The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2: Secrets and Trust

By Evelyn Lafont

Josie’s come a long way from being an average human chick who just wants to sex-up a vampire. She’s dated, mated, and killed one of the world’s richest vamps and is currently seeing a mysterious, blood-slurping hottie named Walker.

Now, Josie must adjust to the realities of a steady relationship with a vampire, which isn’t all exciting parties, hot sex and moonlit walks. And with a vamp who’s anxious to push their relationship to the next phase as mortality bears down on his human’s fragile body, the pressure for Josie to commit is on.

Can their night-day romance survive leaving Josie’s character and individuality intact, or will the secrets of the supernatural community crush her spirit and her chance at a permanent vampire mate?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helios Media, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452459165

Evelyn Lafont

Evelyn Lafont is a freelance writer and author living in Tampa Bay, Florida. Originally from New England, she likes that none of her shoes or body parts freeze during the short Florida winter. She is the married mother of two catlike furballs and hates doing housework of any kind.

Book preview

THE VAMPIRE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE, VOLUME 2: SECRETS AND TRUST

Evelyn Lafont

The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2: Secrets and Trust. Copyright © 2011 Evelyn Lafont.

Smashwords edition May 2014

I hope you didn’t pirate this book. The eye patch is so 1999. If you have questions about the many ways you can use this book (other than as a hat or a pterodactyl) contact me at [e-mail]

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance herein to real people or places is purely coincidental.

To Hubby who is always there for me, and defends me from rabid squirrels.

PART 1—HOW TO GET YOUR VAMPIRE TO SHARE

Vampires are possessive with their property, their lovers (which are not more than a step above property), their information, and their personal history. It is not often a human woman is lucky enough to find one who shares memories of his youth during post-coital lounging.

After a lifetime of dating humans, the best way for you to adjust to the possessiveness of your vampire lover is to revel in it, accept it, and take it for the compliment that it is…

---Excerpt from VampLure Magazine

Chapter 1

Dusty. Texas is dusty. Sure, maybe not all of Texas is dusty, but the part that my superhot vampire boyfriend and I were driving through was decidedly dusty. Even in the dark of night—which was when we had to drive—I could see the powdery dirt rising from the road as our tires stirred it up. Fortunately, we didn’t need to have the windows open in the old Ford since Walker, the aforementioned superhottie, had finally gotten the truck’s air conditioning fixed. Unfortunately, Walker was pro-nicotine and without the windows down, I was stuck inhaling the obnoxious fumes of his chain-lit smokes.

You know Nicotene-o, you might not get any sex tonight if you keep blowing your nasty-ass cigarette smoke in my face, I said.

Walker’s head turned from the endless expanse of highway ahead and his eyes, partially hidden behind hanks of his layered, dirty blond hair, found mine. He lifted one eyebrow and quirked his thin lips in a smug, sexy way that turned my genitals into a penis pep squad and had them sending an SOS up to my brain for some sexlike activity.

After sucking in, and blowing out, one more puff of smoke, he answered me. And why’s that, my little hyperbolic chamber? If I were honest, watching his thin but soft lips tug at the cigarette was one of the sexiest things ever, but I didn’t want those lips tugging at anything but my skin, which meant I was actually jealous of tobacco.

Because your cigarette smoke makes my eyes red, and that makes me tired. It also gives me a headache and—

Josie, a headache is the oldest excuse in the book—

—and you’re old enough to know. I interrupted to fit in one of my favorite rankling comments. Any human in a relationship with a vampire is automatically at a disadvantage in terms of life span, strength, and speed—boning up on your banter and flinging it at every opportunity could be the only edge you’ve got.

Of course, you also need to be ready for your sexy blood aficionado to fling it back.

Exactly, so don’t think that’s going to work on me. I know how to get you where I want you—headache or not. As he spoke, Walker’s hand slipped from the steering wheel and onto my knee, where it began a heroic and purposeful journey up my thigh.

I looked out the dirty windshield, littered with bug carcasses in various stages of decay, and onto the dark, desolate road. I realized that we were no longer on the highway at the same time I felt his hand pulling down the waistband of my low-rise capris. I laughed at his schoolboy attempt at a feel up…but I didn’t physically stop him. Hold it right there, mister. No driving and molesting—remember what happened last time?

Mmm, but it was so worth it. Besides, what’s one flat tire in the grand scheme of sexual experience?

You hit a curb because you were trying to fondle my boobs.

And your point is? Walker lifted his hand from its position, precariously close to the bow on the top of my barely there, white lace undies, and instead of pulling down my panties, pulled out the ashtray. When he went to deposit what was left of his last cigarette, the overstuffed orifice vomited out stubs and ashes onto the floor of the truck, narrowly avoiding my feet.

You’re smoking an awful lot today. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were getting nervous about taking me to see your home. I watched his face, a thin, chiseled cloud of white atop the black of his unvarying ensemble, to see if I could pick up a reaction and measure if, in fact, he was getting nervous. His gaunt cheeks, strong nose, and furrowed brow could have been carved out of Ivory soap for all the expression and movement it showed. He didn’t flinch, redden, twitch, nothing. Even the strands of hair grazing his cheekbones didn’t flutter as the air conditioning roared out of the dashboard.

We drove for a while in silence, Walker keeping his eyes on the road and acting as if I weren’t there, me looking straight ahead while occasionally casting sidelong glances at my mate.

We were new to this relationship stuff, at least with each other. As a vampire, Walker had probably been alive for hundreds of years (a fact he was curiously silent about) and in that time had, I’m sure, enjoyed countless relationships. As a thirty-two-year-old woman, I’d had many long-term relationships myself, though not with anyone of a bloodsucking variety. A couple of weeks earlier, I had been dating an asshole vampire named Gregory. He was the first vampire I’d ever dated, and he pretty much screwed me in a big way—figuratively and literally. One screw I enjoyed. The other—not so much. Guess which one was which.

