Fire Me Up (9 page)

Jim snorted on the bed of blankets I'd made it next to the
open window. "Like that's worked in the past."

"I haven't been this pissed before," I answered, clutching
both the dragon talisman and the amulet which two attempted thefts had left me
deciding was safer around my neck where no one knew where it was. "He'd just
better watch out. I'm not in a mood where I want any man in my bed, especially a
sexed-up stud."

I woke up two hours later to find a man in my bed, murmuring
sexed-up studly sweet nothings in my ear.

"Dammit, Drake, you just can't take no for an answer, can
you?" I mumbled groggily as I struggled to extricate myself from both the sheets
that had twisted around my legs and the embrace of the man who leaned over me. I
was about to punch him where I knew it would really hurt when something filtered
through my sleepy anger. This man didn't smell right. I knew Drake's part
woodsy, part spicy scent, and this wasn't it. Which meant. .. "Jiiiiiiii-iim!
Rape! Help! Demon, I command thee to attack this man and rip his balls right off
and—"

"That's not a man, Aisling."

Jim's voice, also sleepy, came from the other side of the
bed. The man rolled off me as I freed a hand and clicked on the bedside lamp. I
looked at him. He was a stranger, a nice-looking man with aubum hair and a cleft
in his chin, but still, a stranger. A naked stranger. A naked, aroused stranger.
In bed with me.

The man smiled as he stretched. All of him.

"Uh ... Jim, I may not have been around a lot, but I know a
naked man when I see one, and I'm seeing one. Just who the hel... Abaddon are
you, and what the devil do you think you're doing here?" The last question was
addressed to the naked man. His smile wasn't the only thing that got bigger as I
clutched the sheet to my chest and scooted over to the edge of the bed, wishing
like the dickens that international security regulations hadn't required me to
leave my pepper spray at home,

"My name is Piotr. I am here to pleasure you."

I stared at the man. "I beg your pardon?"

"I am here to pleasure you. I will bring you many delights if
you allow me."

Oh, great. I had a Slavic gigolo in my bed. I glanced at the
clock. It was only 02:14 P.M. Could this day possibly get any worse?

"Don't believe it, Aisling. That's not a man. Doesn't smell
like one."

I made a tentative sniff in Piotr's direction. Jim was right.
He didn't smell like any man I'd ever met. He smelted smoky, as if he'd been
standing around a bonfire. "Look, I don't know you, and I don't want you in my
bed, and I certainly don't want you giving me any delights, so why don't you
just get the many expletives deleted out of here and don't ever come back!"

Piotr drew a finger down my uninjured arm. "I will bring you
the most erotic pleasure you have ever known, Aisling."

I jumped out of the bed, taking the sheet with me. "Right.
That's it. You have three seconds to get the hell out of here, and then I'm
calling hotel security. One!"

Piotr stood up slowly, allowing me to get a good long look at
his attributes. Which, I had to admit, were worth admiring.

"Two!"

He smiled again and spread his hands wide in a gesture of
obedience, "If you wish for me, all you need do is call."

I wrapped the sheet more securely around me, marched over to
the door, and flung it open. "Three!" I shouted as I pointed out the door.

Piotr was gone.

I stood openmouthed by the door for a few seconds, then closed both before spinning around to face Jim.

"Where'd he go?"He made a thoughtful face. "Disappeared in a puff of smoke."

"He what?"

"Disappeared in a puff of smoke. You know, kind of like that
Barbara Eden babe on 
Dream of Jeannie
, only without the blond wig
and wiggle hips."

I didn't believe Jim. Men—naked, aroused men— didn't just
appear and disappear in a cloud of smoke. I searched the room, examining the
side of the hotel immediately outside my open window (no ledge and a
twelve-floor drop to the glass ceiling of one of the thermal pools) before
finally conceding that maybe Jim was right after all.

"OK, so what sort of creature appears and disappears on
smoke?" I asked the demon as we settled down in our respective beds.

