But what’s the saying? No gain, no pain. Or, no pain, no shame... Whatever. You know what I mean. And let’s face it. There’s no way I would be doing this if I was stone-cold sober. But since I’m plastered? To hell with it. I want you.I know. Crazy, right? Not only am I your temporary roommate but I’m a chatty nurse from Providence with an impeccable bedside manner and secrets. You’re a broody, commitment-phobe sculptor from England who communicates in grunts and single syllables. Not to mention, you’re returning home in several weeks. And yet, from the moment you dragged me for being a Swiftie, I’ve wanted to climb you like my personal jungle gym. There’s no future for us. I’m not even sure I like you half the time. But that doesn’t stop me from hungering for those same hands that bend and shape metal to bend and shape me. So in all my drunken glory, I guess what I’m trying to say is if you want me, I’m yours. For the next few weeks until you return across the pond and we resume our lives as before. No strings. No demands. No regrets. So meet me in the kitchen where all this started. Or don’t. It’s your decision. Not that it matters. It’s not like I’m going to do something monumentally dumb and hit send on this text.--Zenobia

    Her discerning mother taught her to choose the right clothes, the right career, and the right men. But when her father dies and leaves Violet a ramshackle building on a lifeless street, Violet starts to question whether her choices are really her own. Building Sugar Babies Sweet Shop seems like the right thing for her and Violet thinks she may have her new life all figured out until Nick Morello steps through her doors and rocks the world beneath her feet. Too bad for her, he has a huge chip on his shoulder and the kind of swagger her mother disapproves of. Nick Morello knows he has a lot of mistakes to make up for. His best shot at becoming a partner in the family construction business lies in the successful completion of Violet Calloway’s Sugar Babies. Get the bakery done and the rest of the business on Hale Street just might fall in line. He’s got this, he’s so got this, until he comes face to face with Violet and realizes that she may be his biggest mistake yet.

    The only thing she doesn’t have is a man - and not just any man will do. She needs a submissive who will let her be as successful in the bedroom as she is in the courtroom.Innovative graphic artist Marcus Lyon is on the hunt for the right woman to serve. Pleasing a Dominate and keeping her happy rocks his world. But a former D/s relationship has left him with emotional scars and a new attitude. The next woman he pleases will need to follow a few rules…When Vera and Marcus meet at a fund raising slave auction in New York City, sparks fly, and she corners her man. Vera is sure she’s found the Alpha Submissive she’s been looking for, but will Marcus agree to give her the key to his heart as well as his collar?****This romantic story is a fictional account of a couple who have chosen to have a Female Led Relationship or FLR. In the BDSM community she is called his Domme, Dominant or Mistress and he is her submissive. He is no doormat. This story is not about pain, or whips and chains, rather it deals with the challenges a couple faces with the day to day grind of living and loving together.

    From the moment she met him, Nick was the only man to make her body burn and fill her heart with joy, but somewhere along the way, they lost their ability to communicate--in any language.Nick Parker lost the woman he loved to the trials of conception. Their inability to cope with their failure broke down their relationship and their friendship. And now, he's left with a woman he lusts after, longs for, and doesn't know how to reach.One locked door and plenty of time to hash out their problems will either leave them broken forever or might just be the glue that holds them together.

    She has moved back to Chicago, is considering her next career move (or temp job), and has absolutely no time to look for love—until a mysterious dating app called Met suddenly appears on her phone, and with it, an invitation for Corinne to reconnect with four missed connections from her past. One of them, Met says, is her soul mate…Corinne doesn’t believe the app for a second, but when she very quickly finds herself with back-to-back blasts from the past, she’ll have to consider if maybe she’s wrong about it. The thing is, Corinne’s also been introduced to a really great guy outside the app’s influence. As their feelings for each other grow, Corinne has to wonder: With her apparent true love still out there, should she tap yes to the next match?With help from a new group of friends, her loving if annoying family, and maybe a touch of fate, can Corinne come to terms with the loss she’s still reeling from, take control of her career, and find love along the way?

