Embrace the Heat (6 page)

yes

Then he replied.

haha I win.

Layla smiled and shook her head before
replying.

you are the bigger pervert.

Simon’s reply came back after long enough
that she thought he was done.

u saved peter’s life.

That was true, and she was feeling pretty
proud of herself.

Just doing my job.

Simon replied.

u do it well. Sweet dreams, Pixie.

Layla set the phone on the bedside table, and
part of her toyed with the idea of turning it off to make Simon
react. That crazy part of her that had asked Simon if he would
spank her wanted to test him.

With a sigh, she set the phone down and
fought the evil voice in her head. The reason for leaving her phone
on was not about making Simon happy. This was about communication
and safety. She wasn’t going to play games when it came to doing
her job.

She also wasn’t going to tempt Simon into
doing anything that would make her want him more. Then she had to
wonder if it was even possible to want Simon more than she already
did.

Simon woke up in a panic. He was buried under
arms, legs, and warm bodies. It took him several minutes to calm
his racing heart and remember where he was. With the early morning
light peaking through the blinds, he could make out the forms of
the wood nymphs wrapped around him.

What a mess! It had been more than a month
since he’d ended things with Narissa, and just over a week since
he’d refused to let her back into his bed. The previous night had
been a mistake of monumental proportions.

In the beginning, he’d been more than happy
with Narissa’s interest. At the time he’d been a little in love
with Connor’s wood nymph mate, Raven. Using the word ‘mate’ still
felt weird, but wood nymphs didn’t marry, they mated. He’d hoped
Narissa would be like Raven. She wasn’t. Narissa was selfish and
spiteful. The nymph was also determined to have Simon as her mate.
She wanted his baby, and the fact that he insisted on using
protection each time they had sex enraged her.

Finally, he’d just gotten tired of her
attitude. No sex was good enough to put up with the games Narissa
played. Besides, he was being a douche bag himself. Whenever he was
with Narissa, he was picturing another woman. His mind constantly
wandered to a woman he would never be with. That was something he’d
never told Narissa. While he’d told her it wasn’t going to work,
he’d never admitted to pining away for a little blonde pixie with a
smart mouth. Part of that was his fear that Narissa would start
trouble with Layla. The other part was that expressing his feelings
out loud made them too real.

With all of that in mind, he felt like an
idiot. When he’d been called to the gate because of Narissa’s
arrival, Simon had every intention of turning her away. Then he’d
noticed the other nymph with her, and something about the petite
little blonde had called to him. Who was he kidding? Simon knew why
the petite blonde had attracted him. This had also been a
frustrating week, so he was more than a little horny. All of that
added up to him being a complete dick.

Simon tried to extract himself from the
nymphs surrounding him. He wanted to shower and dress. Most of all,
he wanted to get away from the women in his bed.

“Mmmmmmm,” moaned Narissa as she dug her
claws into his thigh. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Get your hand off of me,” he practically
snapped at her.

The other nymph, Echo flinched and scooted to
the far edge of the bed. Simon felt bad about being rude to her.
Echo seemed like a nice nymph, nothing at all like Narissa. Still,
he didn’t want them in his house. He’d screwed up. This time he
really needed to stop thinking with his dick and be clear with
Narissa.

“Listen, I have work to do,” he said. “While
Connor is away, I’m in charge, and I need to get ready now.”

“Poor baby,” Narissa crooned. “We’ll just
wait here so we can comfort you when you get back.”

There was no denying Narissa’s charms. She
was sexy with long blonde hair that ended at her shapely ass. Her
exotic moss green eyes were ringed with a lighter shade of green.
Her breasts were more than a handful and responsive. That was one
thing about wood nymphs, they were very sexual creatures.

When she reached out to touch him, Simon
grabbed her hand roughly. “No! I’m done with this, Narissa. Last
night was a huge mistake, and it won’t happen again. Find another
man. There are plenty of vampires here who would love to take you
up on what you’re offering, but we are never going to be together.
I’m not going to give you children.”