"Lots. You're not asking the right question."

I peered over the edge of the bed to where Jim was flaked out
on its blankies. "You know, you could just volunteer the information for once. I
could do with a lot less aggravation in my life right now."

"I told you before, that's against the demon-demon lord
rules. You have to ask the right question in order for me to answer."

I sighed and lay back down on the bed, irritably readjusting
the sheets so they weren't twisted around me. Although my nightwear was not
heavy—a pair of thin cotton sleeping shorts and tank top—I was hot and sweaty
lying in bed, the air-conditioning unit having been deemed earlier in the
evening more or less worthless. There was more of a breeze coming in from the
open window than I had with the AC cranked up high. "I hate demon rules. You
know that, right?"

"Yup."

"Good. So. What sort of a being shows up naked and wanting to
play bed games and later disappears without a sign?"

"Would that be a male or a female being?"

I slapped both hands on the bed. "For heaven's sake, Jim—"

"Incubus or succubus, depending on the gender. Incubi are
men, succubi are women. Unless you're gay, and then they're vice versa. I think.
I'm not too sure. I haven't had a chat with a succubus in a long time, so I'm
not hip with where they all are on the alternative-life style issues."

"Incubus?" I sat up and stared at the demon. "Incubus? The
... the ..." My hands waved wildly as I tried to think of a description of an
incubus.

'The nudie boy toy spirits who come to women in the night and
want to jump their bones? Yes. That sort of incubus."

"But they aren't real!" I sputtered, finally able to
articulate again. "They're just a myth, aren't they?"

Jim shot me a knowing look. "Kind of like dragons and
ghosts?"

I slumped against the headboard. "Good point. Incubus. I've
never seen one before. It wasn't quite what I expected. He looked perfectly
normal, and he certainly felt real."

"He was real, at least in that form he was. Incubi are dream
lovers. They can turn to smoke, entering a room through the tiniest crack, then
take a more substantial form. I've heard that some of them, the really old ones,
can carry their mortal lovers away with them. A couple hundred years ago in the
north of Italy, there was a rumor going around that women were being spirited
off on clouds of dense smoke, never to be seen again."

"Good lord! What on earth did this one want with me?"

Jim sniggered.

"Get your mind out of the gutter. I know what he wanted. He
almost put my eye out with his manly bits. I meant why me? I’ve never had an
incubus visit me before. Do they hang around hotels and stuff?"

"Not that I know of."

"Huh." I mused on the question of why a spirit bent on
engaging in sexual relations would pay me a visit, toyed with the idea that I
was suddenly irresistible to men, but sadly discounted that theory. No one but
the male wyverns seemed to find me anything but barely interesting, and that was
because I evidently had some sort of genetic wyvern mate marker that made me
look like hot stuff to them.

Some of them. Mostly just Drake, Although Gabriel seemed to
like me ...

Despite the jet lag, it took me an hour to fall asleep again,
even with the bedside lamp on to keep the monsters away. To my surprise, Drake
didn't visit me in my dreams, as I had half hoped, half feared he would, but I
did have one of the most erotic dreams of my life. It started with my dream
version of Drake licking my ankles, slowly working his way up my legs to my
thighs. Just as he gently parted my legs, I woke up.

To find it wasn't a dream after all.

"Gawk!" I squealed, the sight of a man's blond head lounging
around my crotch area more than enough to leave me momentarily without the power
of coherent speech. "What? Get off!"

"I am Gregory. I will bring you—"

I brought both knees up and kicked the man as hard as I could
in his noogies. He grunted and rolled oft' the side of the bed, clutching his
privates. I jumped to my feel right there on the bed and screamed at Jim, the
bed springs squeaking as I did a little dance of fury, "Incubus! Incubus!
Incubus! Jim, I command you to wake up!"

