Passion For Hire (Passion #5)
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Passion
For Hire
Book 5 in the Passion Series
By J.A Melville
Acknowledgements
I have so many people I need to thank for having faith in me despite me being plagued with insecurities at times.
To the lady who first asked me to start writing I thank my friend who is like my sister, Andrea. I thank Lorraine for always having faith in my abilities as a writer, even when I doubted myself. I can’t forget Sharon too for her encouragement and for providing me with things to laugh about when I was taking it all too seriously.
I want to thank Danielle, Debbie, Karen, Mary and Katherine who read my books long before publishing and who keep me on the straight and narrow. To my wonderful friends and PR ladies Tracy and Jess, the ladies from Sweet N Sassy Book A Holics and SNS Authors who have had to endure my endless questions given my painfully inadequate computer skills, I give a heartfelt thank you.
I also want to give a special thank you to Tasha; who has been incredibly supportive.
To the ladies from Controlled who provide hours of distractions for me and who keep me entertained when I’m supposed to be writing I say thank you.
I give special thanks to one of my closest friends, Rachael who puts up with my constant Facebook messages. Not only is she there every day despite us living at opposite ends of the planet, she happens to be a very talented author.
Thank you to all the ladies who have been there since book one; you help me far more than you will ever probably realise.
Thank you too, to the new friends and wonderful bloggers I’ve met recently, who have kindly taken it upon themselves to promote me.
I have to give thanks to another lady, a very special lady who is determined to make it so more people know of me and who very kindly took the time to make my website for me. I can’t thank you enough Lori.
I need to give special thanks to Melly, aka Ravannah, for being my fuck but seeking friend. She hunts down my fuck buts and points them out to me. Thank you so much for drawing my attention to something I had no idea I was doing. (It’s a private joke, if you’re wondering what that’s all about.)
Thank you to a new friend in my life who has been an amazing support to me, Corie, thank you so much.
Then of course, I want to thank my partner Roger and our three children, Bianca, Jesse and Reilly who have had to suffer through hastily constructed meals, a less than tidy home, my vague behaviour and me seemingly always having my head buried in my laptop. I'm sure they have found me frustrating on more than one occasion and I've no doubt they got sick of talking to the top of my head.
An extra special big thank you to my daughter Bianca who designed the cover for this book since she knows her mother is technologically challenged.
I can't write this without thanking all my English teachers from back in my school days many moons ago who always told me I should consider a career in writing when I grew up. Well, it might have taken me awhile, but I finally did as you all suggested, thank you. All of those people who have been there throughout my short writing career and never let me give up, I say THANK YOU.
About the Author
From my teenage years, all I wanted to do was become a writer one day. Even now as an adult woman with a partner and three children who are not so little anymore, I've always lived with my head in the clouds, a dreamer, often amusing myself with my own imagination.
It might have taken me awhile to finally live my dream, but I did it. I hope to one day be good enough to stand beside the many talented writers out there who have kept me entertained with their wonderful stories over the years.
I live in a sleepy country town in Tasmania, Australia with my partner and three children plus our 4 cats, dog and cattle.
I've had to overcome many emotional obstacles along the way to get to this point and attempting to self-publish a book does tend to make a person feel like they've thrown themselves in at the deep end of the pool. Here's hoping some of you actually like what I write and save me from drowning in the deep end as I probably forgot to mention, I can't swim.
J. A Melville.
© Copyright J. A Melville. 2nd edition September 2015.
Do the right thing, don’t download pirated books.
Authors deserve to get paid for their hard work as much as anyone else.
No parts of this book can be copied unless permission is given by the author for quotes to be used for reviews etc.
This book is fiction. The characters are fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
This book is the work of the writer's imagination.
Cover photo used under license from Shutterstock.com.
Cover image designed for the author by Bianca Eberle.
Chapter One
Faith
I always remember thinking when my mother died, that I had lost the only person in my life that would ever love me and care about me. I had a father I discovered. Well, he discovered me, but he was not a nice man and I’d already had enough sketchy details from my mother over the years to work that one out anyway.
They say in life everything happens for a reason and I’m a huge believer of that. I think of our life’s journey as pavers; one beside the other over and over, all working towards a final goal, that path that represents our life.
Of course for some like me, it is possible to get a glimpse of what is coming in life. It doesn’t have to mean that what I see for the future is the path that has to be taken, but it’s a guide. Whether at the end I choose to stay on that path or venture off it, therefore altering my future is entirely up to me.
For me personally there have been so many pavers, so many paths that have brought me to where I am now.
I’d endured a year of harsh treatment from the man who fathered me but whose contribution as a father had been nothing more than DNA. He had found me simply because he needed me to help him. I blamed him for my mother’s untimely death, and I would have refused him, I’d have wanted nothing to do with him, if he hadn’t said that one word, just one word that changed everything for me…sister.
