weak, as though he'd left her vulnerable. As though he'd dominated her. Somehow, the thought made him want to find some private place urgently. Or better yet - grab her and have his way with her in his office.

"Hey, I don't have your number," he called after her when the two girls passed him by wordlessly. Stopping briefly, she rummaged through her bag and took out what looked like a business card, but instead of giving it to him as it was, she ripped the part with the phone number and walked in his direction, holding it out to him.

He took it somewhat cautiously, studied the number for a second, and when he lifted his gaze she was already gone.

As soon as they were outside the building, Sango snapped, "Ok, what was that?"

Ignoring her friend, Kagome walked ahead without words. Rain started trickling down her bare arms and Sango offered to share her umbrella, but the girl shook her head. She wanted to feel the drops hit her burning sin, hoping it would quench the fire that man had started inside her body. She'd never felt anything like it.

His name was Inuyasha. Inu Yasha.

'God,' Kagome thought, closing her eyes shut for a second. His mere touch had been electrifying, but now she had to put the pieces together. He'd call her, and she'd verify her assumptions. Until then, she thought nothing, she believed nothing, she suspected nothing, she-

"Kagome? You're worrying me. In the whole time that I've known you, you've never spaced out like this."

Turning her head towards her friend, Kagome managed a reassuring smile.

"I'm fine, hon. Seriously. I just... it was a bit awkward when that lightning struck, is all. Let's change the subject, deal?"

"Ok, that was weird," Miroku commented, his reaction far from what Inuyasha had expected. Entering his office, he waited for his friend to do so too, before closing it.

"It was her. There's no mistake about it. Trust me, when I touched her... Jesus, it was like fire. She felt it, too. Her skin got impossibly hotter and her pupils clearly dilated."

"She was scared of the storm, Yash. Didn't you see how she started?"

Grunting and picking up some papers off a low shelf, Inuyasha rounded the desk and sat down. "She started cause she had a flashback. And I'm going to prove it." His eyes went to the papers in his hands, reading avidly.

"What are you reading?" Miroku asked, sitting down himself. It was nice not to be outside, especially with how the wind seemed to be trying to knock down the trees in attempt to disperse the raindrops. "And how are you going to prove it, anyway?"

Lifting his head to lock gazes with the Assistant Professor, Inuyasha leaned back on his chair and threw the papers on the desk in front of his friend. As soon as he started reading the title, Inuyasha went ahead and explained, "It's a study Kikyou gave me. I thought it was bullshit. She has some friends that have been researching ESP cases since... well, since way back, really."

"Whoa – whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. ESP – seriously? So what, are you telling me you're some kind of psychic now? That's going a bit too far, buddy. I hope you know that ESP means pseudoscience, means fake science, means total BS, all right?"

Rolling his eyes, Inuyasha grabbed the papers out of Miroku's hands. "Give those back and gimme a break. I have a feeling this is relevant, ok? Look, I'm not saying it's ESP, I just have this feeling that the dream wasn't something ordinary."

Without waiting for a reply, the young Professor continued reading.

"You can't be serious, Yash. She's friends with Miss Houko, right? So you must've seen her visiting her friend once or twice before and projected her into your dream."

"No," Inuyasha replied simply with a grunt, never taking his eyes off the study.

"Why not? Come on, this is a reasonable explanation. It's very reasonable. Since when do you rather go for the supernatural, Mister There-is-no-such-thing-as-God-and-if-you-think-there-is-then-you're-an-idiot?"

"It's not supernatural. It's paranormal. Which at the moment to me sounds a lot more reasonable than anything else. There's more to our brains than just neurons, glands, and a lot of fat. I'm telling you, Miroku – we shared that dream."

Scrunching his nose, Miroku shrugged. "Whatever, man, you're nuts." Before leaving the room though, something dawned on him.

It was the first time in a long while that Inuyasha had spoken Kikyou's name so casually.

