The Vampire's Addiction (Sexy Vampire Romances Book 1)

by Maria Amor

  “What’s there to tell?”

  “I don’t know. There must be something. This is one of the places you frequent, is it not?”

  “Sure, I guess you could say that.”

  “Perfect. Then you must have something to say about it. Walk me through it, darling. Remember, I haven’t been here in quite some time.”

  Jack surveyed the field in front of the bar he had chosen to take her to. Its name was The Blood, and it was a place he had mixed feelings about at best. On the one hand, it was sort of nice to have a place to go, a place where his kind was considered something to be celebrated instead of feared and delegated to the realm of make believe and make believe alone.

  In all of his time being what he was, this had never been the case. If the ability to blend into human society was an art form, he had all but perfected it.

  At the time of his turning, such things had been necessary for survival for any vampire who wished to live some portion of his life not in the shadows. There were those that wanted nothing of the sort, just as there were humans that wanted no part of the ordinary patterns of life their fellows enjoyed, but he had not been one of those.

  Jack had possessed no desire to become a thing that lived only in the dark and amongst the dark creatures of the world, and so he had learned to assimilate. There had been many a ball he’d attended after he had become the thing that he was, and none of his fellow partygoers had been the wiser about what he really was. Quite the contrary, or so it seemed. People had been drawn to him, both women and men alike. That had been true to a certain extent when he had still been human, but the effect had been magnified tenfold after he had become a vampire.

  It had almost become a problem. He had learned, over the years, to temper that effect, believing it was one he would both always need and always have to control. Now, however, he saw how quickly the tides were turning.

  “Jack? Have you decided I’m not interesting enough to speak to? Not the most polite thing, to ignore a girl you’ve promised to take out on the town.”

  “I didn’t promise you anything,” Jack said in a low, almost serene voice. “You broke into my home and demanded my assistance.”

  “Same thing,” she answered airily, picking her way through the almost waist-high weeds in her approach to The Blood. “Either way, you’re here with me now. And your mind is somewhere else. Tell me, where did you wander off to just now?”

  “I was just thinking about how far we’ve come since the days when we were so widely feared and had to hide ourselves.”

  “The dark days, as the elders would have us believe.”

  “And you don’t? Believe it, I mean?”

  “I don’t know, do you? I’ve not visited one of these places, at least not one so celebrated and out in the open.”

  “They don’t have this sort of thing overseas yet?”

  “You need to get out more, love, go back out and visit the world. They do, at least they have places with some similarities. Private salons that cater to our kind and a very select few humans that serve unique purposes. But out like this? Out in the open the way this place is advertised? No, nothing like this.”

  “And you think that’s a good thing?”

  Scarlett stopped, standing on the edge of the field that served as the club’s overflow parking lot and staring at the building before her intently. Her face wore an expression he could hardly read. She was troubled, he could see that much, but there was more than that as well. There was a wildness he knew would never be tamed, and beneath that oceans of dangerous thought and feeling he could only guess at.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes and no, I go back and forth on the matter.”

  “Because?”

  “Because it brings us so far out into the open. And what do you think that really means?”

  “I suppose I’ve never thought about its meaning. I suppose I’ve never really considered it to mean much of anything at all.”

  “But it does. It most certainly does. It gives us more freedom, but it also takes away one of our most precious lines of defense,

  “Which is?”

  “Fear, darling. Nothing works quite so well as a healthy dose of fear. It’s always kept people away, or most of them at least. Even the idea of things like us has always inspired a certain amount of terror. That’s not a bad thing for us. It may take away some amount of freedom, but it gives us freedom also.”

  “And you think clubs like this will get in the way of that?”

  “I’m not sure. They might. I go back and forth on the matter. Much as I do with almost everything else, a fact you well know about me.”

  “Do you even want to go in? We don’t have to, you know.”

  “Don’t be silly, darling! Why on earth would I have you bring me here just to stand outside of the place in the weeds and dirt and trash?”

  “Perhaps. How would I know what goes through your head?”

  “You’re right.” She laughed. “You wouldn’t. But yes, I want to go inside. I must see what all the fuss is about. The whole idea is terribly enticing, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so. Maybe not so much to me, not now. I’ve been here more than once, you know.”

  The two of them had begun walking toward the front door, Scarlett grasping his hand as if they were two teenagers in love instead of vampires who had been enemies almost as many times as they had been friends.

  At precisely that moment, as if to punctuate his point, the man working the door (a vampire whose name he could never quite remember) stood and grinned.

  “Jack Swells! My man! Back again so soon?”

  “Hello, yes. Back again.”

  “What is this, like the third time this week? You just can’t stay away, can you, brother?”

  “I guess not.”

  Jack was well aware of the smirk Scarlett wore on her beautiful face, although he would never own up to it. She was already enjoying herself too much and the last thing he wanted was to give her more ammunition. She definitely didn’t need that.

