Category Archives: Excerpt

EXCERPT REVEAL – Confessed by Nicola Rendell

Sep 19

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Lucy Burchett is the heiress to a notoriously disastrous family, and she’s left home for good. But when she runs a big, black pickup off the road, totaling it, she finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere with the driver. He’s got a body to die for and a hair-trigger temper. Vince Russo looks like a felon, but he’s also pretty funny. He’s on the lam from the cops… and a psychopathic, Russian mob boss who wants to put his balls on a barbeque. Literally.
After a night of ill-advised cocktails and bathroom-wrecking sex, Vince just can’t get Lucy off his mind. But he’s got plans to rob her. And Lucy’s life is about to get a little bit criminal too.
But can a bad boy and a good girl really escape from their troubles together? Can they trust each other at all?
In the steady march of disasters that follow them west, they fight and they laugh. They tease and they’re tender. They’re either oil and water, or chocolate and peanut butter.
Except, they can’t run from the real world forever. And there’s a hell of a surprise in store for both of them…
***
To the reader: Confessed is a standalone featuring Lucy, who readers met as the best friend in Professed. Both are stand alones and do not need to be read together. Be advised, things get super dirty in this book. The sex is explicit, and the language is rude. It’s an erotic love story with fury. Other tasters’ notes: Bobby pins. Peculiar motels. Horses. Motorcycles. Aiding and abetting. Great Smoky Mountains. New Mexico.   

 


1
Vince
I’m in a ditch with the front end of my truck wrapped around a pine tree when I see her in my rearview mirror. Construction lights on the highway light her up from behind, like some rock star. The curve of her calves is perfect, pretty little ankles and strappy sandals. I’m such a goddamned sucker for sandals.
Her dress is made of something thin. The wind kicks up, lifting her skirt and showing me her bare thighs. She tries to catch it with her hand, but she can’t stop the breeze, and she gives me the full Marilyn Monroe.
This is not what I need right now.
I force the door open with my shoulder and slide out. My neck hurts like a motherfucker, and the engine is pouring smoke. This was not the plan. I head up the dirt embankment. I can’t take my eyes off of her. The construction lights do me a favor and magnify the line of her breasts on the ground in shadow. I rub my stubble and then crack my neck.
Marilyn. She had nothing on this one. Christ.
The dress, it’s this peach color. Those shoulders are smooth and soft. That sexy blonde hair comes down in waves just past her nipples.
She’s driving a white 2016 BMW X5. Top-of-the-line engine, pain-in-the-ass security system. You can’t steal that one unless you’ve got the key. Believe me. I know.
I was driving a perfectly good Dodge 3500 Cummins turbo diesel Hemi V8. I hotwired it not an hour ago from the back lot of a Walmart fifty miles away, outside Knoxville. I was doing just fine until she came along.
Not what I need. At fucking all.
I walk up the embankment. Behind me, the pickup starts honking all by itself. The BMW, on the other hand, is just a little banged up on the bumper. Unbelievable. German engineering and further proof of the point that life’s a total bitch. That’s why you’ve got to steal what you want.
Now I’m close to her. About ten feet away.
A little bow accentuates her waist. One of her straps is a little bit twisted. Pouty lips. Oh shit. Are those freckles?
Motherfuck it.
“You stopped too fast!” she says, marching right up to me like I don’t outweigh her by a hundred and seventy pounds and I don’t tower over her by at least a foot. Totally fucking fearless. “Haven’t you ever heard of pulsing your brake lights?” She points at me. “Sir?”
Sexy and angry?
For. Fuck’s. Sake.
The last time I did a stint in prison, I had to take a mandatory anger management class because of an incident in the lunch line when a racist SOB started rolling with the slurs, so I turned around, slammed him with a left hook, and knocked three of his teeth into his canned beans. Fucking righteous, I’ll tell you what, but not exactly what the New Jersey Department of Corrections had in mind.
So in that stupid class, they taught us something called “meditative breathing.” I count back from eight on the exhale.
It’s not fucking working.
She’s turning me on and she’s pissing me off all at once. Kryptonite in sandals.
I point to the truck. “Are you kidding me? That’s my fault?” It starts hissing even louder. I take a step closer and let my voice get low and mean. “My money’s on you texting. You’ve got the look. Probably talking to some girlfriend of yours about the latest shade of nail polish.”
Her mouth drops open. That tongue. That mouth.
Awww fuck.
“And yeah, I’m fine,” I say, gripping my neck. “Thanks for asking.”
She looks me up and down like she’s checking for protruding broken bones. Then she puts her hands on her hips—actually puts her hands on her damned hips—and stomps her foot—actually stomps her damned foot. She says all matter of fact, “I can see you’re fine. But the crash wasn’t my fault. I had no chance of avoiding you. At all.”
Jesus Christ, what’s that smell? Peaches?
Nope. She’s got no power over me. If I don’t look straight at her and stay downwind.
“Want me to draw you a diagram? You rear-ended me.” I smack my fist into my palm. “It’s not fucking complicated.”
“There’s no need to be rude!” she says. She steps back, but I’ve got her cornered against the fender of the Beemer. She crosses her arms. I’m pretty sure I don’t audibly groan when her forearms push on her tits from underneath. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe I do. She sets her teeth and glares. “Okay? It doesn’t do any good to yell at me, sir.”
Actually, I’ve got a feeling it probably would do her some good to get yelled at. She looks like she’s never been properly reamed in her life, and right now I’m just angry enough to be the first one to do it.
Her eyes widen, and her jaw slips forward, snagging her top lip and pulling it in. Her nostrils flare. Then she sucks air through her teeth and stares at me, like she’s thinking of a whole lot of awful things she’d like to say but is too well bred to say them.
I’d like to hear her say them. I’d like to hear that mouth get real dirty.
“I was going to say we should call a tow truck, mister. Do you have a problem with that? Do you want to stand around and argue about it for a while?” She’s pointing at me again. Her finger is about two inches from my chest.
Pretty little hands, and a row of gold bracelets running up her arm. Around her neck, she’s got a tiny gold necklace sitting just perfectly in that deep hollow of her collarbone. I want my tongue there. Right there.
Damn it. I want to push her. I want to piss her off. I want to go a little too fucking far.
Just to see what happens.
I tip forward in my boots so that her finger meets my chest. She doesn’t recoil at all. She just pushes harder. The light from the road behind spills down over her shoulder.
I see the shadow of her sharp collarbone threading its way under those thin straps.
I take stock of this little spitfire nightmare. Look at that fucking waist. But come on, Vince. Man up. Focus, you asshole. “No cops,” I tell her. “Too much fucking paperwork.”
Surprisingly, because she looks a whole hell of a lot like the kind of girl that would call the cops if she thought there was a raccoon in the attic, she nods. “No cops. I agree.” She pulls her phone out of her bag. It’s got one of those rhinestone covers on it. It catches a beam from her headlight and shines disco ball sparkles all over her body. One of them shimmers over her left nipple.
“And I don’t want to go through insurance,” she adds, “if you don’t mind.”
“Fine.” Again, it makes exactly zero difference to me. Not like I have a Geico policy to show her either. Now the little glitter circles are shining on her face. Of course they are.
I think I might be fucked.
While she looks up a tow company, dragging her little index finger over the shattered screen of her phone, I get a chance to really study her as I cool my jets. She’s maybe 22, 23. Blonde, but that’s a dye job. I don’t believe in God, not really, but I’d like to thank Jesus right here and now that she’s not a brunette. If she were, I’d have no fucking chance at all.
From where I’m standing, I can see straight down into her cleavage. Those tits make me feel like I’m on the winning end of a high-speed chase.
Mint-green bra. Ironic, right, because mint green is supposed to be calming—jails are mint green inside, and I should know—but that bra is doing everything except lowering my blood pressure. I can see her skin through the lace edges. Her tan line crosses under them right where I’m staring. I’m supposed to be fuming, and now I’m thinking about one of those nipples in my mouth. I can actually feel myself start to salivate, thinking of how she’d feel between my teeth. Thinking texture and taste. Wondering about how her nipples change shape when they get hard.
I pat my pocket for my Lucky Strikes.
“Hello, we need a tow truck, please,” she says into the phone, looking straight up at me now. She slaps her free hand to her chest. She caught me looking.
I take a step back and pull out my lighter.
She wrinkles her nose as she watches me light up, looking at me like Gross!
But she refocuses on the call, putting her finger in her free ear for zero reason whatsoever. “Location? On the shoulder of Highway…” She twirls around.
Come the fuck on. That ass.
I stare into the flame of my lighter and take a long, long drag.
“I have no idea,” she says. Now she’s looking at me again and shifting the bottom of the phone back towards her cheek. “Do you know where we are? Or do you have a head injury? Stop staring at me.”
I exhale through my nose. “We’re on I-75.” I point at the sign I leveled when she ran me off the road. “Mile marker 43, Peaches.”
She makes a fist of her free hand. I see the tendons tight across her knuckles, and she makes this angry, sexy little gasp. “Right. I’m sure you did hear him.” She waves her hand in front of her face, making a big show of not wanting my smoke anywhere near her.
There’s a pause while the person on the other end is talking. She nods and looks from side to side as she listens. She does this cute little thing with her toes, sort of spreads them out on her sandals and plants them, and then comes up just about half an inch on her heels. Light pink toenail polish. Adorable feet. But then her eyes pop back to mine, and she presses the phone harder into her cheek. “Hang on, are you saying it’ll be tomorrow before you can help?”
I groan into the filter. This shitstorm is becoming epic.
But I play it cool. That’s another thing about being a con. Never show your hand, even if a pretty little thing like this is making your balls ache. “Give me a lift to the nearest motel. I’ll wait there.” I blow upwind intentionally. It goes right to her face.
After a dramatic cough, way too dramatic to be believable, including a totally unnecessary wheeze, she confirms what I said with the tow truck lady, repeating back to me everything she’s hearing in her ear. She’s staring up at me but with a listening stare, not really looking at me. Almost through me. My eyes have adjusted to the dark and headlights so that I can see her irises. They’re this honey brown. Amber, maybe. Gold.
I pull a little tobacco off my tongue. Goddamn it, Vince.
Finally, she hangs up. “There’s a motel about five miles from here. In Unicoi,” she reports back. “I’ll give you a ride. But no smoking in the car.”
I flick my cigarette to the ground. “Yes, ma’am.”
She scurries over and stubs it out with her sandal.
“Thanks, Smokey,” I growl at her.
She glares up at me. Fearless. Like a little Chihuahua coming up against a Rottweiler.
But this Rottweiler, he happens to be a huge fan of Chihuahuas. Especially this one.
“Give me a second,” I say. “Stay here.”
She crosses her arms. “Why?”
I think I actually growl when she pushes that cleavage towards me this time. I cover it with a cough.
“Because I don’t want you getting near the truck.”
She uncrosses her arms. “Your truck isn’t going to blow up. Promise.” She gets on her tiptoes and looks down the embankment. “Not even totaled.”
“And you’d know?”
She looks at her sandals and wiggles her toes. The angry face turns into something a little flirtier. “Possibly. It’s possible I have some experience with this sort of thing.” She comes up on her heels and then goes back down again.
God, what a cutie. I head the thirty feet back to the truck, turning my face from her before I smile too. All that spunk and heat. Shit yes.
I smell oil, and the engine clicks as I open the door. Pulling my duffel from the cab, I kill the dome light. With a T-shirt from my bag, I rub down everything I have touched for prints, including the door handle and the underside of the turn signal—because how many dipshits have been caught because of that rookie mistake?—and then I head back to her with my bag over my arm.
All the way up the embankment, I stare at those honey eyes. She’s just gorgeous. Just the naughty side of sweet. Just the feisty side of nice.
She’s smiling down at me just a little. Still got her arms crossed with one shoulder higher than the other, wrapping her arm around her front side in this sweet way. Just kills me.
She jingles her keys. “Ready?”
I’m about to say, Yeah, but are you ready for me? when the ground shakes, there’s a flash of light, and all hell breaks loose behind me.
***
I’m on top of her in the dirt. The last five seconds took five minutes. As the wave of heat hit the back of my neck and my triceps, I sprang for her through the air, wrapped my arms around her little body to cover her as we landed with a hard thud on the dirt. The gasp of her lungs as my body knocked the wind out of her, the smell of burning fuel. Like a slow-motion sequence from Backdraft.
Now there’s another explosion. I pull her closer and shield her face with my shoulder. I turn to look. The flames are shooting up high with black smoke pouring from the engine. The fire’s spread into the cab and is eating up the seats already. One of the tires blows out, and her body tenses with the explosion. I grasp her tighter, instinctively. But I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty sure I could stay right here forever.
I feel her cheek on mine. I feel her breathing in my ear. I pull my face away.
We’re face to face in the dirt. Her eyes are just inches from mine.
“Are you okay?” I say. I lean closer, and without even knowing what I’m doing, I find I’m sliding my nose right against the soft skin of hers. There’s goddamned clear and present danger everywhere, and what am I doing?
“I’m okay,” she says. “Are you…giving me Eskimo kisses?”
Jesus Christ. “Just checking for injuries.”
I feel her smile against my stubble. “With your nose?”
I nod. “Fuck, you smell good.”
She’s tiny under me. Her little hands are fisting my shirt in panic. Slowly she releases them and flattens her palms on my pecs.
My forearm is under her neck, making a perfect little pillow
“I guess I should cancel that tow,” she says. In the distance, there are the sounds of fire engines. I’ll bet somebody driving past gave them a call.
“Probably so.”
“Thank you for, you know…” She trails off. I inhale deeply, pretending to sniffle. Yeah, she definitely smells like peaches.
I fucking love peaches.
“Thank me for what?” I ask.
It looks like it takes her a second to come back to earth. I fucking get it. I once did some uncut coke that made me feel like this.
“…For covering me? Is that the right way to say it?”
I nod into her cheek. “I think that’s about right.”
“I’m Lucy…” she says, breathless and almost smiling. Then she winces. “But I go by…” She looks up at the stars. I feel her little fingers press into my chest. “Helen. I go by Helen.”
Alright, so I might not be the smartest guy on the planet, but I do know when someone’s trying to use a fake name. Usually, the people I’m around actually get it right on the first try. I roll off her and offer her a hand to help her up. She takes it, and her palm damn near vanishes in mine. “Helen, huh?” I say.
 “Right. Helen.” She gives me a slow, sexy blink-and-smile. Killer. A sweet little killer right here, lying through her teeth.
That is what I’m talking about.
She dusts the dirt off of her dress. There’s a patch of it on her arm and I wipe that off for her. Her skin is silky and soft under my fingers. Like maybe she uses baby oil after she showers. Jesus.
“I’m Vince,” I say, but whoa, holy fuck. I’m no better than she is. Vince is actually my name. This girl is turning me into an idiot. She’s fucking up my whole M.O. “I’m gonna call you Lucy if you don’t mind…Helen.”
She grits her teeth. Smiling but freaked out “Really, it would be better if you went with Helen,” she says, and starts fiddling with her necklace, zipping the charm side to side and then running the fine chain along her lip before letting it fall back to her throat. She goes to the driver’s side of the Beemer and gets in.
I get in the passenger’s side. I notice a suitcase in the backseat. I’m putting it together. All by herself. No insurance. No cops. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here. I slam my door shut. “Sure. Helen.”
The strap of her dress falls down her shoulder as she buckles up. She fires up the engine and then turns to me and smiles.
Yeah. She doesn’t know it yet, but Peaches here, she’s got everything I need.

