I’m delighted to have my friend, the massively talented Marissa Farrar, visiting my blog today, to tell us all about her dark side!

Over to you Marissa…

I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of life, which is probably why, when I first started writing, I chose to write horror. However, as my career has progressed, so has the amount of romance in my books, until eventually I had to admit what I didn’t want to initially, that I am a romance writer.

There, I’ve said it. My name is Marissa Farrar and I write romance.

But just because I write romance, doesn’t mean I’ve let go of the dark side either. I started off linking my horror writing with my romance by writing about vampires, and shifters, but more recently I’ve started to move into contemporary fiction.

I don’t believe romance has to be all flowers and hearts. It can be just as heart-thumping and nail-biting as a thriller, with lives threatened and even blood spilled. When I write, I want my readers to be on the edge of their seats one moment, and squirming on them the next.

Upon discovering the dark romance genre earlier this year, I found myself hooked, and knew I wanted to write one myself. As often happens with my books, a number of different ideas started to come to mind, until they joined together and created a story. I wanted to write a twist on a fairytale, and at a conference earlier this year, as a writing exercise, we were asked to think of a reason a king would never have let himself be seen by his subjects. This started to get my mind ticking, and then when I heard the song ‘Monster’ by Imagine Dragons (a favourite band of mine), everything fell into place.

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The resulting book is ‘Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel’ and the first book in the ‘Monster Trilogy’.

Blurb

Monster

Hidden away from society by his criminal father, there lives a man who has never entered the outside world. Now, having taken over his father’s business, he has all the money and power he could dream of, yet still he refuses to let himself be viewed by the rest of society.

Lily

Traumatised by an event in her past, Lily Drayton has a phobia of being touched. Though she helps people externally with her skills as a laser therapist, she refuses to let anyone in, emotionally or physically. When Lily is kidnapped on the way home from work one evening, she discovers she’s not the only person who keeps themselves cut off from the rest of the world.

Defaced

A man owns her now—a man both dangerous and enigmatic. Drawn by his dual beauty and hidden pain, he awakens something inside her, something she believed was long dead. Brought to a room without windows, she’s given an impossible task: to make her owner acceptable to the outside world.

Can altering his face change who he is as a man, or is he truly a monster, both inside and out?

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Buy Links:

Amazon: viewBook.at/Defaced

Barnes & Noble: http://ow.ly/VFeGL

iBooks: http://ow.ly/VFeO0

Kobo: http://ow.ly/VFeY2

Excerpt:

Part of her wanted to test him. He’d kissed her; she could still feel the pressure of his mouth on hers, still had the taste of him on her tongue. The idea of him punishing her made her shiver, both with fear and longing. What would he do to her? How far would he take it?

“I heard people beyond the walls,” she admitted. “I wanted to know how to get out there.”

“Flower?” He growled his warning.

She held his gaze. “I only wanted to know.”

He looked over to Tudor. “Wait for me in my office.”

The older man nodded, and turned to leave.

He took her by the upper arm and gave her a small shove to get her moving, before frog-marching her down the hallway, back toward her room. This time she didn’t care that he was making her go back there. Her heart raced, but not because she was frightened of being locked up, or that he would hurt her. She’d sensed the relationship between them growing. Yes, he was dangerous—she didn’t doubt that for a moment—but he also hummed with the sort of sexual tension she’d never come across before. For years, she’d gone without any kind of sexual contact—or even contact in general. After what she’d been through as a young adult, she’d never met anyone who’d awakened that side of her. And yet Monster did. She couldn’t explain it. Just being near him excited her. When he touched her, her inner core tightened, her whole body vibrating with lust which coiled downward, condensing between her thighs.

Her breath came hard and he pushed her toward her bedroom door, and into her room. He slammed the door behind him with one hand, the other hand keeping a firm hold on her arm.

He pushed her back against the wall, pinning her against it.

His dark eyes bored into hers. “Why did you let me kiss you back there?”

She stared back. “Because you’re supposed to own me. Doesn’t that mean you can do what you want?”

“Yes, yes it does. But you’ve never been someone who didn’t put up a fight.”

“Is that what you want?” she challenged. “Would you prefer it if I fought you?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “Don’t do this, Flower. I’m already supposed to be punishing you for not doing what you were told.”

“So do it, then. What are you waiting for?”

“You’re supposed to hate being touched.”

“So?”

What are you doing? Her mind screamed at her. Why are you provoking him? Yet her whole body buzzed with excitement. She wanted to know what he’d do next.

“You don’t act like you hate it.”

“Maybe I just got good at pretending.”

He stared at her and she caught her breath.

Monster took a step toward her, closing the already small gap between them. His big body pressed against hers, and he reached up with the hand not holding her arm, and stroked her cheek, his finger slipping down, across her jaw bone, and down the side of her neck, pushing her hair away from her throat.