Narissa’s lovely face turned an ugly shade of
red as she glared at him.

“I’m sorry about barging in on you,” Echo
said quietly. “I enjoyed our night together.”

Now Simon felt like even more of a jerk. “I’m
sorry about being so rude. I have a history with Narissa, but I
shouldn’t take that out on you.”

Echo gave him a shy smile. “No need to
apologize. It was obvious from the beginning that I remind you of
someone you want more. I really did enjoy last night and don’t
expect more from you.”

“You should expect me to be polite,” he said.
“You’ve been nothing but kind.”

Her soft laughter drifted around the room.
“Stop worrying. I only came here for sex, and I’m quite
satisfied.”

“I’ll walk you to the gate after I get
ready,” he said.

“Do we really have to wear clothing when we
leave here?” Echo asked.

“I’m afraid so,” he said with a smile.
“There’s a bathroom downstairs with a shower. The towels are clean.
I don’t have much in the kitchen other than juice.”

“Thank you,” Echo said as she headed out of
the room and down the hallway.

Narissa was still glaring at him. “This isn’t
over.”

“Yes, it is,” he said with a weary sigh. “I’m
sorry about last night. It was wrong to let you in here. I’m also
sorry for being such an ass this morning. We just aren’t right for
each other.”

“Your body knows we belong together,” she
said in a nasty tone. “Don’t bother trying to fight it. I’ll give
you a couple of days to think about how good last night was, and
then I’ll be back.”

“I’m done,” Simon said firmly “This won’t
happen again.”

“One way or another, I will own you,” Narissa
hissed and then stormed out of the room.

Layla was irritable again. She’d been this
way for the last week, and each day things got worse. The
irritability probably had something to do with her birthday. Her
twenty seventh birthday was coming up, and her mom had been
that age when she’d disappeared. While Layla was the first to admit
that her mom had been a pretty crappy mother, the woman had still
been her mom. Thanks to Raven, Layla was able to grieve that loss
instead of trying to deny her feelings or get caught up in anger.
That is until this year.

After some thought, she realized that it
couldn’t be about her mom. Layla hadn’t even started thinking about
her mom until she’d started trying to explain her own bitchiness.
Plus, it certainly wouldn’t explain the other things going on.

For whatever reason, Layla was angry most of
the time. She wished Raven was around to help improve her mood.
Unfortunately, Raven was caught up in vampire politics in
Fangri La at the moment, and Layla was doing her best to avoid
reaching out to Raven because she knew these trips were stressful
enough already.

It was hard to avoid snapping at everyone
around her. Worse than that, she was horny all the time. In all
honesty, she’d never really had much interest in sex before. It had
been over a year and she hadn’t been missing it. Honestly, sex had
never been that good. Now she had recurring sex dreams about a
vampire. Not just any vampire, the one who had saved her life and
now acted like she was an annoying little sister most of the time.
To add to her problems, she suddenly found it impossible to bring
herself to orgasm. That had never been a problem. Now she woke up
craving a man she could never have and aching with her own
arousal.

Speak of the devil! Layla watched Simon walk
toward the gate with two scantily clad wood nymphs. One she
recognized. Narissa was a real bitch on her best days, but the
nymph’s nasty disposition obviously didn’t bother Simon.
Apparently, Simon had changed his mind about ending things with
Narissa.

Layla ducked her head, hoping they wouldn’t
notice her and walked toward the training center.

“Wait up, Layla!”

Layla smiled at the sound of Mitchell’s
voice. Seriously, he followed her and her team around like a puppy
some days. He was a very rare breed of turned vampire. While most
were undead, Mitchell was more like the born vampires, in that his
heart still beat. Of course, that could change if he ever went
without blood long enough. Mitchell was an outsider in many ways,
just like her and her friends.

When Layla had first met Mitchell, he’d been
skinny and his brown eyes had been weary of everyone except Ian.
Now, he’d filled out quite a bit. He was more than half a foot
taller than her and growing into a handsome man. Mitchell didn’t
remember a lot from before the change. He remembered his family and
being taken by humans for experiments. His age was a mystery, but
they all guessed he was around sixteen. Next week he’d be starting
school, and hopefully that would make him feel more involved.
Mitchell needed friends his own age.

