My Vampire Cover Model

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement (including infringement without monetary gain) is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

My Vampire Cover Model

Copyright © 2012 by Karyn Gerrard

ISBN: 978-1-61333-348-8

Cover art by Fantasia Frog Designs

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Look for us online at:

www.decadentpublishing.com

Decadent Publishing Recent Releases

Dark Secrets by Desiree Holt

Rebirth by Rebecca Royce

A Scent of Longing by Cara Bristol

Virgin Territory by Cari Quinn

Embraced by Rebecca Royce

Once Her Man, Always Her Man by Heather Long

Rendezvous at Midnight by Lynne Connolly

Senator, Mine by Kerry Adrienne

Ravished Before Sunrise by Lia Davis

Dead or Alive by L.J. Garland

Whipped Puppy by L.C. Dean

Cheeky Blonde by Liz Crowe

A Marriage Made in Mayfair by Tamara Gill

Rebel Souls by D.L. Jackson

The CEO and the Cowboy by Starla Kaye

No Strings Attached by Jennifer Labelle

Paging Doctor Wolf by Rebecca Royce

Sea Bride by LaVerne Thompson

Dare Me by Jennifer Probst

My Vampire Cover Model

By

Karyn Gerrard

Dedication

To Decadent Publishing, for giving my cover model fantasy a home. To Gayl Taylor, my critique partner and writing buddy, thanks for all your help and support.

To my three favorite cover models, Nathan, Paul and Jimmy, you make romance novels come alive in such a visual way.

To my own romance cover hero, after all these years, it endures
.

Burney Sheridan sweated profusely from his neck to his nuts, thanks to the leather outfit he wore. The searing glaze of artificial light from the fixtures above should have his exposed skin sizzling, but tonight he was immune. Innumerable sounds and smells slammed his enhanced senses. Cheap perfume, whispered admirations, and stale menthol cigarette smoke mixed together to form an interesting olfactory and auditory cocktail for the evening ahead. The feelings were overwhelming. With close to one hundred fifty women all crammed into The Book Binder, New York City’s famous independent bookseller, how could they not be?

Burney was a romance cover model on tour with bestselling paranormal romance author Kane Quinn. They were promoting her latest release in the long-standing
Blood Brethren
series. His face and toned body, in various guises, graced eight of the eleven covers. Burney wasn’t sure if the recognition was a blessing or a curse since he received so much attention, adulation, and of course, money. In the romance world, he was a household name and currently as popular as a rock star. Sometimes this adoration felt uncomfortable. That was the curse part.
What the bloody hell
?
It’s a living
.

He flashed his megawatt smile, put his arm around women of all shapes, sizes, and ages, and posed for cameras, signed posters, books, and one woman’s cleavage.

As he turned to the next lady in line, an overweight, middle-aged woman stumbled to his table. The pungent odor of cheap whiskey hung heavy in the air. Her words were slurred, and her cloudy eyes filled with lust. Her giggling friend stood back and held up a camera, so he dutifully put his arm around the woman’s shoulder. Burney yelled out in surprise as the drunken old hag grabbed his tackle while the friend snapped the picture.

“Oh, Linda! He’s got quite the package, just like in the book!”

A few titters washed over the women in line, but the gasps of shock were louder. Burney pushed the woman away from him and bit back a growl of anger.

The woman pointed at him accusingly. “His eyes changed color!”

Bleedin’ hell
. He smiled assuredly at the women. “Fancy contacts. That’s all, ladies. All part of the getup.”

The urge to wrap his fingers around the throat of the rude woman and squeeze overtook his thoughts.

“Dean, can’t we jump the line? I mean, Kane Quinn is your Aunt Carol, after all. Damn, it’s hot in here.”

Deanna Brooks turned to her friend Janice, who fanned herself with a magazine. No wonder. The temperature in the store was scorching.

“Aunt Carol doesn’t even know I’m here, and we aren’t exactly close. We haven’t spoken in a while. This was a last-minute trip at your insistence.”

“I love your aunt’s writing. I have every book Kane Quinn has ever written.”

Deanna glanced briefly at the plastic bag full of paperbacks in Janice’s hand.

“Yeah, and you brought every one of them. I’m not sure Carol can sign them all, you know. Time limits and such.”

Janice batted her eyes innocently. “That’s why you’re going to make sure we get a private audience with her and
him
.” Janice pointed to the table set off to the side of Deanna’s aunt. “Burn the Cover God. Look at him. The guy is damned gorgeous.”

Deanna swung her gaze to the tall man in black leather.
Check on the gorgeous
. The model wore skintight black leather pants and no shirt, except for a calf-length black leather coat. The exposed chest could not be real. They must have waxed him, as there wasn’t any hair on his muscled, carved torso. His jet-black hair was long and wavy, just past his jawline.
And what a chin
. It was perfectly shaped, with a sexy cleft. The model looked beautiful in a virile, male way, and he certainly had been graced by the DNA fairies. This man must’ve dived into the deep end of the gene pool. He was beyond handsome, maybe too much so. Most men did not look like that, at least not any in her acquaintance.

