by Maren Smith
Her Vampire Master
Maren Smith
Burning Desires
Copyright © November 2019 Her Vampire Master by Maren Smith, Renee Rose Romance and Silverwood Press
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the authors. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors' rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published in the United States of America
Renee Rose Romance and Silverwood Press
Editor: Maggie Ryan
This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book contains descriptions of many BDSM and sexual practices, but this is a work of fiction and, as such, should not be used in any way as a guide. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any loss, harm, injury, or death resulting from use of the information contained within. In other words, don’t try this at home, folks!
Created with Vellum
Contents
Note from the Publishers
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Want More?
About Maren Smith
Read the Bad Boy Alpha Series that launched Midnight Doms
Note from the Publishers
Thank you for picking up the first book in Midnight Doms, a spin-off of Renee Rose and Lee Savino’s Bad Boy Alpha shifter series. Be sure to check out Alpha’s Blood, the book that inspired the series, featuring Lucius, the vampire king.
We are so grateful to Maren Smith for agreeing to be part of this project and kicking it off with such aplomb!
Love and dominant vampires,
Renee and Lee
Prologue
The Dream
The music in Club Toxic pounds.
I’m dreaming, I know I’m dreaming, but the scene feels so real. I feel it the way my sister felt it, the reverberations moving up through the floor, making my already unsteady legs even more so. Thumping all the way into my head until the pulses aren’t just in my ears, they’re in my brain. In my veins. Pulsing along with the flashes of color that are either a strobing product of the DJ’s light show or my own panicking brain. Like my sister, Jez, I’ve long since lost the ability to tell.
Stumbling with every step, I push through the crush of revelers. Those who can dance, are. Those who can’t, still jump up and down, adding to the throb of the beat with the unified pulse of their combined weight hitting the flashing tile lights of the dance floor.
I spin around, searching the blur of their shadowy faces, shoving to break through the crowd and fighting to find a breath of cool air that doesn’t reek of booze and hot bodies. The cooling fans blowing down from the ceiling are fighting to keep up, I can barely feel a whisper of air movement against the sweat on my face, and even those whispers felt hot.
As hot as his touch. I just have to find him first, and somehow convince him to make me his again. Because she needed him, and now I need him too.
I claw at my arms, nails digging in to soothe the unbearable itch that lives in my skin, but there’s no relief, and my desperation ratchets higher, notch after notch, until finally I spot him. Dark, enigmatic. Black hair and black eyes. Beautiful as an angel, seductive as sin.
He’s out on the floor, dancing at the center of this throbbing, pulsating crowd with a tall blonde woman almost as beautiful as he is.
My breath catches as I stare, mesmerized by the movements of their bodies. He holds her back to his chest. The tight skirt of her black mini dress is pulled all the way up around her hips and the hot pink band of her thong is nothing more than a twist of color around the tops of her thighs. One hand is on her throat, his other plays between her legs.
They could be fucking instead of dancing.
The way her ass grinds against his hips, they probably are.
I push through the crowd, fighting to make my way closer, coming right up to them. I see everything.
The pump of his pelvis against the naked flesh of the blonde woman’s ass. The circling, stroking motion of his hand between her milky thighs makes the bump and throb inside me melt down like summer’s honey until the molten ache of it is centered, has its own special pulse, in the heaviness of my womb.
The other woman’s eyes remain closed as her lips part. Her head drifts back against her seducer’s shoulder and her blonde hair, streaked in highlights of pink and purple, stands out starkly against the black of his blazer jacket. Her thighs shake, the subtle movements of his fingers making her hips grind back in time. She pressed her hands flat against her thighs, because that’s where he whispers for her to put them. I can hear his instructions echoing in my head. It’s a game he has played with me—with Jez—every night in my dreams. No matter what he does or how badly she wants to, it seems she is not allowed to touch him without permission.
She is, however, allowed to come and judging by the constant quivering of her soft thighs, she’s almost there.
He turns his face into her hair, caressing his lips along the heated slope of her neck, before, almost as if he senses me, the dark-haired man opens his eyes. He looks right at me, and smiles before stealing that first slow lick and taste of his partner’s skin.
I tremble, the echoing caress of his tongue moving up my shoulder to my ear. I feel the rasp of it, the hunger of it, and the pain my sister felt at that man’s complete lack of anything approaching apology or even sympathy. He kisses the blonde woman’s neck and, hunger in his eyes, looks right at me as he bites.
My sister felt that bite all the way down into her clit, which was exactly where he’d bitten her the first and last time he’d had her. I feel that bite the same way now, shaking up through my wobbly thighs as the ravages of the most intense orgasm rip through my itching, twitching, hungry body.
