Page 17 of Fangs with Benefits

‘Please, Molly?’

‘No.’

I laugh–I can’t help but be startled and a little bit charmed by her complete lack of manners. ‘You’re heartless,’ I tell her, and it makes her eyes sparkle.

‘Well, maybe.’ Molly shrugs, and turns to me fully, her round hip against the counter.

I heave a big breath that only serves to remind me how delightful she smells, distracting me momentarily from my rising distress. If I can’t get this one thing sorted, word might get back to Ryan that I don’t know what I’m doing. It will be like my stint as a bartender last month all over again, where I compelled my manager to believe I was experienced, but found I would have had to compel a whole bar full of patrons if I was to hide the fact that I didn’t know the next thing about mixology.

I’ll be fired, and my nights are too precious to work a job during them. This is the best it’s going to get, which means I need to get better. It’s time for me to take matters into my own hands.

I didn’t want to have to compel Molly, not when she’s done so much for me, but a man can only take so much failure before he breaks, and I am just about there. So, I press my palm against the countertop and dip my head and look her straight in the eyes. The brown of them is a rich colour even with the fluorescents buzzing overhead. Her eyelashes are curled and long, painted black, and her cheeks are a soft pink, growing pinker as I stare at her and say nothing.

‘What?’ she asks quietly.

My eyes betray me, dropping to her plump lips for only a moment, but I know she saw it. Fuck.

I set my jaw and channel all my vampiric power into my words. I can feel magic rising within me, circling around us before directing to the woman in front of me.

‘Please help me with my request.’ As far as compulsion goes, it’s a solid one. I’ve compelled hundreds of humans in my life, though Gregory would say I’ve held back too often. Well, he’d be proud of all the humans I’ve manipulated in the last months since starting this whole charade of re-entering the human world. I ignore the way this thought turns my stomach.

Molly blinks, and I exhale, dropping the glamour from around us, the temperature falling with it. I expect that she’ll head for my office to show me through this VPN conundrum. Instead, a toothy smile takes over her face and Molly… laughs.

‘You are so freaking weird,’ she tells me before turning away from me, mug in hand.

I recoil, nothing about the interaction making sense to me. I did compel her, right? I am certain I did. And my record for success is 100 per cent in this department, but Molly is walking away from me, smiling like she thinks I am just as absurd as she thought I was two minutes ago. It doesn’t make sense.

‘Molly?’ I call, and I can’t help the smile that spreads over my own face.

She turns, staring back at me with a wry expression. Christ, she’s perfect, I think. And immune to my compulsions.

‘What?’

‘Tell me how to install the VPN,’ I command with the full force of my compulsion behind it.

Molly rolls her eyes. ‘Google it, loser,’ she says before walking out of the kitchen.

I call to her one last time and she lets out an exaggerated sigh before turning back and waving her hand for me to get on with it.

‘Thank you for your help this week,’ I say, and I mean it. I would swear her face softens for a millisecond before she shakes her head.

‘Try again Monday.’

I’m left alone in the quiet. The ice maker to my left drops a new tray into the bucket and the sound of Molly’s shoes on the floor dissolves as she walks away from the kitchen, away from my useless commands.

I’ve never heard of such a thing as this. Never have I met a human that I couldn’t beguile with my magic. Just to ensure I haven’t done something wrong, I go to Ryan’s office and repeat the request to him. He complies immediately, as easily compelled as he was in my interview.

When all is said and done, I sit in my office and stare blankly out the door where, as Molly said, everyone pretends to work for the last hours of their work week. Devi and Molly mutter to each other about their weekend plans at Molly’s desk, both smiling. Molly’s face lights up when she smiles that way.

Molly, who wasn’t even a little bit compelled to help me. She hasn’t even looked my way.

Oh, my family would be furious and completely beside themselves to hear this.

I giggle to myself–I can’t help it.

Molly, my Molly, is immune to vampires.

Instead of going to Dylan’s flat after work, I walk the few blocks to his building and use the mobile phone he gave me to call his. He answers on the third ring.