 

 

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Nicola Rendell writes dirty, funny, erotic romance. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She is at an unnamed Ivy and prefers to remain mostly anonymous for professional reasons. She has a PhD in English and an MFA in Creative Writing from schools that shall not be named here. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She lives with her husband and her dogs. She is from Taos, New Mexico.

 

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EXCERPT REVEAL ~ Neighbors by Stylo Fantome

Sep 18

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“Not what I was expecting. You impress me,” he said to her, his voice low. “I’m flattered. I get the feeling there isn’t much you’ve seen that impresses you,” she said. “Katya,” he whispered, and she shivered. He so rarely said her first name. “I’ve never seen anything like you.” Words like that, and he didn’t need to make any deals. He’d barely finished talking, and she was all over him. His assistant was somewhere in the building, Katya was positive the conference room door wasn’t locked, and she didn’t care at all. Not even one little bit. She sat down in his lap with such force that his chair rolled backwards, threatening to tip over. She was able to kiss him once, but then his hands were in her hair, yanking her away. “Ah, but this is supposed to be a punishment, remember? Who said you could kiss me?” he said, and she felt him nipping at the side of her neck. “Please, I don’t want to – AH!” she ended in a shriek when he bit so hard, she wondered if he broke skin. “Dissension. Tsk tsk, Ms. Tocci. You’re on a roll tonight. Get off me.” She wasn’t given a chance to comply. He pulled harder on her hair, and she was forced to follow his hand. She slid off his lap and managed to get her feet under her, still moving with him as he stood up. Katya was dragged across the room and pressed up against the floor-to-ceiling window. She gulped at the feeling of cold glass on her hot skin, then moaned when she felt his lips on the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into him – their last time together, he hadn’t been so aggressive. Maybe she was seeing a new side to him. Or the real him. Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Stone. “Please,” she said again, pushing her hips away from the window and rubbing her ass against his crotch. “Please, I need you.” “Hmmm, that’s nice, but I don’t think that’s what you mean,” he whispered. As he kissed his way down her spine, his hand slowly slid out of her hair and crept over the back of her neck. “Please, Wulf.” “’Please, Wulf’. She begs so sweetly, yet still can’t get what she wants.” His free hand was at her hip, yanking and pulling at her underwear. Shoving them down, letting them fall to her ankles. Leaving her in only her bra. “Please.” She could feel his suit against her bare skin as he stood upright, and his hand slid around her neck, gently wrapping around her throat. She gasped as she was pulled back, her spine forced to arch as her head was drawn into his shoulder. She planted her palms against the window and started panting while his other hand moved across her stomach. “Please what?” “I want …” The hand on her throat squeezed tighter, the hand on her stomach moved lower, but neither pushed her over the edge she was so desperately seeking. She stood on the balls of her feet, almost crying from the tension running through her body. “If you can’t even say what you fucking want,” he growled, his breath hot against her face. “I don’t know why I should bother giving it to you.” “Please, I want you to fuck me,” she whispered. The chuckle she heard sounded more like a growl, and she moaned when she felt his tongue against her ear. “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you,” he hissed. “Just fuck me,” she hissed right back. “Just fuck you? That’s it? My, your demands are so very simple.” Alright, Wulfric. You win. “Please, Wulf,” she purred, placing one of her hands over his own and moving it down between her legs. “Fuck me right now. Right here. Against this window. Fuck me so hard, people down on the street will hear me screaming your name.” She’d never spoken like that before, to anyone. She briefly wondered if it was too much. If she sounded ridiculous. But then he was slamming his dick into her, and she realized it wasn’t too much at all. Jesus, I should’ve been talking like this years ago. “I thought that was going to take you all fucking night,” he groaned as he bucked his hips against her. Slow and gentle certainly wasn’t on the menu that night – he just instantly started fucking her like it was his job. She couldn’t even respond. Could barely breathe. He was pounding the air from her lungs, and the hand on her throat was ensuring she couldn’t suck any of it back in. “See what happens when you do as I ask? You get rewarded,” he panted, finally moving his hands. She gulped in air greedily and managed to nod. “Yes. Yes, thank you. God, thank you so much,” she moaned. He gripped her hips and yanked them further away from the glass, forcing her to bend at almost a right angle. The new position enabled him to fuck her even harder, something she hadn’t thought was possible. She shrieked with every thrust, her hands beating against the window. “So polite. So sweet. Katya Tocci, best fucking dessert I’ve ever had.” She shrieked again as she was whirled around. She thought she was going to fall over, the position she was in wasn’t favorable when competing against gravity, but she didn’t have to worry. Wulf always had a plan. She was slammed down against the conference table top. She pressed her cheek to the hard wood and let out a long groan when his hips started banging against her, over and over. “The best. God, you’re the best,” she was whispering. Babbling, unsure even of what exactly she was saying. She had her arms stretched out to the sides, gripping the edges of the table, but he roughly grabbed her right arm and jerked it back. “Touch yourself,” he commanded, lifting her hips enough so she could work her hand between them and the table. “Oh my god.” One press of her fingertips, and she shot off like a starter pistol. Screamed as an orgasm rocked every single nerve ending. She went to pull her hand away so she could bathe in the sensations, but Wulf’s hand flattened over her own, his fingers working above hers. She whimpered and cried out as wave after wave of pleasure coursed through her. Became too much for her. Overwhelmed her. Yet still, he wrung more out of her, his fingers pressing even harder. It wasn’t until she was lifting her feet off the ground, her free hand pounding on the table top, begging him for mercy, that he let her go. And immediately, she missed his touch. Before she could beg him to start all over again, though, he had his own orgasm. He came with a shout, dragging his nails down her back before grabbing onto her hips. Digging his fingers into her flesh. While he throbbed inside of her, bruises throbbed on the outside of her, and every nerve ending throbbed within her. “Holy shit, Tocci,” he panted, and she felt him lean forward. Felt his forehead against her back. “You … you were … that was incredible,” she whispered, still finding it hard to breathe. “I know.” “Jesus, it was like you were angry at me.” “I was – your little strip tease from earlier pissed me off. How dare you keep something so wonderfully inappropriate from me.” She managed a laugh. “Duly noted. Next time I learn a new trick, I’ll share it with you immediately.”