The hurt is more than just physical, because in the black of this beautiful man’s eyes, I can find no remorse for what he’s doing and nothing that might indicate he has any interest in doing this to me again.
This beautiful man.
This jaded man.
This man who had, before he’d ever touched Jez, told her plainly that he did not believe in love and had no interest in playing for keeps. He never plays with the same woman twice.
I know it, just like Jez knew it. But she’d wanted it, just like I want it now. It’s a drug in our system. The itch that refuses to be assuaged no matter how desperately we scratch and claw, fingernails subconsciously raking down our arms until we’re bleeding, trickling crimson streams that cut the paleness of our flesh until our blood drips to the floor.
He notices.
So do several others. Shadowy heads in this faceless sea of dancing, jumping, writhing strangers turn to look at me. Nostrils flare, hungry eyes lock on me from every direction as if my pain and need are something they can smell.
My only warning before my arms are seized is the telltale flick of that beautiful man’s gaze shifting to something just behind me.
“You’re done,” the bouncer says, half dragging, half carrying me as I struggle and shout, stumbling over my own clumsy feet all the way to the door. He shoves me out into the cool embrace of night. “Go home.”
The doorman refuses to let me back in after that. He even threatens to call the police, but the beautiful man can’t stay in there forever. He finds me uncounted hours later, long after the muffled pulse of the nightclub music goes quiet and the lines of people waiting for access inside vanish. By then, I am huddled in the side alley, my back to the rough bricks, scratching at the unbearable itch in my arms and legs, and so sick now with my sister’s need that I can’t even throw up anymore.
Coming to me, he lowers himself to squat beside me. Gentle fingers peel back my eyelids as I whimper, “Please… please…”
His stare is pitiless, even as he softens enough to sigh, “You are almost more trouble than you’re worth.” His voice is every bit as beautiful as the rest of him. “Come along then.”
My dream changes then. The nightclub is gone. So is the beautiful man. Instead, I see the sun coming up, chasing back the shadows and washing the dirty Tucson streets in splashes of orange light. It crawls over rooftops, up the old brick and crumbling adobe of derelict apartment complexes, and spills across the weed-choked cracks in the pavement of the abandoned parking lot where my sister’s body lies nude among the bull thistles. Splashes of her blood dot the grass, and on the pale stretch of her broken neck are two needle-like puncture wounds.
Every night I have this dream. Sometimes I see more than this, sometimes I see less. But every morning I wake up to certain details that never change. My sister, Jez Chapman, is dead, the police report reads prostitute, and the cause of death is overdose.
Chapter 1
Merris
I don’t know the name of the man who killed my sister, but I know his face. I see it in my dreams every night, exactly as it happened to Jez just before she died. He drugged her—they found the date rape drug, Rohypnol, and heroin in her system at the autopsy. He bled her—even had the heroin not been lethal, the quantity of blood absent in her veins was. He left her like garbage in the weeds—she’s buried in Holy Hope Cemetery now, beside our parents. I bring them roses every Sunday.
He must have thought no one would notice now that she’s gone. He must have thought no one loved her, but he could not have been more wrong. The police labeled her a prostitute. They say her death is drug-related, and they’ve stopped looking. But they’re as wrong as he is, and I’m going to prove it. My name is Merris Chapman, and if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to find the man who haunts my dreams. He’s going to pay for what he’s done.
At the heart of every city, the crown of its nightlife is usually only worn by one place. In Tucson, that place used to be No Return, then it was Club Eclipse on Congress Street. But in the last year, it’s become Club Toxic and it was one of Jez’s favorite places to go. The line of hopefuls anxious for a chance to get in here always stretches around the block. Not everyone has to wait in line, however, and a girl’s best chance of getting in doesn’t even involve the doorman. I stood in line for hours twice before I figured it out. A short, tight dress and flawless makeup are all a pretty woman needs. I put my long brown hair up in curls atop my head and take a position up near the ropes, in full sight of those just stepping out of the backs of cabs or private cars—the ones who never had to wait in line. The beautiful people just walk past the doorman and go inside.
Sometimes they come with company. Sometimes they come alone, with a roving gaze over the hopefuls until they find something—someone—they like. The one who likes me came dressed in a tux with two women who could have been Hollywood movie stars clinging to his arms. Still, he pauses at the rope and gestures for more of us to follow him, and in we go just in time for the bar to close. He doesn’t care that many of us stop following him the minute we’re through the door.
I am one of two who immediately go a different way. I’ve never done anything like this before. This isn’t my life. My twin sister, Jez, is—was—the rave, concert and party girl. I’m the quiet one. The one who likes to stay at home. I like books and music. I watch documentaries on Discovery and YouTube. I’m an artist. During the day, I design buildings for a prestigious architecture firm. In my off time, I like to draw scenery—forests, mountains, beaches with rolling waves that only I can hear crashing up against the shore in my head. I haven’t been out of Tucson since I was a kid, when our parents took Jez and me to Yellowstone Park. That was the summer before they died, and after that, we were in foster care. Some siblings get lucky and are placed together in the same family. Jez and I weren’t.
