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Artful Lies by Jodi Ellen Malpas
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Bang
E.K. Blair - 2014
But I’m not innocent. I haven’t been for a very long time. My innocence was stolen from me. Taken was the life I was supposed to have. The soul I was born with. The ruby heart embedded in a life full of hopes and dreams.Gone.Vanished.I never even had a choice. I mourn that life. Mourn the what-ifs. Until now. I’m ready to take back what was always meant to be mine.But every plan has a fatal flaw. Sometimes it’s the heart.**Due to the dark and explicit nature of this book, it is recommended for mature audiences only as some scenes may be particularly disturbing.**
The Man in the Black Suit
Sylvain Reynard - 2017
When her superior, Marcel, is attacked in a supposed random mugging, she is tasked with serving one of the hotel’s most mysterious and attractive guests.Nicholas Cassirer checks into the hotel under an assumed name every three months. Usually, he stays in the penthouse suite with a beautiful female companion but on this occasion, he arrives alone and is displeased in having to deal with someone new. A match of wits ensues as he tests Acacia’s expertise with a series of almost impossible demands. Her intelligence and creativity rise to the challenge, earning his respect.They strike a tenuous accord until Acacia discovers a famous stolen painting in his suite, she contacts a former boyfriend who works for the elite BRB, a unit of French law enforcement that deals with art thefts.Nicholas is questioned by police and released when it is revealed the painting is a reproduction. Irked with her behavior, Acacia’s supervisor demotes her threatening dismissal and the cancellation of her work permit.But Acacia has already attracted Nicholas’s attention. Remorseful that she may lose her job on his account, he offers her a choice – she can wait until her supervisor dismisses her, or she can leave the city of lights behind and become his personal assistant.Acacia initially refuses his offer, but Nicholas is persistent. He reveals himself as a man who quietly acquires stolen art in order to restore it to its rightful owners. Faced with mounting familial debts and the possibility of dismissal and deportation, she agrees to work for him.Nicholas opens up a whole new world of beauty and intrigue to Acacia as they travel the globe. Soon the line between employer and assistant is blurred, and the two lonely people embark on a passionate relationship.
Enthrall
Vanessa Fewings - 2013
This is the embrace of Enthrall.
Mia Lauren is a single, twenty-one-year old working in a West Hollywood art store who dreams of one day becoming a fashion designer. When an unexpected offer arises to work at Enthrall, L.A.'s premier fetish club for the wealthy, Mia accepts. It's a salary beyond her wildest imagination.Mia becomes the secretary to the club's assistant director, blond and broody Richard Booth. Richard is not only one of L.A.'s most beautiful and wealthiest men, he is also the club's senior dominant. Mia is both drawn and terrified when he reveals flashes of his white-hot passion, threatening an unbound pleasure like no other. She knows her attraction may be her undoing, but the spellbinding feelings render her powerless to resist his advances. What Mia cannot know is that Enthrall's dashing founder and director thirty-year-old Cameron Cole, who is also the club's psychiatrist, has lured Mia to save his best friend and patient Richard from his obsession with thrill seeking. Cameron masterfully sets up sexy scenarios to ensure the collision of Richard and Mia, hoping that love will save him. However, despite Cameron's noble intentions, he also finds himself enticed by Mia's haunting innocence. Passion and pleasure stir, forming a dangerous love triangle. This is the world of the forbidden. This is the embrace of Enthrall.THE ENTHRALL SESSIONS TRILOGY (now available in box set) is Mia Lauren’s awakening set against the backdrop of the exclusive Enthrall BDSM club in Los Angeles.THE BEYOND ENTHRALL DUET is founder of Enthrall, Cameron Cole’s story, picking up after Enthrall Him, book 3’s ending, but can be read as a stand-alone duet.WITHIN ENTHRALL are stand-alone novellas featuring characters from the Enthrall Sessions trilogy and Beyond Enthrall duet.