Anyway, after kidnapping me, Gregory was now dead, thanks to the heroic measures of the suspiciously quiet stud to my left. Gregory’s fortune went to the National Vampire Fund since he had no living descendants and Walker and I were the beneficiaries of tidy sums as repayment for the hits we took.

After saving my life, Walker had asked me to go with him to Texas. I said I would, mostly because he asked me just hours after freeing me from completely unsexy bondage—though truth be told, I’d had such a good time with him over the few weeks we’d since spent together, I would have said yes even if he had waited to ask. I tried to take a leave of absence from the bridal shop where I worked, but was fired instead. And while the sum I was given for the trouble with Gregory was large, it wasn’t enough to retire on. So here I was, jobless and off on a vacation to what looked from my window to be a completely foreign landscape than the sun and sand I was used to in Florida—with a vampire I’d only known for a few weeks. Still, while I didn’t want to be dependent on my vampire for a comfortable financial future, I did want to try and make the relationship work. After all, I’d accomplished my initial goal to have sex with a vampire—why not see what it would be like to vacation and maybe even fall in love with one? I asked my best friend Alena to water my plants and left The Sunshine State for The Lone Star one.

There wasn’t too much to say about the trip so far. To keep Walker out of the sun, we’d been doing our driving at night. Vampires avoid the sun like the plague, no—not because they will burst into a dramatic set of flames when walking into it but because their need to drink blood is caused by a deficiency in red blood cells rather than a lack of blood. Since free radicals caused by sun exposure can further ruin what cells that they’ve got, an afternoon of sunbathing could spell a long, slow death. This also factors into why they can’t eat garlic or onions, since each cause a special form of anemia after making red blood cells rupture, and vampires can’t compensate for that. We’d only left Florida four days ago but we were taking it slow and easy. We’d check into a different hotel each day before sunup and we…uh…kept pretty busy all day. I might not be getting much vitamin D on this trip, but I sure was getting my vitamin sex.

At night, we’d hop back in the truck and take the dark, sceneless road toward Texas. For me, this adventure was like one big vacation. For Walker, it was going home and frankly, I was a little apprehensive about what I might discover once we got there. I was wondering what skeletons I might find in my sexy bad boy’s closet (and whether or not they might be actual skeletons) when his voice broke through my thoughts and brought me back to the present.

We’re here, he said as he pulled onto a dirt trail. A bumpy dirt trail. Not a road—a trail.

I looked around but didn’t see anything. No, really. No trees, no house, just…nothing. Without city or streetlights around it was very dark, so I didn’t expect to see much outside the circle of brightness afforded by the headlights, but the moon was close to full so I should have been able to see a large structure like, oh, I don’t know, a house.

Where is here, exactly? I asked.

He lifted his right arm from the steering wheel and pointed ahead. Here. Home. He turned his head to look at me and I have to say,

Reviews for The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2

[andreat78_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Vampire Relationship Guide is a book that’s been on my TBR-list for a while. I am a big fan of Evelyn LaFont. I think pretty much everything she writes is brilliant, and funny, and smart. So even though I’ve wanted to read this book, I was a little hesitant. What if the book didn’t live up to the expectations I had put on it. Well, crises averted. I am happy to say the The Vampire Relationship Guide: Meeting and Mating was everything I hoped for/expected from LaFont. First off, I love Josie. She’s a real “guy’s girl”. She lives an life uncomplicated by marriage, children or a stressful career. And she is completely content. She’s funny and fearless. Josie is the kind of character that we can vicariously live through. She usually has good intentions; but almost always says or does something to end up in ridiculously funny situations. Josie is an endearing character. While reading the book, I felt as if I were chatting with my favorite friend. Another aspect of the book that I liked is the men. Josie becomes involved with not one ridiculously attractive vampire, but two. The men are everything you can ask for: unbelievably handsome, charming, rich and mysterious. The buildup of the relationships is hot and sometimes so lingering, I thought I would go crazy (in a good way!). Towards the end, I was caught by surprised. Because while this is a funny, sexy little book, it also has heart. The tenderness shown to Josie by one of the vamps, who shall not be named, was so darn beautiful. The ending of the The Vampire Relationship Guide was set up perfectly for book two, The Vampire Relationship Guide: Volume 2, due out August 31, 2011. I like to post favorite passages from books. While there were many, many quotable lines, this struck me as one of the funniest: “The cab smelled like it’d been slept in by ten retired circus clowns who’d gotten jobs scooping horse poo with their hands. I was so upset about what happened between ____ and me that I didn’t even bother to care that I was steeping myself in Eau de Poopie Clown.” flag

[dragonlibrary8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My thoughts:This was a fast, fun read. The characters are great! Josie is spunky and funny, Gregory is smooth and mysterious, and Walker....what can a girl say about Walker! He is rough and crass, but you can see the soft and suave under the surface (it just doesn't like to show!). I was IN from the first page. Couldn't wait to see what would happen next and fell in love with Josie's personality! Gregory seems "off" from the start. Of course that could be the relationship cynic in me. If it seems too good to be true - it is. I enjoyed the interactions of Josie and Walker, I love the attraction that they each try to ignore. The story moves quickly and doesn't leave you hanging. I would have loved to see this story fleshed out more and moved from a novella to a full length story. I feel that the characters and the storyline could have sustained a longer book. If I had to say there was one thing that disappointed me - it would be that the story was over too fast. I can't wait for Volume Two!