So she'd taken a long bath, had shaved her legs, had went through with her routine of coconut-buttering her skin and dancing to Iyeoka's 'Simply Falling', then writing down the details of her latest dream.

It was 8 p.m. and he hadn't called.

She tried telling herself she didn't care, but she did. Mostly because she had a hunch. No, actually, only partially because of her hunch. Unfortunately, a feeling of uncalled-for guilt enveloped her as she realized she was going to use him.

'No, I'm not!'

Yes, yes she was. If his answer was the one she suspected she might get, she was going to use him.

He still hadn't called.

'Call. Please, call.'

Sighing to herself, Kagome pulled the T-shirt and bra off, throwing them on a nearby chair before remembering she'd left some water boiling for a chamomile tea. Rushing to the kitchen, she quickly turned off the stove, exhaling in relief. Just as she was pouring hot water in the cup, the phone stated ringing. Eyes wide, Kagome rushed back to the living room, grabbing her mobile and answering breathlessly. The moment she heard Inuyasha's silky voice, awareness of her half-nudity crept upon her and she blushed, thanking the Universe that he couldn't see her right now. Grabbing the closest shirt, she threw it over her head, ignoring the man for a moment.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I just wanted to apologize for my bluntness the other day. It's just, I was very... surprised," excited, he'd meant to say. Thrilled. Very fucking horny. Absolutely entranced.

"Uh-huh," she said simply, realizing that now that he'd called, she had nothing to say to him. She'd envisioned this whole conversation, some sort of game, but words seemed to be eluding her now. "So... what's that about the dream?" she asked, ignoring the shudder creeping between her shoulder blades and making her skin tingle pleasantly.

On the other side of the phone line, Inuyasha smirked in remembrance, letting himself fall flat against the bed, closing his eyes and breathing smoothly into the receiver, "It was hot. You were hot. We were having sex, and there was some storm outside. Lightning flashing right outside the window. You jumped into my arms, just like yesterday."

"Okay, weirdo, that sure is some dream. Are you sure this isn't some horrible pick up line? If it is, you're doing a terrible job." Silently, Kagome smirked knowingly. She was so on top of the situation. But if she hadn't had the dream herself, she realized, she would've hung up on him in two seconds flat at his audacious words. She would've blushed hotly, too.

"How old are you?" he asked out of the blue.

"Seventeen."

"I could have sworn," he mumbled under his breath. "See? No offense, but despite how gorgeous you are, you're still jail bait, so don't assume I'd be taking this risk with just about any good looking girl that crosses my path."

Speechless and somewhat annoyed for some reason – because Kagome rarely ever let people get to her – she grunted. "So I'm special, huh? That's what they all say, I bet."

Chuckling in a way that reminded her of another scene, one with him making the same sound, but licking her in all sorts of sensitive places at the same time, Inuyasha said, "Why do I get the impression that you're deflecting me? Tell you what - we need to meet some time. Lunch or something, what do you say?"

"Hmm," she said pensively, finally ready to introduce the question that would either clear up the whole thing or make it even weirder. "Have you ever had a stable girlfriend? Wife, perhaps?"

"Why?" he snapped. "I don't seem the type to stay faithful?"

Smiling at his defensive reply, Kagome mentally cheered. "What was her name?"

There was a pause, in which Kagome thought he would hang up on her for being so damn nosy, but much to her surprise he answered almost quietly, "Kikyou."

That was it. It couldn't be a coincidence. It simply could not. The explanation ran so clearly through her mind, but dammit – she would have preferred a different answer. Any other answer. And any other type of inflection in his voice – not weak and defeated, as though the woman, her client, had hurt him deeply.

"Listen, Inuyasha, I gotta go. I'll get back to you on that date, yeah?"

"Uh-"

"Byeee," she said into the receiver before hanging up. Only afterwards did she realize her slip of the tongue.

"Shit," she cursed aloud, "did I say date?"

A/N: Thank you all, again, for the wonderful reviews. You're amazing :)