We were separated on our first night. Shortly after that is when I had my first Jez-dream. She’d fallen down the stairs at her new house, bumping her nose, chin and knee in her tumble down that short flight of carpeted steps. I felt every impact as if it had happened to me. That was the first time, but it was far from the last. That’s how I know the interior of this place without ever having set foot inside it before.
I know the bartender’s face—a redhead with a quick hand and a tired smile, and a voice that bellows out ‘Last call’ like an army drill sergeant. The black collar she wears doesn’t mesh with her uniform, but it doesn’t exactly stand out either. She’s not the only one in a collar. Seems a weird fashion choice, considering the effort this place has gone through to make it seem high-class. Everyone is in uniforms. Even the bouncers and doormen dress in suits and ties. The cocktail waitresses bus through the crowd, making sure those at tables have everything they need, their tight black shorts showing more than a little cheek each time they bend over. Just a little too slutty to be classy, just a little too classy to be a brothel.
I get a drink so I won’t stand out, a vodka strawberry lemonade. It’s Jez’s favorite, and the only one I know how to order because it’s not like these places come with menus. Asking for one would definitely make me stand out.
Fighting back the déjà vu, I circle the room. It’s all so foreign and so familiar. Weird things capture my attention and spike that feeling higher. This is the last place my sister was before she was killed. What am I looking for? I honestly don’t know, but strange things catch my eye. Like the way flashes of light keep reflecting off the sign on the women’s bathroom door, something Jez would have seen just before she pushed her way inside.
The same flashes spark back up off the dance floor tiles, polished to a mirror shine beneath the wildly prancing feet of all these people. I see the smiles, the laughing, the sweating… but I see them like I did when I dreamed it. Certain faces leap out at me. The two men standing guard at the coatroom door. The door is closed, but in my mind, I see the secret stairs leading down. I feel the pressure on my hand as he takes it, the way his eyes glint back at me—my sister—as he draws her down. Into what, I’m not sure. My dreams don’t play like movies. There are no verified beginnings or endings. Just snippets of scenes all jumbled together, bits of a movie on the cutting room floor, waiting for me to put them back into an order that makes sense.
The music is loud. The bar might be shutting down, but the nightclub side of this place will party on for another two hours at least. This whole place throbs to the pulse of the bass. I dreamed that too. I dreamed the five-foot-nothing, dark-skinned beauty right now pinning her man against the wall in the shadows by the bathroom. In my dream, the man was Asian. Tonight, she has a taste for blonds, but her hold on his wrists is exactly the same and so is the sultry way she leans into him, the tip of her tongue flicking out to lick a sinuous path up the side of his neck. He laughs, nervous, breathless, thoroughly aroused. It’s too loud in here for me to really hear it, but I heard it in my dreams and the echo of it is with me now.
I circle the dance floor, wending my way through the crowded fringes. I recognize one blonde waitress, that sexy uniform still so very tight on her voluptuous curves. In my dream, she’s coy and smiling as she leads Jez to make an introduction. Her
blue eyes lock on me just as we pass one another, and a shock of recognition flashes across her face, but I’ve already passed her. I’m in the lounge now, where the lighting is much dimmer, and the smell of alcohol and anticipation become thick and cloying. I’ve done and seen all of this before. The people, the tables, the couple in the corner with another woman backed against the wall, eyes closed in the sharpest of ecstasy as they both kiss on opposite sides of her neck, coaxing her to come with them someplace else. But in my mind, it’s Jez’s sigh I hear as a man’s hand sweeps the hair from her neck before leaning in, close as a lover, the curve of his handsome mouth losing the sincerity of its smile as he leans in for a kiss.
I stop, frozen where I am. My eyes lock on a man holding court at the far table in Club Toxic’s lounge.
I don’t know his name, but I’ll never forget his face.
I see it every night in my dreams.
It’s the man who murdered my sister, and God help me, but I see now why she went with him. The man is beyond handsome. Tall, athletic, with eyes as dark as his hair, a clean-shaven chin, and a smile that would make angels ache to sin.
They would have to get in line. He already has a woman on—not at—his table. Sitting in the center with her back to me, she leans back on her arms, her knees drawn up and legs spread impossibly wide. She has a lime wedge in her mouth, a shot glass on the table between her legs, and he’s sprinkling salt on the very narrow patch of cotton that makes up the front of this woman’s thong panties. It’s a wonder the bouncers haven’t asked them both to leave.