Beautifully Cruel
J.T. Geissinger - 2020
I didn’t know his name or where he was from. All I knew was that the only place I’d ever felt safe was in his arms. But safety is an illusion. And not every savior is a hero. And—as I’d soon find out—having an alpha save your life comes with a price. Liam Black wanted something from me in return.
Buttons & Lace
Penelope Sky - 2016
A big one. The payment can't be settled with money or favors. He only wants one thing. Me. Every action gets a reward. A button. Once I fill his jar with three hundred and sixty-five buttons, he'll let me go. He'll let me walk away. But I have to earn every single one. By submitting to the darkest, cruelest, and most beautiful man I've ever known. ** TRIGGER WARNING ** There are some dark and disturbing scenes of abuse and punishment.
Alpha
Jasinda Wilder - 2014
Bills were piling up, adding up to more money than I could ever make. Mom's hospital bills. My baby brother's tuition. My tuition. Rent. Electricity. All of it on my shoulders. And I had just lost my job. There was no hope, no money in my account, no work to be found. And then, just when I thought all hope was lost, I found an envelope in the mail. No return address. My name on the front, my address. Inside was a check, made out to me, in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Enough to pay the bills and leave me some left over to live on until I found a job. Enough to let me focus on classes. There was no name on the check, just "VRI Inc.," and a post office box address for somewhere in the city. No hint of identity or reason for the check or anything. No mention of repayment, interest, nothing…except a single word, on the notes line: "You." Just those three letters.If you receive a mysterious check, for enough money to erase all your worries, would you cash it?I did.The next month, I received another check, again from VRI Incorporated. It too contained a single word: "belong."A third check, the next month. This time, two words. Four letters. "To me."The checks kept coming. The notes stopped. Ten thousand dollars, every month. A girl gets used to that, real quick. It let me pay the bills without going into debt. Let me keep my baby brother in school and Mom's hospice care paid for. How do you turn down what seems like free money, when you're desperate? You don't. I didn't.And then, after a year, there was a knock on my door. A sleek black limousine sat on the curb in front of my house. A driver stood in front of me, and he spoke six words: "It's time to pay your debt."Would you have gotten in?I did.It turns out $120,000 doesn't come free.
Deathless & Divided
Bethany-Kris - 2015
This is how a war starts.A life for a life. That’s the mafia way. Damian Rossi owes his life to a man who is ready to collect. That payment comes in the form of an arranged marriage to the daughter of another leading family in the Chicago Outfit. He’s ready to follow through, even if that means making sure Lily knows she’s his.Lily DeLuca isn’t being given a choice. Forced home to marry a man she doesn’t know and back into a life she’d rather forget, her world is full of half-truths, buried pain, and uncertainty. But Damian is nothing like she expects. His motives aren’t clear. Her beliefs are being tested.When it comes to this world, no man can be trusted. Someone is ready to flip the Chicago Outfit on its side all for the promise of something better. But no one runs a clean game and these men play for keeps. When blood begins to paint Chicago red, four families will be divided by loyalty, hatred, and revenge. There is no hiding. There is no safety.No one is deathless.No one.
The Silver Swan
Amo Jones - 2017
When she begins Riverside Preparatory Academy, the private school her father has swept her into in The Hamptons, she hopes for a fresh start. What she wasn't hoping for was the pack of bad boys who run the school; ten, to be exact. When Madison gains the attention of their leader, Bishop Vincent Hayes, a whole new world that she didn't think existed is exposed to her. A whole world that starts and ends with The Elite Kings Club and these boys, are about to flip her world upside down. Secrets are overflowing and family lies are about to be exposed. Is there more to Madison Montgomery than even she knows?