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Are you ready to meet the neighbors?

Neighbors by Stylo Fantome releases on September 27th!

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Blurb

Things a good neighbor can do for you: 1. Give you a cup of sugar 2. Let you borrow his lawnmower 3. Water your plants while you’re on vacation 4. Make your eyes roll back in your head with his tongue Katya Tocci has never paid much attention to who lives next door – her career always kept her too busy. She’s a good girl, working her way to becoming the most sought after cake designer in all of San Francisco. But even a good girl’s gotta cut loose once in a while, right? So one fake dating profile later, and she’s ready to tarnish her squeaky clean image. Little does she know, her fun time is closer to home than she ever imagined. Throw in a neighbor who wants to corrupt her, and another who just wants to own her, and her entire world is flipped upside down. Who knew neighbors could be so helpful?

About the Author: stylo

Crazy woman from a remote location in Alaska (where the need for a creative mind is a necessity!), I have been writing since … forever? Yeah, that sounds about right. I have been told that I remind people of Lucille Ball – I also see shades of Jennifer Saunders, and Denis Leary. So basically, I laugh a lot, I’m clumsy a lot, and I say the F-word A LOT. I like dogs more than I like most people, and I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink. No, I do not live in an igloo, and no, the sun does not set for six months out of the year, there’s your Alaska lesson for the day. I have mermaid hair – both a curse and a blessing – and most of the time I talk so fast, even I can’t understand me. Yeah. I think that about sums me up.

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RELEASE BLITZ ~ Candy Boys by Jo Raven

Sep 17

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Title: Candy Boys 

Author : Jo Raven 

Genre : MMF 

 

 

 

 

 

Joel and Jethro. Roommates. Total hunks. Inseparable friends. Hot as hell.

Meet my fantasy boyfriends. Aren’t they just the sexiest, cutest thing? I know, right? They totally are. They are hot, too hot for a quiet—and obsessed with them—girl working in a bookshop.
That’d be me, by the way.

There’s also the tiny problem of Joel wanting another girl. And as for Jethro, well… he doesn’t do girls. Or maybe he doesn’t do relationships. He certainly doesn’t do boys, so he isn’t doing his best and very male friend… right? Much less his male friend and me at the same time.

So it’s fine to crush on them. And write a serial story on my blog in which we have tantric sex in every possible position.
All three of us. Together. Touching, and licking, and sucking, and screwing.
Whew.

I mean, it’s okay. It’s perfectly safe. They’ll never even know I exist, much less find out about my blog and my secret fantasy about them.
Right?

…Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

Warning: This book contains two super-hot boys and a nerdy, funny girl who has the hots for them. It includes boy on boy fun, and girl on boy, and boy on girl, and girl on boy on boy, and, well, you get the picture.

Warning 2: This book may set you on fire. Handle with caution.

Warning 3: This book is funny, and dark, and angsty. It is NOT a love triangle. It is a relationship between three people with a happy ending.

 

 

 

AMAZON COM 
AMAZON UK 
AMAZON CA 
AMAZON AU 

 

“Jet, we need to talk.”

“Screw talking.” He moans in my mouth, the vibrations traveling from his broad chest to my body, making me clench with need.

“Jet…”

“You want me,” he whispers. “Say it.”

“I want you,” I whisper, and he moans again.

“Oh yeah. Tell me what turns you on. What your fantasy is.”

Holy crap.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” I lick his lips, inviting him to kiss me again, to stop my confession, but it’s not enough to stop the words. “I want you, Jet. And Joel. I want what you want, and I can’t…”

Jet’s breath hitches, his lashes sweeping low on his cheeks. “Can’t what?”

“Can’t choose between you. Don’t you see?” The truth is finally out. It was choking me all this time. My eyes sting, because I know he’ll push me away any second now. “I’m sorry. I should have said it from the start. I should—”

“What exactly are you saying, Sugar Pop?” He drops back on the sofa, brows knitted. “Are you walking away?”

“No. You have no idea…” I shake my head, my cheeks on fire, my heart thudding heavily in my chest. “I want you both. Here. At the same time. With me. God, I can’t believe I told you.”

He licks his lips, his eyes so dark. “Say it again, sugar.” He lifts a hand to my face, draws me down to him. “Say it again.”

“I want the two of you, with me.”

“Fuck, you have any clue what you’re doing to me? What you just said…” His gaze is full of wonder, wide and hot. His hands move down my back, finding bare skin under my blouse, scorching brands. “Come here.”

He pulls and tugs until I’m fully seated on his lap, his hard cock pressing sideways against my inner thigh.

I brace my hands on his shoulders, gripping the thick muscles there as he kisses me deeply, so hard my lips hurt. His stubble scrapes over my chin.

It’s hot. He’s so frigging hot, I can’t even think, can’t do anything but fall into the kiss.

Then a low male voice says from behind him, “Harder, Jet.”

I jolt with shock. Jethro’s hands grab my waist, fingertips digging deep.

A shadow falls over us. Someone comes to stand behind the couch and slides a hand into Jethro’s wild hair. Familiar blue eyes dart from my face to his.

“Joel?” Jethro’s voice hitches. “Didn’t know you were here. J, listen—”

“Kiss her harder.” His hand slips down Jethro’s face to his jaw, and he leans down to whisper close to his ear, “I wanna watch.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jo Raven is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, best known for her series Inked Brotherhood and Damage Control. She writes edgy, contemporary New Adult romance with sexy bad boys and strong-willed heroines. She writes about MME fighters and tattoo artists, dark pasts that bleed into the present, loyalty and raw emotion. Add to that breathtaking suspense, super-hot sex scenes and a happy ending, and you have a Jo Raven® story.

 

 

Find all her books here . 

 

Be the first to get your hands on Jo Raven’s new releases & offers, giveaways, previews, and more by signing up here 

 

Meet Jo Raven online – on Facebook

chat with her on Twitter (@AuthorJoRaven) 

join her readers group for sneak previews of her covers and stories

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

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FIRST LOOK ~ Red Winter by Annette Marie

Sep 17

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A New Series from Amazon Best-Selling Author Annette Marie,
RED WINTER is coming…

 red-winter-annette-marie-gr-cover-1

“Her entire life had been forged by a terrible lie, and there was nothing she could do to change her fate.”

 

In the enchanting new fantasy RED WINTER by Annette Marie, Emi Kimura has been preparing her entire life to become the mortal host of a goddess. When she discovers the lies surrounding her true fate, she makes a dangerous bargain with a fox spirit to seek out the truth. As her final days as a mortal approach, she must choose whether to bow to duty … or fight for her life.

 

Synopsis:

Emi is the kamigakari. In a few short months, her life as a mortal will end and her new existence as the human host of a goddess will begin. Carefully hidden from those who would destroy her, she has prepared her mind, body, and soul to unite with the goddess—and not once has she doubted her chosen fate.

Shiro is a yokai, a spirit of the earth, an enemy of the goddess Emi will soon host. Mystery shrouds his every move and his ruby eyes shine with cunning she can’t match and dares not trust. But she saved his life, and until his debt is paid, he is hers to command—whether she wants him or not.

On the day they meet, everything Emi believes comes undone, swept away like snow upon the winter wind. For the first time, she wants to change her fate—but how can she erase a destiny already wrought in stone? Against the power of the gods, Shiro is her only hope … and hope is all she has left.

Releasing October 21, 2016.

Pre-order Red Winter Now:

Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon AU |  Amazon CA 

 

Add RED WINTER to Your TBR List on Goodreads!

Excerpt for RED WINTER (Red Winter Trilogy Book 1)

The yokai didn’t move, just held her in place with a strength she couldn’t fight. She tipped her head back to see his face, to gauge his intent. His gaze traveled across her room, intent and analyzing. Then his eyes flicked down and he appeared almost surprised to see her staring up at him. His mouth curved into a sly grin, flashing pointed canines.

His amusement at her terror sparked a tiny surge of anger. “Let me go!”

“Ah, little miko, didn’t anyone ever tell you not to run from yokai?” His deep, purring voice sent a shiver across her skin. He leaned down as his hand on her throat forced her head back. He brushed his nose along her jaw, from her chin up to her ear. “It’s the surest way to make us pounce,” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.

Goose bumps raced down the back of her neck and she clenched her jaw. “Get your hands off me.”

He hummed as he pushed his face into her hair, inhaling through his nose. “But didn’t you put your hands on me first?”

“I was treating your wounds.” She summoned her most commanding tone, desperately hoping her voice wouldn’t quaver. “You’re proving that your kind’s reputation is well deserved with such disrespect and ingratitude toward the person who saved your life.”

His head came up and fear shot through her that she’d offended him, that he would surely kill her now. Instead, he made a thoughtful noise, and his hands fell away, releasing her.