I had a half sister and suddenly finding her was the most important thing to me. For that reason and that reason alone, I helped my father down the path that I hoped would lead to his ultimate destruction. If the vague flashes of images that flitted through my head, too fast at times to fully decipher them were what I suspected, then my father was on the road to what would be his death.
My dreams, visions, my ability to see what was coming, to foresee the future sometimes had filled my nights with flashes of colour, faces, names, events playing out like short videos and I saw her, my sister, the people around her that weren’t people in the truest sense of the word. Oh, they looked human, but they were not, as she was not, they were all in fact vampire.
She was beautiful, Flame, her name was Flame, and it suited her perfectly with her long mane of curling hair that was a bright red. She was with a gorgeous vampire man and in fact was surrounded by several of them, all stunningly beautiful.
It was the night my father finally decided to confront her that I knew things were about to change forever. We’d seen Flame and her vampire lover Damien up against the side of a car making love and that was the first building block falling into place. Of course having sex in public wasn’t enough to give our father leverage over my sister, it was the flash of fangs and the drinking of blood that did that. My father was delighted that he had something he could use to demand a higher price, the price of his silence.
From that moment when Flame’s mother and our father climbed into the car with the vampires that night, I knew destiny as I’d seen it was being set in motion. Now all I
had to do was find the right time to make my move. I wanted to see my sister; I craved that chance to have family, the one thing I’d been denied when my mother suddenly passed away after a long illness. With a father unwilling to acknowledge me, I’d been forced into years of foster homes until old enough to get out and start making my own life.
I waited for the right time to make my move and meet my sister, not caring that she was vampire. Not caring that I would be walking into a house full of them. It was then that my nights became plagued with him. Endless images of him, my destiny, and the man who would be my future.
He was tall, beautiful although I probably shouldn’t refer to a man as beautiful but he was. His hair was long enough that he often wore it back in a ponytail. It came to just below his shoulders and it was an unusual mix of black with streaks of blonde through it. It looked like he’d had it streaked at the hair salon but something told me that was unlikely given he was vampire. He wasn’t just vampire though; he had other powers although I couldn’t see clearly what they were. I couldn’t quite work out his eye colour either but overall the man was gorgeous, movie star kind of gorgeous. I’d never seen anyone like him before. He had broad shoulders, was muscled but not too heavily so, defined abdominal muscles, that V, that one thing that I heard girls joke about as being the arrow that pointed to that part of him that made him male.
He had tattoos too although I wasn’t sure what they were. My visions were good but not that good. He had long legs, muscled thighs and the whole package was enough to have me waking from my dreams shaking, heart pounding and with a strange throbbing between my legs. Adrian, his name was Adrian and he was mine. He didn’t know that yet and I knew I would have a fight on my hands to prove that to him. He had secrets from his family, a lot of secrets. The main one being what he got up to each night.
There were women, lots and lots of women. Women who wanted a man like him, a man who would give them whatever they wanted and needed for the right price. He was so strong and commanding. The women seemed to want him to control them to overpower them. So many visions I would see women bent over his knees as he spanked them. Sometimes just with his bare hands but often with something that looked a bit like a whip to me but with strips of leather hanging off it. He would tie some up, handcuff some and eventually he would have sex with them. Money would be exchanged and he would do something to them, take some of their blood and leave.
I know he had other secrets, but I couldn’t see much beyond sketchy flashes of him sleeping in a home that was not his parents’ home and there were people there, two or three of them I think, although I’m not entirely sure they were people. I think they were vampires too, but I couldn’t see clearly enough in the flashes that would come to me.
Despite what he did each night I still knew he was to be mine. Why destiny had chosen him for me, I wasn’t sure. It was not going to be easy. He was a complicated man and vampire. Still, I’d seen those moments where I was with him and he would be holding me, kissing me, his hands on me. He would fight it I knew because I was not one of the women he frequented normally. He had women who were experienced, bored housewives most times who wanted that spark in their lives that he could provide. He would not willingly take me for the one simple fact that I was a virgin. Still, it was my destiny that he would be the one to take it, that I gave Adrian my innocence. I just had to make him realise and accept that.
Now here I was with everything that had happened, kneeling before the beautiful man himself. With my sister, our father dead, Flame’s mother dead and surrounded by vampires, finally the building blocks were stacked the way they were meant to be. I was with the man of my dreams, my visions. I was with Adrian…………….
I looked up into his eyes, those beautifully unique eyes. A mix of grey, blue, green but pale, like his father’s. I felt a shiver run up my spine as I stared into them, feeling like they could see into my very soul.
My gaze moved over his face, my heart skipping a beat. Now the initial shock over my declaration that I was his seemed to have worn off, he just looked angry, seriously angry. His beautiful lips, I never knew a man could have beautiful lips were set in a straight line and I could see a muscle ticking in his jaw.