Virtuous
M.S. Force - 2015
Force… He’s a sexual dominant. She’s sworn off sex. There’s no way they can make a relationship work—or can they? After surviving a traumatic event at age fifteen and the ensuing estrangement from her family, Natalie Bryant has worked for years to reinvent herself into the woman she is today—a happy teacher fresh out of college and enjoying her first winter in New York City with her faithful dog, Fluff, by her side. Natalie isn’t expecting her life to change completely during a routine stroll through Greenwich Village on a blustery January day. But when Fluff breaks loose and charges into a park, Natalie gives chase and crashes into her destiny. Only after Fluff bites and draws blood from the man who accidentally knocked Natalie down does she realize Fluff has bitten the biggest movie star in the world. He has no business being enthralled by the gorgeous, young, innocent teacher… Natalie captivates Flynn Godfrey from the first moment their eyes meet while she is lying on the ground and he’s fighting off her ferocious little beast of a dog. The only thing Flynn knows for certain is if he lets Natalie get away, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. After only a short time in her presence, Flynn is prepared to change who he is to be what she needs. He knows he’s in big trouble when she says she won’t sleep with him and he doesn’t care if it means he gets to keep her in his life. But can he turn his back on the lifestyle that has defined him? Can he deny the desires that drive him to give Natalie the introduction to love and romance she so deserves? And most of all, can he keep his truth hidden from her long enough to have forever with her? Join Flynn and Natalie as their story unfolds in three full-length books released three weeks in a row: VIRTUOUS, VALOROUS and VICTORIOUS. From New York to Los Angeles, from Hollywood to Las Vegas, Flynn and Natalie’s whirlwind love affair has it all—romance, passion, steamy hot sex, relentless paparazzi and a murder that could be their undoing. If you hate dirty-talking heroes who put it all on the line for the women they love, who leave no desire unfulfilled, who will do anything it takes to protect what’s theirs…If elements of BDSM make you queasy, if smoking hot sex isn’t your thing, if cliffhangers make you rage, if you hate first-person points of view from the heroine AND the hero... this trilogy is NOT for you! You’ve been warned…
Black Hearts
Karina Halle - 2017
The son of an infamous drug lord, Vicente was born to help run the family business, which means he’s been raised on a throne of sordid pasts and dirty laundry, violence and pride. But when Vicente stumbles across someone he’s not supposed to know about – a woman from his father’s checkered past – he sets out to California to find her behind his father’s back.What Vicente doesn’t expect to find in San Francisco is Violet McQueen, the woman’s twenty-year old daughter. Beautiful and edgy with a vulnerability he can’t resist, Violet tempts Vicente from afar and though he promised himself he’d stay away from her, curiosity and lust are powerful forces. Besides, Vicente has always gotten everything he wants – why shouldn’t he have Violet too?Soon his wants turn into an obsession, one that sweeps Violet into his games as they fall madly, deeply in love with each other, the type of first love that can drive a person mad.But it’s a love with tragic consequences.Both the truth – and the lies – not only threaten to tear them apart, but threaten their very lives.Someone has to pay for the sins of the fathers.And they’ll be paying the price with their souls.
Taking Turns
J.A. Huss - 2017
And maybe everyone wants what they can’t have, but I should’ve thought it over before I accepted the key and unlocked the door to their forbidden world.Number One is mostly silent. He watches me with them very carefully. His gaze never wanders. His interest never wanes.Number Two is mostly gentle. But it’s the other side of him I like best. The wild side.Number Three is mostly reserved. He refuses to cross the line. Even when I beg.It was carnal, it was sensual, and it was erotic. That’s it. That’s all it was supposed to be. A trip into the dark. A peek into the forbidden.I just didn’t expect to like them.*****I heard the door open and close and said nothing. And the footsteps coming down the hallway towards the bedroom. I even heard him say, “Hey.” So softly. “You awake?” Like he didn’t want to wake me.I listened as he stepped into the closet. There was that slick sound a man makes when he pulls his tie through his shirt collar. I heard the unclasping of his watch. The jingle of his belt buckle and the shuffle of his pants as they dropped to the floor.I even heard his moan as he stood over me. I could feel his shadow from the streetlamp outside like it was heat.Then the bed creaked, the mattress sank. And his warm, hard body straddled me.Still, I said nothing.I just buried my face in the sweet scent of the pillow and closed my eyes, feigning sleep.“Rochelle,” he whispered, leaning over me. His fingertips gently brushed the hair away from my shoulder. His mouth pressed against my skin. “Did you miss me? God, I’ve missed you. Two weeks is too long. We need to renegotiate.”He nipped my neck. Kissed it. Licked my ear as he positioned himself to begin.And I said… nothing.Even though my name is not Rochelle. That’s why I’m here. Tied up and gagged inside the closet. Sitting in the dark as three men on the other side of the door argue about where Rochelle went, why I was in her bed, and what they should do next.I should be scared but I’m not.I should be screaming, but I won’t.Because this just feels very, very right.And the only thing on my mind is… what will happen next?