She almost leaped out of his lap but remembered his comment about running from yokai. With more self-control than she’d thought she had, she carefully stood, walked four steps, and turned to face him. He stayed where he was, lounging on the bed with his feet on the floor, casually propped up on one arm. His head tilted to one side as he watched her, and that slight, knowing grin played about his lips.

She sank down to kneel on the floor, mostly because her legs were shaking so badly she was afraid he’d notice. As nonchalantly as possible, she slid her hands into the opposite sleeves of her kimono and pinched her hidden ofuda between two fingers, ready to pull the paper talismans out.

“No need for that, little miko,” he remarked, each word almost caressing her. How could he have such an otherworldly yet still human voice? “I will not harm you.”

She flushed, embarrassed she’d been so obvious, but didn’t let go of the ofuda. “What was that—that assault then?”

“Assault, you call it? That little embrace?”

“You—” She broke off with a small shake of her head. If he was determined to ignore the inappropriateness of forcefully holding a woman against him and rubbing his face on her, nothing she said would change his mind. “You have the manners of a dog.”

“What did you expect? The ritual greetings of the imperial court?”

“Some respect for the person who saved your life would have been welcome.”

“Ah, yes, you did save me, and I am very grateful.” He idly tugged at a lock of his hair as his gaze slid down her and back up again. “I am in your debt. Tell me your desire and I will fulfill it.”

“My—my desire?” she choked.

He smirked again. “A favor, little miko. I am saying I owe you a favor.”

 

Celebrate the First Look with a Giveaway!

Grand Prize: 1 Winner will Receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card

Runner-Ups: 3 Winners will Each Receive one $10 Amazon Gift Card Each

Giveaway Link:

 

Annette Marie has her first novel, CHASE THE DARK on SALE for $0.99 on Amazon from September 13-19!

Author Bio:  annette_marie_author_photo_600x900_blue

Annette Marie is the author of the Amazon best-selling YA urban fantasy series Steel & Stone, which includes the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award nominee Yield the Night. Her first love is fantasy, a limitless realm of creativity where she can break all the boring rules of real life, but fast-paced urban fantasy, bold heroines, and tantalizing forbidden romances are her guilty pleasures. She proudly admits she has a thing for dragons, and her editor has politely inquired as to whether she intends to include them in every book.

Annette lives in the frozen winter wasteland of northern Alberta, Canada (okay, it’s not quite that bad). She shares her life with her remarkably patient, comparatively sensible husband and their furry minion of darkness—sorry, cat—Caesar. When not writing, she can be found elbow-deep in one art project or another while blissfully ignoring all adult responsibilities.

To find out more about Annette and her books, visit her website

Find Annette Marie: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads

 

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RELEASE BLITZ ~ Retrieval by Aly Martinez

Sep 16

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ONE STORY. TWO COUPLES.

The Retrieval Duet by Aly Martinez is a two part series.

RETRIEVAL is NOW LIVE and will bring readers the first part of this emotional second chance romance.  

TRANSFER (Part Two) will release on September 27th!

retrieval-c

NOW AVAILABLE on the following retailers:

retrieval_live

Retrieval (Part One):

Amazon US:

Amazon UK:

iBooks:

Nook:

Kobo:

Blurb

I proposed on our first date.

She laughed and told me I was insane. Less than a day later, she said yes.

It was a whirlwind, but we were happy…

Until we got greedy and wanted a family.

It was a life I couldn’t give her, not for lack of trying. Fertility just wasn’t on our side. We sought out doctors and treatments. Spent money we didn’t have. Lied to our families. Smiled for our friends. Put on a brave face for a world that didn’t understand.

Finally, we were successful…

Until we were forced to bury our son.

We were left broken, battered, and destroyed.

They say love is in the details, but it was the details that ruined us.

This is the story of how I took back what had always been mine.

The retrieval of my wife and our family.

retrieval-2

retrieval-3

EXCERPT

“Where’d you get beer?” Elisabeth asked as she scrambled from the couch.

“Seth,” I replied, hanging my head and rubbing my eyes.

Jesus, I’d wanted to kiss her. She was being a bitch, spouting shit she didn’t mean just because she was too scared to let me in.

But, even through it, those plump lips were calling to me.

I’d never been able to resist that woman. Despite that we’d fallen apart, it hadn’t changed. The hum for her was still in my veins. It never went away, but for two years, it had been dormant. I’d packed it down so tightly that I’d hoped it had died. But, with one look, my body began thrumming like a live wire.

“Seth?” she asked as she bent over to straighten her tight, black pencil skirt.

It was a rare occasion to catch Elisabeth in something other than a perfectly pressed skirt and a pair of heels. But she’d been sleeping all day. It was wrinkled all to hell and back. The only thing her efforts succeeded in was drawing my attention down to her legs.

Legs that had spent many nights wrapped around my hips as she came while crying my name.

Shit. I should go.

But, after the way she’d latched on to me that morning, I wasn’t going anywhere.

“My assistant,” I answered. “I had him pick you up a bottle of wine, too.”

She blinked. “You have an assistant? Who delivers you beer? And your ex-wife wine?”

“No, I have an assistant who does whatever the fuck I need him to do. And, luckily for us, beer and wine happen to fall into the whatever-the-fuck-I-need-him-to-do category tonight.” She fought back a smile as I finished, “So do gyros.”

“Damn. I need to get one of those,” she mumbled to herself.

I smirked. “Cash my checks and you could afford one.”

It was a dick move, bringing up the money right then. But, despite her expert hand in decorating, that little starter house we’d bought with rose-colored glasses now needed a shit-ton of work.

Her back shot ramrod straight, fury crinkling the corners of her eyes as she snarled, “I’m not cashing your checks.”

I shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to figure out how to get your own wine and dinner after tonight.”

“I think I can manage,” she fired back.

“Suit yourself.” I pushed off the couch and meandered to the kitchen.

I went to the fridge and leaned in, searching for anything I could snack on. With the exception of at least a dozen Tupperware containers, she didn’t have much in the way of a quick bite.

Snagging a handful of grapes from the drawer, I made a mental note to send Seth to the grocery store after he’d delivered dinner.

Popping the grapes in my mouth one by one, I felt her watching me in what could only be defined as silent awe. I decided my best move would be to ignore it. “You know, I should have invented Tupperware. You alone could keep me in business,” I told her, retrieving a beer and then shutting the door.

She scoffed then muttered, “At least then I would have benefitted from you abandoning our marriage.”

Lava fresh off the volcanoes in Hell boiled in my veins.

I cocked my head to the side and questioned, “I’m sorry. Come again?”

“You should go,” she snapped.

Think a-fucking-gain.

“Nah, I’m good. Got any movies?”

I tipped the bottle to my lips, doing my best to calm the storm brewing within me, all while still fighting the desire to take her to the floor, plant myself between her legs, and remind her how that fucking attitude affected me.

Clearly, she had forgotten.

My cock had not.

“Roman, it’s been a crazy day. Please don’t do this tonight.”

“Do what?” I asked, leaning back against the huge, granite island.

She threw her hands out to the sides in frustration. “What you always do.”

“What do I always do, Lissy?”

“This!” she yelled.

I frowned and took another pull from my beer. “Haven’t been in our kitchen, drinking beer, in a long time. I hardly think it’s fair to say I always do it.”

Her eyes nearly bulged from her head. “My kitchen, Roman. This is my kitchen. Not ours. And you know good and damn well that is not what I’m talking about.”

My lips twitched as I pointed the neck of my bottle at her. “No. What I know good and damn well is that I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Or why you’re slinging unnecessary and, might I add, undeserved attitude at me like a short-order cook at the bitch house.”

“He did not say that to me,” she whispered to herself.

When I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, she swung a pointed finger toward the door and yelled, “Get out!”

I grinned, crossing my legs at the ankle. “You always were cranky when you were hungry.”

And that was the exact moment her head exploded.

Want More?

Pre-order Transfer (Part Two)

Releasing September 27th

Amazon US:

Amazon UK:

iBooks:

Nook:

Kobo:

Meet the Authoraly-martinez-bio

Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in South Carolina, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her side.

After some encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her ever-growing list of job titles. Five books later, she shows no signs of slowing. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re hanging out with Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls life.

STALK HER: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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BLOG TOUR ~ Inarticulate by Eden Summers

Sep 16

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Blog Tour

INARTICULATE
from Author Eden Summers

Release Date September 12, 2016

 
Could you handle his silence?
 
The next novel from bestselling author, Eden Summers, is set to catch your breath.
Inarticulate is a contemporary, standalone romance novel and a read you won’t want to miss.
 
Add to Goodreads


 Question from Eden Summers:

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZvdAOjaFow

 

Synopsis
 
He’s silent––but his touch speaks louder than words.
 
At first sight, Savannah is drawn to the harsh appeal of a man who refuses to talk to her. Keenan’s hard stare is arrogant and unapologetic. The quirk of his sensuous lips is cocky and in control.
 
But there’s more. There’s something deeper he’s trying to hide behind those steely grey eyes––a slight hint of vulnerability which captures her intrigue.
 
She’d been warned, told that his silence hides a myriad of lies capable of affecting her career and relationships with loved ones. Only she can’t help herself. Testing Keenan’s defenses is an addiction she can’t deny.
 
Falling in lust is easy. Learning his secrets comes with a price. The cost? Her broken heart.


Cover
 
 
 

Buy Links

 Amazon: 
B & N: 
iBooks: 
Kobo:

 

 

 

Inarticulate Excerpt
 
This is an excerpt from Inarticulate (a standalone contemporary romance) when the two protagonists first meet.
 