"Who can sleep with all that yelling and squeaking going on?
It's an incubus, Aisling, not a mouse. It's not going to crawl up your leg."

"
That's what you think! Kill it! Or disperse it! Or whatever
you did to make the other one go away."

Jim sighed and shambled over to where the incubus was
struggling to sit up. "Look, buddy, you might as well leave. She's got a
boyfriend already, and given the way they were making the whole house shake the
last time they got it on, I'd say you don't stand a chance with her."

"But I am most talented," the blond night spirit protested in
a heavy German accent. "I am the stallion extraordinary in bed."

I beat him on the head with one of my pillows. "Go away! And
don't come back!"

"You do not want me? You do not crave my body? This is
unheard of! This cannot be!"

"Believe it, stallion boy," Jim said. "She's tough when she
wants to be, so if I were you, I'd take a hike,"

"A knife!" I yelled, still brandishing my pillow. "Jim, I
command you to get me a gelding knife. If this guy wants to be a stallion—"

He dissolved in a flurry of white smoke even before I could
finish the sentence.

"Ha! Victorious again!"

"Yeah," Jim drawled while I remade the bed and fluffed up my
pillows. "Aisling, two; sexy, naked men who just want to give her the pleasure
of a lifetime with no commitment, zero."

"Yeah, but... but... "

Jim cocked an eyebrow. I gave up and plopped down on the bed.
"You're right. I'm crazy."

I woke up two hours later to find the third incubus sucking
on my earlobe.

"Hello," he said, with a roguish grin. I am Teodore, and I'm
here—"

"Right, that's it," I snarled, shoving him aside as I grabbed
my silk bathrobe, pulling it on and tying the belt so tightly it almost cut off
circulation to my lower half. "Come on, Jim."

"Come on? Come on where?" Jim sat up, shaking itself as it
blinked at the incubus, who now rolled around striking seductive poses on my
bed. "Another one? Geez, girl, what perfume are you using?"

I snatched up my purse, throwing open the door. "'We're going
someplace where I can get some sleep without being molested. Demon, follow me."

Jim trailed me as I marched to the elevator, out to the
thankfully empty lobby, across to the night clerk, waited while I asked my
question and paid a large bribe to get an employee to break the hotel's rule
regarding guest information, padded after me as I went back to the elevator, all
without saying a word. I rapped hard on the door to the suite on the fifth
floor.

A tousle-headed Pal opened it up, blinking sleepily at me.

"Morning," I said, pushing past him to enter the suite.
"Which room is Drake's?"

He blinked a couple more times, then pointed to the left.

"Thanks. Jim, you can sleep out here, on the couch."

"Don't pee on anything. Don't eat anything that isn't offered
to you first. Don't hump Istva’s leg. Good night."

I marched over to Drake's bedroom, pausing to look back at
Pal, who still stood by the open door. "Uh ... he's alone, isn't he?"

Pal nodded.

"Good." Head high, I swept open the door, entering Drake's
room with enough noise to alert him to my presence.

"Hello," I told him when he clicked on the light. I ignored
the rush of heat that swept through me at the sight of a sleepy, naked Drake,
forcing myself to not stare at his bare chest, more than a little grateful for
the blankets covering his lower parts. "I'm sleeping with you tonight. Just
sleeping. No sex. No touching. Not even a kiss. My room is infested with
incubi."

He watched me silently as I tossed my silk bathrobe onto a
tapestry armchair before sliding under the blankets on the bed (his air
conditioner, I noticed, was working extremely well). I lay as close to the edge
of the bed as I could to avoid touching him, clutching the blankets over my
chest as I closed my eyes, trying like mad to ignore his heat.

"Incubi?" he finally said, his voice all but rubbing along my
skin.

The mattress dipped. I opened my eyes to find a dark-haired
man leering suggestively at me, "I am Jacob."

"Look behind you," I told him.

"Eh?" His head swiveled as he looked back to see Drake
propped up on one elbow. "Blet!"