Reaper's Property
Joanna Wylde - 2013
The massive, tattooed, badass biker who shows up at her brother’s house one afternoon doesn’t agree. He wants Marie on his bike and in his bed. Now.But Marie just left her abusive jerk of an ex-husband and she’s not looking for a new man. Especially one like Horse—she doesn’t know his real name or where he lives, she’s ninety percent certain he’s a criminal and that the “business” he talks with her brother isn’t website design. She needs him out of her life, which would be a snap if he’d just stop giving her mind-blowing orgasms.Horse is part of the Reapers Motorcycle Club, and when he wants something, he takes it. What he wants is Marie, but she’s not interested in becoming “property of”.Then her brother steals from the club. Marie can save him by giving Horse what he wants—at home, in public, on his bike… If she’s a very, very good girl, she’ll get lots more of those orgasms only he can offer, and he’ll let her brother live.Maybe.
Unsuitable
Samantha Towle - 2016
Daisy Smith has spent eighteen months of her life paying for a crime she didn’t commit. Now out of prison, she has only one focus—to get back custody of her younger brother, Jesse, who is deep in the foster care system. Desperate to rebuild her life and show the system that she is responsible enough to care for Jesse, she takes on the only job available to her—working as a maid at the Matis Estate. On day one of her new job, Daisy meets Kastor Matis, the only son of the owners and her new boss. An enigmatic, handsome Greek god of a man, Kas is closed off, cold, and…well, kind of a bastard. The more time Daisy spends around Kas, she starts to see there might be more to him than just his cold, bastard ways. He may actually have a heart beating in that frozen chest of his. But Kas has secrets, too. Secrets that he’s determined to keep. Secrets make Daisy curious. And you know what curiosity can do…
The Man I Can't Have
Shanora Williams - 2019
The owner had no pictures of himself on his website, just a portfolio of nice outdoor sitting areas, pools, and vibrant gardens that I’d always dreamed of having.Of course I hired him.I expected to meet an average guy, but Mr. Marcel Ward is far from your average man. He’s handsome, and well-built, and his smile—though a rare trait—is truly infectious. He’s every woman’s dream—a handsome, older man who doesn’t mind getting down and dirty to create something beautiful all because of his passion for it. Unfortunately, that lucky woman can’t be me. Although Mr. Ward tests my limits, quickens my breath, and makes my heart skip a beat when he’s around, I’ve promised to devote myself to my husband.So why am I falling for a man I know I can’t have?
Break Me Slowly
Joya Ryan - 2013
The nervous and inexperienced Kate is shocked to realize that it isn’t the near death experience that has her heart racing, but the sinfully sexy man behind the wheel. Adam Kinkade is ultra-wealthy, devastatingly handsome, and the most powerful distribution mogul in Chicago—he is also the first man who ignites emotions inside of her other than fear. Adam is a man used to getting what he wants. And he wants Katelyn—naked and often. Willing to stop at nothing to possess her, he relentlessly pursues Kate only to discover that it is she who possesses him—completely.Kate quickly realizes that Adam has secrets of his own, secrets dark enough to break the walls she keeps so firmly in place. Passion turns to possession, and Adam’s controlling nature and seductive hands sparks a desire so strong, it destroys her own demons. But when desire turns to addiction, Kate fears that it will rage too hot, and shatter her sanity.This book contains adult content and sexual scenes. Meant for readers 17+. (Adult Contemporary Women's - New Adult Fiction).