She swung around to the house to hide her smile and bounced up the three stairs toward the front door. Movement nudged her periphery and she slowed, taking in the sight of a man standing in the shadows at the far end of the porch. His hip was cocked against the bannister, his eyes hooded.
Her concentration latched on to him, unmoving as the world around her dulled to a faint hum in her mind. She wasn’t sure what intrigued her. It could be his narrowed stare, the way he didn’t greet her with warmth or kindness. Only sterile appraisal. Or maybe it was the package his arrogance came in—the tense expression, stubbled jaw, and lush lips pressed in a tight line.
Her tongue tingled. Mouth salivated. She would’ve liked to think it was due to the heavenly aroma of her aunt’s cooking drifting in the air. Would’ve liked to…but what was a load of bull.
“Hi.” She gave him a friendly finger wave as Dominic came up behind her.
The man continued to stare, his face still unwelcoming in the shadows.
“Keenan, don’t be a prick.” Dominic tugged on her arm, stealing her attention. “Come on. I’ll introduce you later.”
She kept her focus on the stranger, their gazes entwined, hers soft and inquisitive, his harsh and fierce, as her cousin dragged her inside, the door
slamming shut behind them. “Who was—”
“Oh, my sweet Savannah!” Aunt Michelle hustled up the hall, wiping her hands on an old apron tied around her waist. “It’s so good to see you.”
The familiar face held more wrinkles than Savannah remembered, her aunt’s long blonde hair now gray and thinning. But the beautiful blue eyes were still the same—loving and gentle.
“It’s good to see you, too.” She ignored the strangers poking their heads into the hall from different doorways and fell into a comforting embrace. “Thank you for the dinner invitation.”
“Oh, please,” her aunt chastised. “You don’t need an invitation. Come around any time.”
There was a whirlwind of introductions. Her aunt took position on her right, gushing with affection and compliments, while Dominic remained on her left, muttering snide comments that threatened to make her laugh.
A timer dinged from the kitchen, a welcome reprieve as her aunt excused herself and left Savannah to take a breath. There had to be twenty people crammed into the small house. All of them smiling and friendly, unlike the man outside who still lingered in her thoughts.
“You want a drink?” Dominic nudged her elbow.
Hell yes. “Please.” She followed him to the back of the house, into the laundry, and toward a fridge stocked full of beer, wine, and pre-mixed drinks.
“Help yourself.”
He held the door open while she grabbed a small bottle of something red and no doubt comatosingly sweet. “Thanks.”
“I’m gonna hit the bathroom.” He closed the fridge door and looked at her in concern. “Can you survive for a few minutes without me?”
“I guess I’ll have to. I’m not going to follow you to the toilet.”
“Obviously,” he drawled. “You gave up that opportunity when we were eight.”
“Twelve.”
“Ten.” He chuckled and walked from the room, leaving her alone with the hovering threat of chatter from the other end of the house.
It was time to go incognito. She didn’t have the energy to smile at strangers. Alcohol would help, but for now, she needed cool fresh air…and maybe another glimpse at the menacing eyes of the man she’d met on the porch.
She shoved the bottle into her coat pocket and sauntered down the hall, measuring her steps to lessen the clap of her heels. She reached the front door without notice and pulled it open, slipping into the darkness of twilight without a word.
The man was still at the end of the porch, a beer bottle now visible in his hand as he leaned over, resting his elbows on the bannister. He didn’t acknowledge her presence. She supposed a man with arrogance ebbing off him in waves didn’t have to. His dismissal gave her the opportunity to appreciate his ass stretched in well-worn jeans and the perfection of how his black jacket rested at his hips to give her an unhindered view.
“Hi,” she offered for a second time.
He didn’t move, didn’t even spare her a glance as she approached the bannister. He continued staring straight ahead as he lifted the beer bottle to his lips and took a long pull.
“It’s a lovely night for a family dinner.” Was he a distant relative? God, she hoped not, otherwise Dominic’s inbred tendencies were rubbing off on her.
He replied with a jut of his chin. A jut of his God. Damn. Chin.
What an asshole. And wasn’t she just the stupidest set of ovaries to walk the earth, because it only made her itch to push his blatant need for solitude, to poke at him with questions until he acknowledged her with the respect she deserved. The respect any human deserved.
“So… you like beer…” she drawled, glib as hell.
The corner of his mouth twitched as he continued to focus on the street. But still, no answer.
She could smell him, could practically taste his delicious aftershave on her tongue with each inhalation. He was a taunt to all her senses…well, except her ears because the pretentious ass wouldn’t say a word.
He took another swig from his bottle and straightened to face her. She could see his eyes now, the steely silver, almost blue, that made her shiver with their ferocity. He was tall, too. At least an inch above her even with her heels.
She pulled the pre-mix bottle from her jacket pocket and twisted the lid to keep her hands busy. She could see two outcomes eventuating. Either he would smile, knocking her off her feet with the brilliance of his appeal. Or he was going to pull a gun from the inside of his jacket and blow her brains out.
Player or gangster. He could totally pull off both.
“I’m usually a wine drinker myself.” She raised the bottle of bubbly red liquid in her hand, slowly tilting it to her mouth. She took a sip, licked the alcohol from her lips in a deliberately seductive provocation, then lowered the bottle again.
Still, he gave her nothing. Noth-ing. He was the most accomplished jerk she’d ever come across, and yet she still couldn’t ditch the intrigue and walk away. Without a word, he had her tied around his little finger, begging for attention.
“I like your jeans.” She ogled his crotch, wanting to return the discomfort of how humiliating this one-sided conversation was becoming. “They’re snug.”
His lips quirked, giving her a glimpse of straight white teeth. Asshole. Asshole. Ass-hole! He was gorgeous, the faintest hint of humor turning his dangerous eyes playful. She lifted the bottle to her mouth again, this time ignoring any pretense of seduction as she gulped at the liquid.
“Are you always this charm—”
The front door creaked open and she turned to find Dominic eying them both skeptically. “What’s going on?”
She smiled, the biggest, fakest smile she had in her arsenal. “I’m having an in-depth conversation with this lovely gentleman.”
“Really?” Dominic frowned, his brows pulling deeper with every passing second.
“Yep.” There was gushing amounts of sarcasm in her tone. “First we conversed about our drinking habits, then fashion. I was about to bring up the topic of politics and world peace when you rudely interrupted.”
She glanced at the man in the corner, an arrogant smirk now curving those sensuous lips. He wasn’t the only one capable of being a jerk.
 
“Well, that’s strange…” Dominic came closer. “Because Keenan doesn’t talk.”
 
Giveaway

Enter to win!!!
 
Inarticulate Giveaway
 
 
 

 

About the Author
 

Eden Summers is a bestselling author of contemporary romance with a side of sizzle and sarcasm.

 

She lives in Australia with a young family who are well aware she’s circling the drain of insanity. Eden can’t resist alpha dominance, dark features and sarcasm in her fictional heroes and loves a strong heroine who knows when to bite her tongue but also serves retribution with a feminine smile on her face. 

 
Connect with Eden
 

 

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RELEASE BLITZ ~ Brief Me, Baby by Fiona Davenport

Sep 15

Posted by

 

Brief Me, Baby
A Yeah, Baby Novella
Fiona Davenport

 

 

Genre: Contemporary Erotic Romance

Goodreads

*Standalone*

     

Available on Kindle Unlimited

Buy It Now!  

BLURB:

Guy Rule: No sleeping with the competition.
 
Jaxon Croix is a smooth talker who’s used to success in life. But despite the law firm partnership, showcase home, and expensive sports car, something is missing… until he meets Natalie Gardner. He knows she’s meant to be his, and he doesn’t waste any time going after her.
 
Natalie fell into Jax’s bed before she knew his history with her new employer. She’s in for a rude awakening when she finds him sitting across the table for a deposition in her boss’s divorce. Knowing her job is on the line, she tries to put the brakes on her relationship with Jax… only he’s not willing to let her go.

 

  

  

BLP REVIEW ~ Tracy

 

Brief Me, Baby totally hit my spot…. I do love the Fiona Davenport ladies and their hot, sexy, instalove books really are a secret (ok, not so secret now!!) favourite of mine!!!

I flove a good alpha and where I’m not always a fan of an instalove story, there’s something about the Yeah, Baby series of stories that do it for me.

I liked both characters; Jax knew what he wanted and went for it – even when he understood why Natalie was trying to take a step back and stop what was going on between them, even if just for a little while.. Natalie was determined to succeed under her own steam and not use any well known connections that would undermine her work and effort and I got why she reacted as she did to Jax when his work history was disclosed! When this pair got together they were smokin’ hot….

When I hit a book slump or need a bit of a quick pick me up, FD (along with another author in the same genre!!) really do get me back in the mood for reading!

If you like a good read, with a hot male and a spunky female lead and are looking to heat up a couple of hours, grab yourself a copy of Brief Me, Baby (don’t forget the fan/cold water/significant other!! 😉 )

 

 

 
 

 

EXCERPT
“Four days,” he growled into my mouth before capturing it in another searing kiss.
After doing my best to avoid him, I should have tried to push out of his arms. We were in his office for fuck’s sake, but that didn’t seem to matter to me as I melted into his embrace. When he lifted his head, our chests were heaving, and I couldn’t remember why I’d run from him in the first place. My head was spinning, and the only reason I stayed on my feet was because his hands were
wrapped around my arms.
“You ignored me for an entire weekend.” His hold on me tightened. “Hours upon hours we could have spent together if only you’d picked up your damn phone!”
Before I was able to wrap my brain around what was happening, he dropped down onto the couch, pulled me across his lap, and spanked me. Bursts of pain spread across my skin, making me freeze up in shock. I couldn’t believe he was actually spanking me in his office! He took advantage of my stillness, spanking me repeatedly. His rasped out words punctuated the pain.
“I.”
Whack.
“Warned.”
Whack.
“You.”
Whack.
“Jax!” I gasped out, attempting to slide my hands over my ass for protection. I didn’t get far before he had both my wrists in his grasp, pressing them against my lower back with one hand while caressing my stinging cheeks with the other.
“You’re mine,” he murmured, lifting me off his lap until I was standing between his legs. “I wasn’t fucking joking when I told you I was going to redden this sweet little ass of yours any time I have to remind you that you belong to me.”

I had no response. None. What could I say when one half of me wanted to climb onto his lap for wild monkey-sex, while the other, more rational, part knew damn well that the moment I left his office I was going to run again?

 


 
 

 

The Mafia Ties Series:
Nic & Anna

f74d7612-5402-4799-9d67-b2bc36bc2efa

A smokin’ hot dad falls for the innocent nanny… and he’s a Mafia boss.

Deception: Nic DeLuca is used to taking what he wants. Born to lead a powerful mafia family, he’s not in the habit of asking for permission—or forgiveness. He’s willing to cross any boundary when it comes to possessing what he considers to be his, and from the moment he laid eyes on Anna Martin, he knew she was meant for him.