He tried to take a step away from me as our eyes locked but I was still holding him, my arms around his legs. His sudden movement caused me to pitch forward and my eyes ended up in line with the bulge of his penis that I could see through the leather of his black pants. I felt colour rise in my cheeks when he cursed under his breath and looked down again to find my face nearly in his groin.
“For fuck sakes.” He ground out and bent down, pulling me effortlessly to my feet. “What the hell do you want, and why are you here, and what do you mean by saying something like that? You are mine? What the hell? I don’t know you; I’ve never met you so that means you are not mine.” He bent closer to me since he was considerably taller than I was despite me being five foot, nine. “Why are you here in our home?”
I felt my bottom lip begin to tremble at the harshness of his tone. He obviously wasn’t happy to see me but then of course, he was right, he didn’t know me. He didn’t have the benefits of seeing the future to know that we were meant to be together.
“Are you mute? Can you not speak? Well? Have you suddenly been struck with a good case of laryngitis?” His tone oozed sarcasm as he bent over even more until he was right in my face and I stared at him, wide eyed, noticing the flecks of colours through those unusual eyes of his. He had the most incredible lashes too, really long, very thick, wasted on a man.
Under his glare, I started to shake, struggling to draw air into my lungs. Up this close I could smell him and he smelled of some beautiful underlying scent which I suspected was just him but unfortunately it was masked somewhat by the heavier fragrance of a woman’s cheap perfume. Plus there was something else, some other scent, something primitive, carnal, sexual, something that triggered a strange sensation low in my stomach.
“Are you going to answer me?” He asked again before lifting his head to look around the room. “Will someone say something? How come tonight of all nights you’re all silent, even you Francesca.” I watched him shoot an accusing look at the strange, dark haired female vampire.
“This is Flame’s half-sister son. We only found out this evening.” Adrian’s father Fabian answered.
“What, sister? When did this happen? Did you know you had a sister?” He turned on Flame.
“No I didn’t Adrian and stop bitch snapping at me. It’s not my fault that you’ve had a shitty night doing whatever the hell you’ve been doing, and now Faith’s just made the evening that much shittier.” My sister leapt to my defence which made me shoot a grateful smile at her, even if she’d also managed to insult me as well, by implying I’d helped make Adrian’s night worse. Ok, so for him, I probably had.
“Oh I know what he’s been doing.” I interjected. “He’s been with one of his regular cli…” I was suddenly cut off from finishing by Adrian’s large hand slamming down over my mouth effectively stopping me midsentence.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He snapped. “My private fucking life is just that, my private life so shut up. I don’t know why the hell you’ve turned up now, but I get the impression you’re going to be an enormous pain in my ass.”
“I told you who I am silly.” I grinned, despite the anger radiating off him. “I am yours. You and I are destined to be together. I saw it in my dreams.”
I heard feminine laughter and turned to see Francesca bending over laughing uncontrollably. “Oh poor Adrian, she really believes you and her are meant to be together.” She sobered long enough to lock eyes with mine. “You’re making a mistake little girl. Adrian wouldn’t want you. He likes a woman with experience and you’re like the pin up girl for untouched. Have you ever been kissed or seen a man’s cock?” She asked and I blushed which made her laugh again. “Yeah, I thought not. Run along, you’re never going to get him. He’s not the man for you. Ask Flame, ask
your sister what the man you think is your destiny likes. She knows, she’s been fucked by him and apparently he’ll chain you up and even give you a good spanking.” She raised an enquiring eyebrow at me. “Is that what you’d like little girl?”
I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes as Francesca mocked me and I lowered my head, unable to meet her gaze any longer. “I…I…I’m a visionary. I saw all of you and I saw him. I saw what he does, all the women, and the house he…those people...” I stopped when Adrian snapped out just one single word to me.
“Enough.” His hands suddenly dug into my arms. “What do you want from me? You might have seen what you think is your destiny but I’m not it. I’m not the man for you. For starters I’m vampire and you’re human. You need to go find a nice young man to make a new destiny with. You don’t want me and I don’t…” This time he fell silent, the rest of his sentence unspoken.
He didn’t need to finish though, I knew what he’d been about to say. He didn’t want me. I felt the despair that had lived in me for so long welling up again. I’d thought with the discovery of a sister that I might have had a chance for family. Watching our father and Flame’s mother die had only cemented my beliefs in my mind. Then there’d been my dreams of him, of Adrian but what I saw in my dreams and the reality standing before me now were two entirely different things. Did he find me that repulsive?
“You say you can foresee the future.” Adrian’s voice broke through the misery of my thoughts. “It’s not set in stone though is it? It can change, you must see that. For two people to be together both must want it and I don’t intend to ever be tied down. Plus, I can’t be with you even if I wanted to. You’re a virgin aren’t you?” He asked and I nodded, blushing again. “I am not the man to take your innocence. I am a vampire and it’s in my nature to fuck a lot of women and never have any of them been virgins. I suggest you go home and start dreaming of a more realistic future and not one that includes me.”