He leaned in even closer, his mouth against her ear. “Tell me you don’t like it when I touch you.”

His other hand released her arm and stroked down the side of her body, brushing her breast. She trembled in his grasp, her whole body vibrating. Even her breath shook as it left her lips, but she wanted this. Even if it made her crazy, she still wanted him.

His thumb brushed her nipple, and it crinkled hard in response. He paused, his hand moving to cup the heavy weight of her breast, and then his thumb and forefinger closed over the peak. The brush against her nipple turned into a pinch which sent shock waves of pain and pleasure through her body.

Lily let out a groan, her body sagging. She wanted to lean against him, to swallow the small amount of space which still remained between their bodies, but he held her away, her back pressed up against the wall behind.

“I know you like that,” he spoke against her ear, his breath hot on her lobe. His lips tickled the sensitive spot right behind her ear lobe, and then his tongue made contact with her skin, tracing a cool, wet trail down her throat.

Lily whimpered as the lick turned into a kiss, and the kiss turned into a gentle bite, nipping the skin of her throat between his teeth.

His hand left her breast and moved lower, down, across her stomach, and to the waistband of her pants.

He paused. “This is a punishment, remember? Tell me to stop.”

“No!” she gasped.

“Do it, Flower. Tell me to stop.”

She shook her head frantically. “I don’t want you to stop.”

“Say it, or I will.”

Was this some kind of game he was playing? “Okay,” she relented, realizing it was the only way she’d get him to continue. “Stop! I want you to stop.”

“That’s more like it,” he growled, and he yanked at the waist band of the pants she wore, popping the buttons and ripping apart the zipper. And then his hand was plunging down, beneath the elastic of the simple cotton panties she wore, and down between her legs. His hand slipped across the top of her mound, his fingertips trailing through her tight curls. His index finger pressed between her folds, coaxing her open to him, and she stepped her legs apart, trying not to think about how wet she already was.

Roughly, he pushed a finger inside her, and her legs went weak. She pressed the back of her head against the wall, her eyes rolling. “Oh, God.”

“Tell me to stop,” he growled again.”

“Oh, stop, please Monster.

He pushed another finger inside her and she gave a cry. How had she gone so long without this kind of pleasure in her life?

The ball of his hand pressed against the bud of nerves at the apex of her thighs, and she ground against him, wanting to somehow dissolve into him, to clutch to him, hold him tight and never let go. She knew this was wrong—that wanting him like this was wrong—but she’d never met anyone like him before, and something about him spoke to her on every level.

His mouth left her neck and captured her lips, kissing her firmly and forcefully, as he continued to work his fingers inside her. He obviously wasn’t interested in hearing her tell him no anymore.

One hand still pinned her against the wall, while the other thrust deep inside her. She was trapped between his hard body and the hard wall, his mouth forcefully over hers, his fingers inside her. She felt utterly helpless, and completely bent to his will, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Her pleasure began to build, coiling tighter and tighter like a spring, ready to spring open and drown her in its waves. She rode the sensation, not wanting to lose it for a second, frightened it might somehow vanish. She knew she was going to orgasm—something she’d only ever done on her own for the past ten years—and while she wanted to reach that peak, the other part of her didn’t want to get there, knowing this bliss would end when she did.

But Monster was too talented with his touch. He curled his fingers inside her, and she could hold off no more. Lily cried out into his mouth as she came, the rolls of exquisite ecstasy battering her into complete submission.

Her fingers clutched at the sleeve of his shirt, as the final throes of her orgasm shuddered through her, trying to find something to steady herself on. Her whole body went weak, her mind still hazy from what had just happened.

Monster slipped his fingers from her body, and placed them to his lips. “Now I don’t have to imagine what you taste like,” he said, his dark features dangerous and hooded with lust. He parted his lips and slowly inserted his finger, coating his tongue with her cream. He removed his finger from his mouth and took a step back. The corner of his lips turned up in a smirk. “Now, I know.”

And with that, he turned from the room and left.

A second later, she heard the lock click into place.

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Marissa Farrar Bio

Marissa Farrar has always been in love with being in love. But since she’s been married for numerous years and has three young daughters, she’s conducted her love affairs with multiple gorgeous men of the fictional persuasion.

The author of eighteen novels, she has been a full time author for the last five years. She predominantly writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but has branched into contemporary fiction as well.

Her short stories have been accepted for a number of anthologies including, Their Dark Masters, Red Skies Press, Masters of Horror: Damned If You Don’t, Triskaideka Books; and 2013: The Aftermath, Pill Hill Press.

If you want to know more about Marissa, then please visit her website at www.marissa-farrar.blogspot.com. You can also find her at her facebook page, www.facebook.com/marissa.farrar.author or follow her on twitter @marissafarrar.

She loves to hear from readers and can be emailed at marissafarrar@hotmail.co.uk.

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Many thanks Marissa. Happy Christmas!

Happy reading,

Kay x