Nic is quick to move the innocent nanny into his home… and his bed. But, he hides his dark side from Anna. The deception is necessary to ensure she falls for him before she realizes exactly who he is.

Danger: Anna Martin was looking for a nanny position, but she found more than she bargained for when she fell for single dad Nic DeLuca. When she finds out he’s a mafia boss, her head tells her to run but her heart tells her to stay. With his baby girl in the hospital, Anna stands by her man in his time of need. But when danger swirls around them, will they manage to find happiness together?

Devotion: It didn’t take long for Nic DeLuca and Anna Martin to fall in love. The mafia boss and innocent nanny may seem like an odd match, but their devotion to each other is absolute.

When Anna is taken by a rival family, Nic will go to any lengths to rescue her—and ensure nobody touches what’s his ever again.



OTHER BOOKS BY FIONA DAVENPORT
**All books available on Kindle Unlimited**

RISQUE CONTRACTS SERIES
 
Penalty Clause
Amazon US → http://amzn.to/1ZI2Smn
Amazon UK → http://amzn.to/1QgsHnK
 
Contingency Plan
Amazon US →http://amzn.to/1JGrAfZ
Amazon UK →http://amzn.to/1QtFe5p
 
Fraternization Rule
Amazon US → http://amzn.to/20d6J62
Amazon UK →http://amzn.to/1PmjFkO
 

Risqué Contracts Series Box Set

 

Penalty Clause, Contingency Plan & Fraternization Rule
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YEAH, BABY SERIES
 
Baby, You’re Mine
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Baby Steps
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Baby, Don’t Go
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Yeah, Baby Series Box Set
Baby, You’re Mine, Baby Steps & Baby, Don’t Go
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Dance With Me, Baby
A Yeah, Baby Novella
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I’m Yours, Baby
A Yeah, Baby Novella
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Until Death Do We Part
A Sex & Vows Novel
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Mafia Ties Series
Nic & Anna’s Story
 
Deception
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Danger
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Devotion
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Mafia Ties
Brandon & Carly’s Story
 
Pursuit
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Power
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Passion
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ABOUT FIONA DAVENPORT
    
Hello! My name is Fiona Davenport and I’m a smutoholic. I’ve been reading raunchy romance novels since… well, forever and a day ago it seems. And now I get to write sexy stories and share them with others who are like me and enjoy their books on the steamier side. Fiona Davenport is my super-secret alias, which is kind of awesome since I’ve always wanted one.


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The ladies are celebrating the release of Brief Me, Baby with a GIVEAWAY.

TWO WINNERS will get a signed paperback copy of KING by TM Frazier and
ONE WINNER will get a mystery box of UNSIGNED paperbacks!

Click the picture below to enter.

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BLOG TOUR ~ The Arrogant Architect by L K Collins

Sep 15

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The Arrogant Architect is #LIVE, click here for a short video!
Kingsley Lennox, AKA King, has been dubbed a genius of the architectural world. Anything he touches turns to gold, and being as successful as he is, his work is his number one priority. He doesn’t have time to date or deal with the slew of women that gawk at him just because of his perfect face and chiseled body. Plus, no one has interested him enough to give a shit, until the smart mouthed Everly Adams, AKA Ever, wakes to the noise of him restoring the building next door to hers.

Ever, like King, doesn’t have the time or the desire to date, she’s been through so much. So when she meets King, she can’t help but want nothing at all to do with the arrogant asshole. For one, they share nothing in common. For another, he’s pompous, cocky, and throws his money around as if that will win her heart. Did I mention he’s fucking crazy and very controlling? No, thank you!

But when King sets his mind to something, he accomplishes it…always has, always will. Ever is the biggest challenge he’s faced, but will she be the only person he can’t impress?

Can King win her over, all while hiding the truth about who he really is?
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           Suddenly, he turns down an unfamiliar street and parks on the side. “I’ve gotta pick this up for her, do you need anything?”
            “A shot of anything would be great.”
            He touches my cheek with the back of his knuckles, igniting my insides. I never thought I’d like his hands on me…but after tonight, I really do. He gets out of the car and I rest my head back, watching him walk into the old-fashioned pharmacy, dressed in gray shorts and a white t-shirt. He really is hot, so fucking sexy.
            Looking out the window, I think back to tonight and sitting on that rock in his arms – it was so nice. For the first time in years, I had someone to turn to when I was in pain. It wasn’t everyone depending on me. He was there for me and comforted me and didn’t expect me to get over it because it’s been almost six years. It’s sad how quick-forgetting some people are when it comes to grief. After losing my mom, everyone I was close to didn’t have the patience for me. I can sense the people I work with are that way too – when I have a bad day, they don’t get it. It’s not like that with my dad…but we hide our pain from one another to try to help each other move on. But being with King tonight was different. It was nice to be myself and let my emotions go where they needed.
            He comes walking out of the store carrying two bags, and there I go undressing him with my eyes. His cock bulge is straining his shorts and I shake the thought away. What is wrong with me? A few days ago, I detested him, and now…I’m looking at his dick.
            He slides in the car and hands me a bag. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got one of everything.”
            I look inside and there is an array of tiny liquor bottles. Every kind you could think of. “You know I was joking, right?”
            “Were you?” he starts the car and pulls away, dead serious.
            “Yes.”
            “You’ve gotta stop doing that to me…” 
The official trailer for The Arrogant Architect
From International Bestselling Author, LK Collins, comes a sexy new standalone novel. This is a love/hate relationship that will make you laugh, cry, and pant, all in one sitting. And true to LK fashion there is always a little angst. LK writes an array of emotionally and sexy gripping Erotic Romance novels. Her stories are compelling and will draw you in from page one, and with twists and turns along the way, she always keeps her readers enthralled ’til the end. When LK’s not lost in the minds of her characters, you can find her on the beach with her family, where her husband and writing partner, “The Prezident,” are sure to be plotting out her next tale. 

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RELEASE DAY BLITZ ~ Shielding Lily by Alexa Riley

Sep 14

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It’s Lily Parker’s first day at a new high school. She’s a senior finishing her last semester, and all she wants to do is graduate and get out of town. Her home life is a secret hell, and she’s trying to find a way out. But everything changes when Ren says hello and sees right through to her truth.

Ren Hendrick’s succeed’s at everything he touches, including football. But he’s never been passionate about anything. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, which pisses people off. But he can’t find the desire to care. He’s lived a life without color, until Lily walks in and lights up his world.

Their story is one of sweet young love and finding your forever before you can even dream of what that is. It’s one of protecting what belongs to you and having the courage to follow your heart, no matter your age.

Warning: Call your dentist and schedule an appointment, because you’re going to get nothing but cavities from this sugary book. Ren and Lily start off so innocent, but by the time it’s over, you’re gonna need to hose yourself off. We’re talking two virgins who turn into maniacs. You’re welcome!

ap-new-excerpt

Shielding Lily

Chapter 1
*Lily*

 
The sounds of banging cabinets startle me awake before my alarm can go off. Rolling over to my side, I see I still have thirty minutes before I need to get up. I’d set my alarm a little earlier than I should have because I’m nervous about my first day. I’m going to a new school and have no idea what this one is going to be like. You never know what you’re going to get. Most of the time I can blend in and let myself get lost in the crowd of other students. No one notices me for the most part, but it doesn’t always work.
I should be used to changing schools by now. I think this is the fourth time I’ve moved in the past two years. The schools are starting to run together, but I hope this is the last. Only months separate me from graduation, and only days from my eighteenth birthday. I’ll be able to make my own choices then.
A sound of something shattering in the kitchen followed by a string of curses causes me to hold my breath. I can only hope he doesn’t call out my name. Monday mornings are the worst. Dad’s always coming off a weekend bender, because alcohol seems to be my father’s reason for living. It wasn’t always like this, but it is now.
Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I slowly sit up and listen for his movements. Things have been getting unstable lately, and it’s only getting worse. Dad used to be able to drown his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle and pretend I didn’t exist. But recently his anger has been rising and flying my way. I’m constantly walking around on eggshells, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the look in his eyes, but I can see it. I can feel it deep inside me, like he’s waiting for me to do something wrong so he can strike out.
But I always make sure there isn’t a reason. I desperately don’t want that change to come. I’m a skittish rabbit in my own home. When I finally hear the front door slam closed, all my muscles release, and an all-too-familiar tension within me relaxes.
I pull myself from the bed and get ready for school. I go with a short button-up blue jean dress with wool leggings underneath. They’re soft and warm and will help with the chill on my mile-long walk to school. It’s early January, and the Minnesota winter is raging. The more layers I can put on, the better.
Looking in the mirror, I part my hair a little to the side so more falls to the right, before putting in a small clip to hold it in place. I make sure the scar by my ear is hidden as much as possible, then I look myself over, double-checking everything. The scar is all I ever see when I look in the mirror. It’s the bitter reminder of the day that changed my world. My mom might have died in the car, but she dragged my father with her into the grave. Nothing has been the same since that day.
Now when I look into the mirror, the scar isn’t the first thing I see. I see my mother. When I was unpacking boxes last night I pulled out a photo album of my parents when they were younger. I look just like her at my age. From my white-blonde hair, to my too-big blue eyes that take over my face, to my front teeth that are a little bigger than the rest, and my small upturned nose.
We almost look like twins in pictures of us at the same age. Reaching out, I touch the mirror, wishing it was my mother. But all the wishing in the world can’t turn back the clock. I spent the first year after she died wishing for so many things. Wishing gets you nowhere.
I wipe at the tear that’s somehow escaped. I miss when I looked in the mirror and I only saw the scar. It was easier to deal with. Grabbing my bag, I head downstairs knowing the mess my dad made will still be there.
Since my mom died I’ve sort of taken her place when it comes to the household chores. I make sure everything is kept clean, the laundry is done, and dinner is on the table before my dad gets home from whatever job he is doing. Normally it’s some kind of security since he lost his badge after one too many DWIs. I don’t know how he can drink all night and still get up for work, but he does it.
I finish cleaning up the shattered coffee mug from the floor and make sure everything else is in its place. I pull a pack of hamburger meat out of the freezer and sit it out on the stove to defrost. I’ll make something with it when I get home.
Bundling up the best I can, I pray that the weather won’t be too bad when school finally lets out. I need to see about finding a job on the weekends. Maybe I can fill out most of the applications online during lunch at the school library. I’ve seen a few small places in town that are on my way to school. I can see about popping in and applying on my way home. They’d be the best bet being so close. Maybe I’d get lucky and could even work a few hours after school, making it home before Dad.
Dad will never go for me working through the week if it means no dinner on the table, but the weekends he seems okay with. I’ve been pooling every penny I can and saving it away. I feel like time is running out and I need as much money as I can get to try and get a place of my own. I want to be able to afford college next year and to put a roof over my head. I have to get out of here. I can’t watch my father kill himself. I already watched my mother die.
 

  
ap-new-about-the-author

ar-sigAlexa Riley is two sassy friends who got together and wrote some dirty books. They are both married moms of two who love football, donuts, and obsessed book heroes.