  “So he’s a regular, is he? Excellent. Do you have any stories about him? Only embarrassing ones, nothing tame. I don’t care about anything PG.”

  “No, darlin’, he’s a regular but I don’t have any stories about him. I’m interested to learn a little more about you, though, you can be damn sure about that. You aren’t a regular.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well how come? You’re a face I’d like to see around here more often. Every day, if I had my way.”

  Jack cringed on the inside, but he was also amused. The door guy wasn’t anything special. He was one of those vampires that had been a piece of shit when he was alive and was a piece of shit after he was turned. He was skeevy, and that wasn’t anything Scarlett was likely to put up with. All Jack had to do was stand back and watch while Scarlett did her thing.

  “Every day? Is that right? Do you think you could handle that?”

  “Shit, could I handle it? I’d like to handle you, that’s what I’d like to handle. No offense, Jack my man. Not trying to step on any toes, if you know what I mean.”

  “No.” He smirked, making a point of not looking at her while he spoke. “You do what you need to.”

  “See? He doesn’t care, sugar. Road’s all clear.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  Scarlett moved closer to the unsuspecting door guy, practically purring. Everything about her came off as feline, which was what she did when she wanted something. The door guy must have picked up on that, but what he didn’t know what it was she wanted. Jack didn’t know either, at least wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he had a pretty good idea. He’d seen her do this kind of thing before.

  “Hey now, look at you? Feisty little thing, ain’t ya?”

  “Do you think?”

  “I do. I think it and I like it.”

  She was practically wrapped around his body, one hand running along the inside of his thigh suggestively. It might have gone on like that for a
while if the guy hadn’t made the decision to touch her. Of course, he made that decision, what guy wouldn’t? Even a saint would have struggled to keep his hands off her, and this guy was no saint. He should have been. though, at least in that moment, because the second his hand landed on her ass, everything changed.

  It happened so quickly that only Jack saw it coming, and he wasn’t likely to offer a warning. It wouldn’t have done any good, even if he’d been inclined to. Which he wasn’t.

  “Whoa! Hey, what the fuck?!”

  “What’s the matter, sugar, you don’t like this?”

  “No, I don’t like it, it fucking hurts!”

  “Does it? I didn’t realize.”

  She had taken his hand, a hand that had moved around her and taken a firm grip on her ass, and twisted. If one were to look at her face, it would have been impossible to tell that she was exerting any force at all. Again, Jack knew better. He saw her give a little flick of the wrist and then watched the poor bastard in her grasp as his face contorted in pain.

  “How about that? Does that hurt?”

  “Yes! Goddammit, yes, it fucking hurts! Quit it!”

  “Say please.”

  “What?! What are you talking about?!”

  “It’s simple, really. I’ll gladly let you go, and all you have to do is say please.”

  While the guy was stalling, Scarlett was still twisting and any minute now something was going to snap. He must have gotten the reality that she really wasn’t going to stop and, despite his stupid macho pride, he wasn’t going to play her game of chicken any more. He wanted out, which was something Jack could identify with.

  “All right! Please, god almighty woman, please! Please just let me go.”

  The moment the word passed his lips, Scarlett dropped his hand. Immediately, it turned a bright, angry red and he pulled the limb in closer to him so he could nurse it like an injured puppy. That was something Scarlett very much enjoyed. She liked making people hurt, something Jack had liked less and less about her as the years had trudged by.

  “There you go, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “What the hell’d you do that for?”

  “Because I can. You should remember that, next time you decide to come on to a girl. She might just be the one who breaks you in half.”

  Without saying another word, she blew past him and Jack, opening the door to the club and stepping inside. At that point, the only thing Jack wanted to do was go home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Delaney had no idea where to start. Honestly, she was struggling to even wrap her mind around what was happening to her now. For years, she’d believed in what she believed in, despite the fact that they were things most people thought were ludicrous. She had grown used to defending herself, to fighting back when people treated her like she was looney tunes, that having someone acting like she was legitimate felt completely bizarre.

  On top of that, she was still struggling to adapt to her new surroundings. After the initial shock of the mansion and its macabre glory wore off, she was left with the slightly giddy, uneasy feeling of a child who had been subjected to far too much stimulus.

  Everywhere she looked, there was something she wanted to look at, to pick up in her hands and examine. In front of her was Augusten Grady, who looked at her as if she were someone to be respected instead of made fun of. All in all, it was a lot to take in.

  “Are you quite all right, miss? You’re looking a little pale.”

  “Yes, I’m... Well, I’m okay. I’m just trying to get my bearings. And to be honest, I’m trying to figure out what exactly you want from me.”

  “Ah, of course. Rightly so. It’s a lot to take in, I imagine.”

  “It really is.”

  Delaney was grateful for Augusten’s modicum of understanding, but she wasn’t sure it was going to help. She was confused and tired and still hungover, not anywhere close to being in the state of mind she needed for something life altering.