“His name is ‘Burn’? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Before Janice could answer, an older woman staggered on her feet, leaned against the cover hunk, reached down, and grabbed the model’s crotch. The drunken woman’s friend laughed gleefully and took a slew of pictures. Deanna gasped aloud. Did these women have no shame?

Burn the Cover God pushed the woman away. His face changed. An icy, protective shutter lowered over his handsome features. They seemed to sharpen, as if his very bone structure had altered. The change was so fleeting that Deanna doubted what she’d seen.

“His eyes changed color!” the woman shrieked, to no one in particular.

Damned if she wasn’t right. They’d turned silver, then black, and back to silver again. Now
that
, Deanna did see. The model laughed the declaration off with some half-ass explanation.
Weird. Oh, he was angry
. Deanna saw a dangerous fire lurking beneath the frosty, handsome visage. Somehow, it made him even more attractive.

“Did you see what that woman did?” she whispered to Janice.

The obviously drunk woman was not going to leave quietly.

“Are you gay?” the tipsy old broad yelled out.

The crowd hushed, and everyone was riveted to the scene. Deanna could see Burn the Model’s jaw clench in what had to be irritation.

“You’re not as tall as you’re described in the book. You’re no Draken!” the woman yelled.

Two security guards took her arms and quickly led her away.

“Who’s Draken?”

“The vampire hero in your aunt’s latest book,
Blood Passion
. Burn’s dressed up as him. Draken always wears leather.” Janice gave the model an assessing gaze. “Looks tall enough to me. I mean, Draken is six foot six.”

Deanna rolled her eyes. This was stupid. How could a man stand there like a slave in an ancient Roman marketplace and allow himself to be pawed and drooled over? Next, they’d be checking his teeth. A stab of pity rolled through her, but it passed. This model did not need her sympathy. Gay or not, he was good-looking enough to have everything handed to him on a silver platter.

The next woman walked up to him and whispered in his ear. His perfectly shaped eyebrow rose. He then stood behind the woman and grabbed handfuls of her breasts while playfully pretending to bite her neck—as her friends snapped away.

Deanna’s lip curled in disgust. Yeah, compassion flew out the window. Seems the Cover God liked being man-meat on parade. Janice clasped her arm and moved them out of Aunt Carol’s line, over to the model’s.

“Here, this line’s a little shorter. Besides, I want you to take my picture with Burn so I can put the shot on my blog.”

“Don’t get him to grab your breasts, for God’s sake.”

Burney seethed with a dangerous fury. Generally these meet and greets were enjoyable. The majority of women were polite. He had the opportunity to turn on his Irish charm and make a nice bit of money besides. But it just took one bad apple to spoil his evening. Burney glanced at Carol. She smiled and winked.

He liked Carol Brooks. She was in her mid-fifties, down to earth, funny, and enjoyed Bailey’s on the rocks as much as he did. Carol treated him like a person and not a slab of beefcake. Though he really had nothing to complain about. He did this job willingly. Being a model was another profession in a long line of careers he’d taken for a test drive over the centuries.

He might be many things, but what he was most of all was a vampire. How ironic. Even as he was playacting, pretending to be this vicious, sexy vampire Draken, the fact was he and the fictional creature had much in common.

His eyes changing color was not the result of fancy contacts for his costume, but his real eyes. They flashed silver when intense emotions, either anger or arousal, gripped him. As that drunk bimbo had latched onto him, fighting his irritation became impossible. He glanced up and observed the store’s security escorting the woman out the door. Her friend scurried behind her, clutching a camera. The damned picture of him being manhandled would be all over the Internet tomorrow.
Bloody social networks
. He shouldn’t have grabbed the next woman’s titties either, but his common sense seemed to be buried under his wrath. The action was crass and far beneath him. No doubt, that shot would be on the Internet, too.

Feckin’ hell
. Burney ran his hand through his hair in exasperation while glancing at the large clock on the wall. Another hour to go. He exhaled, willed away his anger, pasted on his Irish-charm grin, and turned to face the crowd of women in front of him.

He inhaled deeply to get control over his emotions, then froze. It was
her
. The mate of his soul. The evocative scent stoked his arousal off the charts. His blood thickened, roared in his veins, and filled his cock to the point of extreme pain. Instinctively he closed his coat and buttoned it to hide his obvious erection.
Jaysus, everyone would think it was the daft, drunk old hag causing me to harden
. He scanned the crowd expectantly. Who was she? His gaze settled on an attractive blonde. Perhaps the scent came from her? Hard to ascertain, but his vampiric instincts reacted with a decided force he’d not experienced before. The vampire world was filled with the mate-of-the-soul tales. There were so many improbable accounts over the centuries that Burney had become dubious.
Personally, I think it’s all bollocks
, he’d said to himself many times. Here he was experiencing the sensation for himself.

He posed for pictures and signed books, but none of the women called to his mate instinct, not even the attractive blonde.
Who in bleedin’ hell is it
?

Deanna tapped her sandaled foot in annoyance. She didn’t want to bother with the guy, but Janice insisted, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement as they advanced toward the table.