They specialize in insta-love, over-the-top, sweet, and cheesy love stories that don’t take all year to read. If you want something SAFE, short, and always with a happily ever after, then Alexa Riley is for you!

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RELEASE BLITZ ~ Playing It Cool by Amy Andrews

Sep 14

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“Score one for the curvy girls”

Playing it Cool by Amy Andrews!

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Standalone. Sports Romance.

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Blurb

Score one for the curvy girls!

Harper Nugent might have a little extra junk in her trunk, but her stepbrother calling her out on it is the last straw… When rugby hottie, Dexter Blake, witnesses the insult, he surprises Harper by asking her out. In front of her dumbass brother. Score! Of course, she knows it’s not for reals, but Dex won’t take no for an answer.

Dexter Blake’s life revolves around rugby with one hard and fast rule: no women. Sure, his left hand is getting a workout, but he’s focused on his career for now. Then he overhears an asshat reporter belittle the curvy chick he’d been secretly ogling. What’s a guy to do but ask her out? It’s just a little revenge against a poser, and then he’ll get his head back in the game.

But the date is better than either expected. So is the next one. And the next. And the heat between them…sizzles their clothes right off. Suddenly, this fake relationship is feeling all too real…

playing-it-cool-teaser

Excerpt

Dexter Blake liked a woman with some junk in her trunk. And the tall, curvy chick on the sidelines was packing a whole lot of booty. She had one of those itty-bitty waists, too. And her cups floweth’d over.

Staring at her chest was practically a religious experience.

Unfortunately, she only had eyes for Chuck Nugent, the pretty boy sports reporter for Channel Five. He was currently doing his sycophantish spiel on the field, a cameraman following him around as he interviewed the players still milling around for their obligatory post-match interviews.

She was impatient for his attention, too, if her pacing was anything to go by.

Lucky bastard.

As far as Dex was concerned, she could keep pacing. Watching everything jiggle was the cherry on the top of his pie tonight. There was nothing better than winning a hard-fought game of rugby union. But watching a fine-looking woman strutting her stuff came a very close second.

“I’d say don’t look now, booty at six o’clock, but I can see you’re ahead of me.”

Dex smiled at Tanner Stone, the captain of the Sydney Smoke and his good mate, as he pulled up beside him then dropped at the waist to stretch out his hamstrings.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, Dex,” Bodie Webb said as he pulled up on the other side. “Your kinda ass on the sideline.”

A low whistle came from behind them. “I hope you’re planning on hitting that, Dex,” Lincoln Quinn murmured as he also appeared, casually waving at some teenage girls hollering at him from the dispersing crowd.

Dex chuckled. “Since when did you all turn into pimps?”

Linc clapped him on the back. “Just lending a hand.”

“Thanks. I can get my own ass.”

And, sadly, as much as sideline-chick ticked every box, her ass was off-limits. One look at her told him she was the kind of girl a guy loved. Got into a relationship with. The kind he married. Made babies with.

She was the commitment type.

Over a decade of avoiding romantic entanglements had alerted Dex to the signs, and this woman had I don’t do casual written all over her.

And he didn’t do commitment. His career came first. He’d fought hard for his place on the team, and at thirty, he probably only had a few good years left. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the ball for a second. He knew how easy it was to lose everything. To have it all go to shit when you least expected it.

He was never going back to Perry Hill.

There would be time for commitment later. Rugby was it for now.

“But you don’t,” Tanner said.

“Just because I don’t walk around with a permanent hard-on like Linc—”

“Hey!”

Everyone ignored Linc’s half-hearted protest. The cocky back rower wore his horniness like a badge of frickin’ honour. “—doesn’t mean I go without.”

And if he did—it was none of their damn business.

Chuck finished his interview with the skipper of the losing team and, spotting Tanner, headed toward them.

“Christ,” Dex said. “Dickhead approaching.”

Tanner sighed. “Best to just think of our contracts and smile for the camera.”

“Ooh, helllllo,” Bodie purred. “She’s on the move, too.”

Dex’s gaze flicked to the woman again, tracking her progress as she hurried after Chuck. Her hips swung enticingly and her chest moved interestingly beneath her T-shirt.

Christ, it was a turn-on.

“Chuck,” she called, hurrying to catch up with him.

Idiot. Dex would never let a woman trail behind him like that. Not when she could walk in front and he could check out her luscious ass.

“What in hell does she see in that guy?” Bodie asked.

Dex had no idea, but the urge to throttle the smarmy reporter—something that was never far from the surface—spewed like the sudden rush of a geyser in his chest.

“Chuck,” she called, louder this time, almost caught up with him.

Dickhead stopped. Turned. Then glared before looking around him as if he was embarrassed. He hissed, “What the fuck, Harper?” He’d kept his voice low, but the edge of fury carried it farther than Dex was sure Chuck would have liked.

“I told you to stay in the stands, not embarrass me by running onto the goddamn field in a pair of jeans you’ve barely managed to squeeze your lard ass into. I have a certain image to maintain, and it does not involve being followed around by fat chicks.”

Dex’s jaw clamped tight as the hackles rose on the back of his neck. Fat chick? He could see the stain of red creeping up her neck from here, and the spewing geyser in his chest turned viscous, like lava.

“God, he’s a fuckwit,” Bodie whispered.

“Excuse me,” Dex growled.

Lava burning in his chest, he strode purposefully toward Chuck and the woman, who was hissing something back at the reporter Dex couldn’t quite hear. He was sweaty and dirty and every damn muscle bitched at him, but Dex paid none of it any heed.

The urge to deck the smarmy front man rode him hard, but by the time he pulled up beside Chuck, Dex had another plan.

A better plan.

One that involved less potential penalty. And more potential booty.

“Hey, Chuck,” he said, forcing himself to smile as he clapped the reporter hard on the back. It was satisfying to hear a strained, involuntary cough from the man.

“Oh Dex, hi,” Chuck said, sleazy smile in place, turning as if he were trying to block the woman from Dex’s view.

No chance with those puny coat hanger shoulders.

“Great game tonight,” Chuck enthused. “If you could just give me thirty seconds, I’ll be right over.”

“Actually, Chuck,” Dex glanced at the woman and smiled at her. She was even more magnificent up close, with a whole lot of pissed-off glittering in the depths of her Marsala brown eyes. “I was hoping you might introduce me to the lady.”

It was amusing to watch the pretty boy almost choke on his tongue. For a moment, Dex thought he was going to say lady, what lady? But he finally turned to acknowledge the woman behind him. “Of course. This is Harper…Nugent. My…”

The woman—Harper—folded her arms across her chest, and all the blood rushed from Dex’s big head to his little one. “Come on, Chuck, you can say it,” she said, her voice dry with amused sarcasm. “It starts with S. Ssssister.”

Something eased in Dex’s chest. So she was not getting naked with Pretty Boy. There was a God.

“Step!” Chuck said quickly, his voice sharp.

She rolled her eyes as she smiled at Dex and offered her hand. He absently noted there were streaks of paint on her fingers. “Nice to meet you.”

Dex was a tall guy. Big. Not as big as some of the team’s front row, but he was still six foot and had trouble buying shirts that weren’t tight in the shoulders. This tall—hell, Amazonian—woman could look him straight in the eye. He’d never met a woman who could do that in a pair of flats, and it was a strange kind of turn-on.

“The pleasure’s entirely mine,” he murmured, returning her firm and sure grip with one of his own.

He liked a woman who could handshake like a boss.

“Yes…anyway,” Chuck said, his expression pained, as Harper’s hand fell away. “Harper has to run. A girlfriend crisis or something.”

Dex’s eyebrow kicked up. A girlfriend crisis? A crushing sense of disappointment slugged him in the chest.

She was a lesbian?

She laughed and shook her head. “Not that kind of girlfriend.”

His gaze was drawn to her mouth, a plush, sexy crescent in the midst of her flawless olive complexion. He didn’t think she was wearing any makeup, but she was sporting some kind of clear lip gloss that emphasized the luscious curve of her lips.

They glistened, wet and tempting.

Dex laughed, too, as relief flowed like champagne bubbles through his veins. “I am so pleased to hear that.”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. I have to interview the team.” He looked pointedly at his sister.

“Fine. Just don’t forget to pick up Jace and Tabby after you’re done. They’re fine in the stands with Jenny while you wrap up, but she can’t take them home and I’ve told your mother that you’re bringing her kids now instead of me.”

“I’m not going to bloody forget them, Harper,” Chuck replied testily.

She shot an apologetic smile at Dex then turned to go. He and Chuck watched her. The outline of her sexy, rounded butt in the denim of her jeans actually made Dex a little light-headed. It was a sight to behold.

“God, she has a fat ass,” Chuck muttered, disgust colouring his voice.

Dex’s hands tightened to fists. What a monumental wanker. He opened his mouth before he engaged his brain. “Harper! Wait up.”

She looked over her shoulder, a puzzled expression drawing a crease between her brows. “Dex,” Chuck said, putting a hand on Dex’s arm as he took a step in Harper’s direction.

“Tanner’s waiting,” Dex said, shaking off the hand before jogging the short distance to where she’d stopped.

“Hey,” she said, tossing the long strands of her rich dark hair behind her shoulder, clearly still puzzled.

He smiled. “I was hoping you might like to go out with me one night.”