He inhaled deeply when he got close to her.
“You smell different,” he said with a frown.

The vampires and their heightened sense of
smell had taken getting used to. When one of them said something
like that, it still weirded her out. It was rare, but Mitchell
didn’t really have an internal filter most days. At first, she’d
thought it was something specific to Mitchell. Then she’d met other
adolescent vampires and discovered that they all suffered from foot
in mouth syndrome.

“I have a new soap,” she admitted. It had
been one that she picked up when she was grabbing supplies over a
week ago and just tried today. The smell was a little too girly for
her tastes, but there hadn’t been many options that day. Actually,
she thought she’d done a pretty good job of rinsing the smell off
of her body.

He shook his head. “It’s you, not the soap.”
Then he blushed. “Sorry, that was really rude. Ian says I need to
think about everything more before I start talking. He says I
offend people when I comment on the way they smell.”

Layla reached out and gave his hand a
squeeze. “Don’t worry, Mitchell. We’re friends so you can tell me
when I stink.”

“Oh, you don’t stink,” he said quickly. “You
just smell . . . . disturbing. I feel really
strange around you right now.”

Layla let out an uncomfortable bark of
laughter. “I think I’d prefer to stink.”

Mitchell blushed. “Sorry.”

“Stop saying that! Where are you off to?” At
least the only vampires she’d be around today were old enough to
avoid complaining about the way she smelled.

He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll watch the training,”
he said. “Not much else to do. Ian is on patrol all day.”

“I’m sure that would be fine,” she said. “I
don’t know who’s in charge.” It still pissed her off that a vampire
was always put in charge of their training. Even when Raven was
around, Connor insisted that a vampire be involved. Connor or Rand
were usually in charge of training, so it wasn’t too annoying. It
might bother her more if Connor wasn’t a pain in the ass with his
vampires too. Everyone had a rigid training schedule. If you wanted
to fight or go out alone, you trained on Connor’s schedule. Layla
had no idea how Raven put up with him.

They entered the training center, which was a
very large gym. There were three levels of work out areas and
meeting rooms in the building. Today they were on the third floor
in one of the sparring rooms.

Layla was relieved to see Rand in charge of
training. She liked Rand. He was probably three times her size but
never tried to make her feel weak. She also really liked Rand’s
wife, Norah. Norah had really helped Layla adjust to life in the
vampire settlement. Having grown up believing that all vampires
were evil, it had taken a lot to adjust to her new home. After six
months, she was still having a hard time with some of the changes,
but she’d made several vampire friends.

Rand inhaled deeply when she walked into the
room, and his brow furrowed. “Good morning, Layla. How are you
today?” There was a strange quality to his voice which led her to
the conclusion that he wasn’t happy with the way she smelled
either.

“Well, apparently I stink today,” she
grumbled.

Danny walked over and sniffed her. “You’ve
just got the same old Layla stink as far as I can tell.”

She punched him lightly in the belly and
laughed when he moaned liked he’d been stabbed.

“It might be best if you didn’t spend too
much time around the other vampires until we figure out what’s
causing the new smell,” Rand suggested.

“So, I
do
stink,” she said.

“It’s just . . .” Rand
struggled to find the right word.

“Disturbing,” Mitchell suggested.

“Yes,” Rand agreed with a nod. “That word
will do as well as any other.”

“Great,” Layla muttered under her breath. “My
life wasn’t weird enough without having a disturbing smell. Can we
just get on with training so I can go home and shower again? It’s
got to be this new girly soap I used today.” Thankfully she’d found
another bar of her old soap in the back of the cupboard after
showering. This was the last day she smelled like a flower
garden.

“We’re waiting on Simon,” Rand explained.

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to be too tired
to train today,” Layla said quietly. Of course, vampires also had
great hearing so all three of the ones around her heard what she
said, including Simon who had just walked into the training
room.