Read Online Vamparazzi by Laura Resnick - Free Book Online

Tarr let out a low whistle and waved his hand as if he’d just burned it. “Everyone wants to know what it’s like to get initiated by Daemon Ravel.”
    â€œInitiated?”
    â€œInto vampire sex.”
    â€œ What? ” I blurted. “Are you kidding? I’ve never —”
    â€œI’m talking about the wedding night, sweetie.” Tarr added, “You know—in the play? ”
    â€œDon’t call me ‘sweetie,’” I snapped. “And here’s what I can tell you about being ‘initiated.’ I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be touched, embraced, or bitten by Daemon Ravel. I only know how Lord Ruthven does those things.” I grabbed Tarr’s polyester-blend collar and said between gritted teeth, “Are we clear now?”
    â€œThat’s a cute take, toots,” Tarr said. “But my readers are going to want a lot more than that.”
    â€œThen they will have to live with the dull ache of disappointment.” I turned away and headed toward my dressing room.
    â€œSo we’ll talk later, right?” Tarr called after me. “Maybe over a drink somewhere?”
    â€œYou have to admire his persistence,” Leischneudel said to me.
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    He halted outside his dressing room and opened the door. “If you need help with your dress, you know where I’ll be.”
    I nodded and kept walking. The wardrobe mistress, who didn’t like anyone but Daemon, rarely helped me. And Mad Rachel, the actress who shared my dressing room, couldn’t always be counted on.
    As I approached our dressing room, I heard Mad Rachel’s voice booming forth from the other side of the closed door, and I realized that this was probably one of those nights when I would need Leischneudel to lace up my gown.
    â€œFuck you, you fucking cocksucker!”
    I opened the door and entered the room. As expected, Rachel was on her cell phone.
    â€œNo, fuck you, you cocksucking fucker!” she shrieked.
    She was already in costume, having evidently gotten Fiona, the cranky wardrobe mistress, to help her. Rachel Manning was about twenty-five, petite, and extremely pretty. She looked like someone who should be on TV, though the tremendous carrying power of her voice made her a natural for the stage.
    â€œGo fuck yourself, Eric!” she hurled into her cell phone.
    I was used to this sort of thing after so many weeks of it; but I had found it disorienting at first to see this fineboned woman in her demure Regency gown screeching vicious obscenities into a cell phone.
    Rachel lived with her phone glued to her ear. Her boyfriend, Eric, was usually the person at the other end of the call, though sometimes she gave him a break and talked to her agent or her mother. And she seemed physically incapable of lowering her voice. Whether obscenely angry, as she was now, or just conversing, Rachel always yammered into the phone with the same wellsupported volume that she used onstage; she did this no matter how many times the stage manager or Daemon read her the riot act about it—which they did often, since her backstage bellowing had disrupted the performance a few times.
    When she saw me enter the room, she turned away without acknowledging me and shouted into her phone, “I hate you, Eric, you fucking cocksucker!”
    Half the time, she chatted to Eric about minutiae; the rest of the time, the two of them fought hysterically while Rachel cursed, at top volume, like a drunken stevedore handicapped by a sadly limited supply of obscenities.
    â€œGo to hell, you fucker!”
    It was already clear what kind of night tonight would be. Suppressing a sigh, I walked over to the makeup counter and set down my tote bag.
    Rachel looked startled by this. She held the phone away from her ear for a moment and bellowed at me, “Do you mind? ”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œThis is a private conversation.” Her tone