She blinked, the crease between her eyebrows almost cavernous now. “Oh.”

Dex chuckled. It wasn’t the standard response he got from women. Normally, they were tripping over themselves to be asked out by him. Hell, most of them didn’t wait to be asked. It was well known that he didn’t generally date, so they were more than happy to do the asking.

A man with a less healthy ego might have been insulted by Harper’s tepid response. But he could sense her reticence was real as she glanced at the guys to her left, all gawking and smirking, clearly talking about them. Her gaze travelled over his shoulder to where Chuck stood—glaring, if the prickle between Dex’s shoulder blades was anything to go by.

Her gaze returned to him. “Um…”

Hmm. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. He looked pointedly at the mobile she held. “Give me your phone.”

She glanced at it for a moment, frowning some more. “Why?”

Dex gave an exaggerated sigh and plucked it out of her unresisting hand. “It’s okay,” he assured her as she murmured a protest, and his fingers busily navigating to her address book. “I’m just going to put my number in because obviously I don’t have my phone available to put yours into mine.”

She crossed her arms as she watched him enter the details, and it took him twice as long.

“There,” he said, passing the phone back to her.

She glanced at the entry, and his heart tap-danced in his chest as a smile pulled at the curve of her mouth. She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Dex the Stud?”

He grinned and shrugged. “What can I say?”

“And what do you expect me to do with this?”

“As soon as you’re done with your girlfriend thing, give it a ring and we can set up a time and a place for our date.”

“Well, that’s a step up from the last guy, who put his number into my phone hoping I’d send him nude photos,” she said, her tone flippant.

Dex blinked. What the actual fuck? “Absolutely no class.”

“Well, to be fair, he did request arty ones.”

He laughed. “Hey.” He held his hands up in faux surrender. “Never let it be said that I stand in the way of artistic expression, if you feel so inclined with my number. But definitely lose his.”

She laughed back, and it grabbed him by the balls. Like everything else about her, it was big and rich and real. But then her gaze flicked over his shoulder again, and her smile slowly slipped from her face.

Dex gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’re not going to ring it, are you?”

She shook her head, a glossy smile playing on her glossy mouth. “No chance in hell.”

“Why?”

She glanced at her stepbrother again. “Some things just aren’t worth the hassle.”

Dex couldn’t agree more. But he didn’t think Harper Nugent was one of them. Undeterred, he grabbed for her phone again, his reflexes lightning fast after a decade of professional rugby. “You leave me no choice,” he chided as he quickly rang his own number.

“Hi, Dex the Stud,” he said as the ring tone eventually gave way to his message bank. “It’s Dex.” He waggled his brows at Harper, and she smiled and rolled her eyes. “I’m ringing to remind you to call Harper Nugent on this number and ask her on a date again. Do not take no for an answer. Even”—he grinned at her—“if she offers nude arty photos in lieu.”

Dex hit the end button and passed the phone back to her. “There now. You’re in my phone. And I will be ringing you.”

She glanced at the phone then at him before flicking a look at the guys again. Linc was grinning like a loon as he shot Dex two thumbs-up.

“Sure you will,” she said, the tight, polite smile on her face making Dex want to slap Linc upside the head.

She bade him farewell and walked away, and for the first time in his life, Dex looked forward to something other than rugby and inflicting bodily harm on Linc.

…

Harper’s phone rang three hours later. She was a bottle of wine down with her best friend Em, who was in the middle of a boyfriend-number-sixteen crisis. Em was cute, peppy, and up for anything.

She just had really lousy taste in men.

When Em went into a relationship, she went all in, something which Harper had always admired even if her friend consistently chose the wrong guys to be “in” with. The type who were only out for a good time, not a long time. But she always sprang back, and Harper was in awe of her friend’s tenacity and absolute conviction that the right person was out there for everyone.

Although not tonight. While Harper was drinking wine, Em’s breakup booze of choice was butterscotch schnapps, and tonight it was leading her to seriously consider becoming a nun. To prove her seriousness, she was currently Googling how to re-virginise.

So, Harper was both tipsy and completely distracted when she answered the phone.

“Hi,” she said as Em made gagging noises at pictures on a website she was skimming.

“Hey, Harper.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in instant awareness as they had earlier tonight when Dexter Blake had singled her out for a bit of attention.

Her mind went blank for a beat or two. He rang?

Of course he had. She had clearly been some kind of bet or dare or something with his team buddies. At twenty-three, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the butt of some douche’s idea of a good time. I dare you to ask the fat chick out. Snigger, snort, backslap.

Some men were such assholes.

But it had been so good, even momentarily, to put her sanctimonious step-brother in his place.

“Harper? It’s Dex the Stud. Remember me?”

His voice was warm and rich with amusement, and Harper shut her eyes. Remember him? She’d relived him asking her out about a dozen times, no matter how much she’d told herself it had all been some sick joke. It had been the first thing she’d told Em after her friend had stopped crying and asked for something happy to cheer her up.

Then they’d Googled him.

“Harper?”

His voice was sharper this time and Harper pulled herself together, sitting straighter in the chair. “Yes. Of course… Hi.”

“You sound kinda…outta it.”

Harper eyed the empty wine bottle and the full one she’d just cracked open. “Well…I’m kinda drunk, so that’s probably why.”

His low chuckle slid seductive fingers down her neck. “The girlfriend emergency?”

“Yup.”

Em looked over her shoulder. “Who is it?”

“Dex.”

Her eyebrows practically hit her hairline. “The rugby dude?”

“Is that the girlfriend?” Dex asked in her ear.

“Yup,” she said to them both.

“Ask him if he knows how to re-virginise.”

Harper shook her head. “I’m not asking him that.”

“Asking me what?” His voice sounded delicious when it was amused. Thick and gooey, oozing all over her body. Like chocolate topping.

God, she loved chocolate topping.

“You should totally ask me whatever it is.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Are you kidding?” Em interrupted. “He’s a professional rugby star. Everyone knows they get laid all the time. What he doesn’t know about a woman’s anatomy probably isn’t worth knowing. He’ll know about re-virginising.”

Harper thought it more likely he’d know about de-virginising.

“Did she just say re-virginising?”

Had Harper been sober, she would have paid more heed to Em’s sage words about the mating habits of professional sportsmen and not the sweet seduction of a chocolate-topping voice. She sighed. “Yup.”

“Why would anyone want to re-virginise? Hell… Can someone re-virginise?”

“I don’t know and yes, apparently, according to the internet. Spiritually and surgically.”

“That sounds…painful.”

Harper laughed. “Yes. For both.”

“And seriously, would you want some strange dude with a scalpel down near your lady parts?”

She shuddered. “I can think of better uses for a dude down near my lady parts.” His bark of laughter was loud in her ear, and she realised what she said. Her face flamed. “Oh God, sorry. I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did, Harper Nugent.”

“I take it back.”

“Oh no,” he chuckled some more. “You can’t take that back.”

Harper groaned internally. Jesus. Where was her filter? She glanced at the wine bottle. Somewhere at the bottom of that, no doubt.

“Fine. Ignore it then. It’s the booze. White wine makes me mouthy.”

“I can’t wait to see that.”

His voice had dropped an octave and roughened with the merest hint of a promise. It went straight to those aforementioned lady parts, and Harper actually squirmed in her chair to ease the sudden ache.

“She’s not serious, is she?”

It took her a moment to realise he’d moved on, and she leaped at the opportunity gratefully. “No. She’s pissed. Both at men and in the alcoholic sense.” Em had already been several shots of Schnapps down when Harper arrived. “Re-virginising is just one of many options we’ve already discussed tonight. I think she wants to make a voodoo doll next.”

He laughed again. “I like the sound of her.”

Harper sighed, looking at the gorgeous mop of caramel curls and the alabaster wedge of cheekbone making up Em’s profile. She looked like one of those babies from old-fashioned adverts for Pears soap. Only all grown-up.

“She’s gorgeous. You should ask her out. You’d make beautiful babies.”

There was a long pause. Long enough to make Harper think, somewhere in her alcohol-addled brain, babies were not on Dexter Blake’s agenda.

“Thanks,” he said, voice low and amused. “I think I’ll stick with my original plan, though.”

“Oh?”

“You and me. A date.”

“Oh.” Harper’s stomach tightened. She’d seen the way his teammates had been watching them tonight. The way the younger guy had given the thumbs up. She could have kissed Dex for his timing, but a girl had her pride, right? Plus she never wanted to be one of those people who were gossiped about for punching above her weight.

“Look. I’m very flattered that you want to go out on a date with me, but—”

“You should do it,” Em interrupted.

Harper blinked at her best friend. “What?”

“I told you I liked the sound of her,” Dex said in her ear.

Em shrugged. “It’d be worth it just to piss off Chuckers.” If it was possible, Em disliked Chuck more than Harper did.

Harper considered that angle for moment, her head still spinning a little. It was a powerful argument. Why not? If Dex was using her to win some kind of ridiculous frat boy dare, why shouldn’t she use him, too?

“Okay, fine.” Clearly there was a level of drunk where pride rapidly diminished. “But I’m not sleeping with you. Or letting you anywhere near my lady parts.”

That low chuckle again. It ruffled seductively along flesh and nerve endings, and Harper fought the urge to stretch. And purr.

“You know you said that out loud, too, right?”

The lazy smile in his voice ruffled things even lower. “Yes. I know.”

“I will be on my best behaviour. I promise I won’t even bring condoms.”

Sober Harper nodded, pleased with the concession. Drunk, uninhibited Harper knew full well he could ruin her without the aid of a condom, and she seemed perfectly fine with that, too.

Uninhibited Harper was dangerous. She was going to have to cut that bitch off at the knees.

playing-it-cool-curvy-girls

About the Author  amy-andrews-bio

Amy Andrews is a multi-published, award- winning author of 50+ romance novels across both traditional and digital platforms. She writes for Harlequin Mills and Boon, Entangled, Harper Collins Australia, Momentum Publishing, Escape Publishing and Tule. She’s sold in excess of a million books worldwide and has been translated into over a dozen languages. In her spare time she is a PICU nurse and mother of two teenagers. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

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Ebook pack that includes Playing By Her Rules, Ask Me Nicely, and No More Mr. Nice Guy.

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