  “What would you do if I told you that everything you’ve ever believed in was real?”

  “I’d tell you I needed a little bit more explaining. That’s a pretty bold statement.”

  “And you would be right. It is a bold statement. That’s my favorite kind of statement. Just because it’s bold doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “You’re right on that account. At least I think you are.”

  “I most certainly am. Now, let us explore the implications here. If everything you’ve believed in, everything you’ve hoped to believe in, is true, what does that mean for this world?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

  “Exactly what I said. What does that mean? Look around this room, Delaney. What do you see?”

  She peered around her, almost grateful for the invitation to stare. She saw the books on vampires and the occult, so many she wouldn’t be able to read them in a lifetime. She saw artifacts from times long past, the meaning of which she could hardly grasp. She saw relics of an entire world that had existed right below the surface of ordinary people since time began. She saw many things, but how in the hell was she supposed to put all of that into words? She was ashamed of how unsure she was on that front, being an aspiring journalist and all, but her shame didn’t make it any less true.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered quietly, feeling defeated.

  “But you do!” Augusten shouted, causing her to jump high off the seat of her chair and to clamp down on her own tongue. “You do know! You’re just used to pretending not to believe the things you know in your heart to be facts. So, we’ll try this again. What do you see?”

  “Proof, okay? I see proof!”

  “Wonderful! Elaborate, my dear girl, proof of what?”

  “Proof of all of it. Proof that we’re not the dominant species on this planet and never have been. Proof that we don’t have things nearly so figured out as we like to think. I see proof that the world isn’t anything like what most people like to think it is.”

  It was only after she got all the words out that Delaney realized she was shouting. Something about the way Augusten had pushed at her had struck a chord. The sound of his demanding, booming voice compelling her to speak her mind truthfully had brought her to her feet.

  She had even knocked her chair over as she stood. That was how impassioned she had become. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, causing her entire body to shake. Now that she was out of the moment, however, she could also feel a white-hot shame taking hold of her.

  “I’m sorry. Really, I’m super sorry.”

  “For what? What on earth could you have to be sorry for?”

  “For shouting at you. That’s so incredibly rude of me, you know? To come into your home, a lovely home you invited me into, and shout at you? My parents would be mortified, I can tell you that much.”

  “Well, first of all, let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? This home isn’t lovely.”

  “But it is!”

  “No.” He laughed, a surprisingly youthful laugh for a man with his look and age. “It’s not. At least not most of it. This room yes, I’ll give you that. The rest of the place? I’ll admit to its having a certain amount of charm, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “All right, but still.”

  “But still what? You’re passionate! That’s precisely why I’ve brought you here! Because of your beliefs, or at least what I took to be your beliefs from what I’ve managed to glean about you. Have you any idea how disappointed I would have been if that had all turned out to be a ruse? Just some persona put on for the sake of ratings?”

  “Well, nobody wants to hire me or read what I have to say, so there’s no concern about ratings playing into anything.”

  “So, then the passion is genuine, which brings me back to my initial point. That kind of drive, that kind of belief in a person, is nothing to apologize for. Not ever. It is to be celebrated. I like to think your parents
would agree with me on that front.”

  Delaney couldn’t help smiling at that one. It was a nice thought, but he was pretty far off the mark there. Augusten couldn’t have been more wrong if that’s what he’d been aiming for if he actually thought her parents were cool with the idea of her running around and trying to make a career out of writing about the paranormal.

  She was pretty freaking sure that if he ever got to the chance to ask them their feelings on the matter, pride and celebration would not be adjectives that came up in the conversation. Still, it was a nice thing to hear, even if it was wrong and coming from an eccentric man she’d only known for all of five minutes. Validation was nice, almost regardless of where it came from.

  “So! Then we’ll leave your embarrassment and any residual feelings of shame at the door, shall we? You’re never to apologize me for being invested, all right? Especially not when that investment is in something I’ve dedicated my whole life to.”

  “You’re whole life? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean what I said. My whole life. Probably much as it has been with you, I developed my fascination with the darker elements of this world when I was quite young indeed.”

  “Did you really?”

  “I did. Some of my earliest memories are of me looking out the window late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Everyone else in the house was, but not me. I was just standing there and looking.”

  “Looking at what?”

  “Not looking at, looking for. I was looking for the things I already knew, in my heart, were there all around me. I did that almost every night, did it for years. That’s where my stories come from, you see. All of the acclaim, all of the stupid accolades that regrettably have meant too much to me over the years, it all started there. With that little boy standing in his window and looking for the things unseen.”

  Delaney could feel that her mouth was hanging open like a fool, but she felt powerless to do anything to change it. She knew this guy was a writer, but still, she was shocked. He’d managed to verbalize thoughts she’d had for as long as she could remember. They felt so much like her own that they could have been ingrained in her blood. They were a part of her, and the fact that he had spoken them meant they were a part of him as well.