    The ifs that linger between the pages of this novel will break your heart and stay with you long after the final chapter. Emerson Shaw thought she’d left her old life behind her, but when she returns home for her best friend’s wedding, she has no idea her past is waiting to reclaim her. Dark and broken, Lincoln Daniels never wanted to find love. But when he met straight-laced Emerson, he fell. Hard. The only thing they seemed to have in common was an undeniable mutual attraction, but from the moment he laid eyes on her, there was something about her that called to him. Until he lost her. Consumed by their pasts, it took years to slowly glue together the shattered pieces of their what ifs. Just when Emerson is finally ready to let go and stop existing in a past full of pain and regret, Lincoln returns, turning her life upside down. What begins as a tentative friendship quickly escalates, and the two soon realize that all the ifs lingering between them no longer matter. What happens when two broken people meet, fall in love, and realize they can never be? What happens when all the what ifs no longer make sense? If you knew your heart would break, would you still fall? This book is intended for mature audiences.

    Dil features a love-phobic TV doctor who must convince a love-obsessed homebody they are destined to be together. Kareena Mann dreams of having a love story like her parents, but she prefers restoring her classic car to swiping right on dating apps. When her father announces he’s selling her mother’s home, Kareena makes a deal with him: he’ll gift her the house if she can get engaged in four months. Her search for her soulmate becomes impossible when her argument with Dr. Prem Verma, host of The Dr. Dil Show, goes viral. Now the only man in her life is the one she doesn’t want.Dr. Prem Verma is dedicated to building a local community health center, but he needs to get donors with deep pockets. The Dr. Dil Show was doing just that, until his argument with Kareena went viral, and he’s left short changed. That’s when Kareena’s meddling aunties presented him with a solution: convince Kareena he’s her soulmate and they’ll fund his clinic.  Even though they have conflicting views on love-matches and arranged-matches, the more time Prem spends with Kareena, the more he begins to believe she’s the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. But for Prem and Kareena to find their happily ever after, they must admit that hate has turned into fate.

    Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.

    Sparks fly in this edgy own voices novel, perfect for fans of Sandhya Menon, S. K. Ali, and Kristina Forest.They were supposed to ignore each other and respect that fine line between them…Guillermo Lozano is getting a fresh start. New town, new school, and no more reckless behavior. He’s done his time, and now he needs to right his wrongs. But when his work at the local community center throws him into the path of the one girl who is off-limits, friendship sparks…and maybe more.Regan London needs a fresh perspective. The pressure to stay in her “perfect” relationship and be the good girl all the time has worn her down. But when the walls start to cave in and she finds unexpected understanding from the boy her parents warned about, she can’t ignore her feelings anymore.The disapproval is instant. Being together might just get Guillermo sent away. But when it comes to the heart, sometimes you have to break the rules and be a little bit reckless…

    Good looks. Money.A billion dollar empire would all be his…As soon as he found a woman crazy enough to marry him for a year.Then Cara walked into his life, turned it upside down, made him want something he never wanted before.Everything.With her.Now he just has to convince his fake wife that he wants her for real. Forever. ***This is a standalone novel with a touch of steam and HEA.***

    June highly underestimates how difficult spending time with Tucker will be. Between his good looks, irresistible charm, and a way of helping her see the beauty beyond her check-list life style, she begins to lose herself in more than just his artwork. However, when the time comes for the wanderer to drift away once more, will their love be forced to comply with traditional goodbyes or will it be allowed to exist in freeform?

    Unfortunately, her life is filled with an amount of busy that precludes her from dating and finding Mister Right. Her best friend’s sudden nuptials, however, place an unexpected opportunity for love within arm’s reach. Kirk Langley is suddenly thrust into being a single parent upon the untimely demise of his brother and sister-in-law. Balancing caring for his six-year-old niece in addition to running his own business leaves little time for dating. But when his closest friend drops the bomb that he’s getting married, Kirk’s forced to spare some time to get to know the maid of honor. Neither were looking for love, but their close proximity during the wedding planning process draws Calista and Kirk close, allowing them to find in the other what they didn’t know was previously missing.

    It’s a heartfelt, tortured, contemporary YA high school romance with epistolary elements. Fans of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Kristina Forest’s debut I Wanna Be Where You Are will love the juicy secrets, leap-off-the-page sexual tension and the enemy-to-lover romantic arc.Quinn keeps lists of everything—from the days she’s ugly cried, to “Things That I Would Never Admit Out Loud,” to all the boys she’d like to kiss. Her lists keep her sane. By writing her fears on paper, she never has to face them in real life. That is, until her journal goes missing…An anonymous account posts one of her lists on Instagram for the whole school to see and blackmails her into facing seven of her greatest fears, or else her entire journal will go public. Quinn doesn’t know who to trust. Desperate, she teams up with Carter Bennett—the last known person to have her journal—in a race against time to track down the blackmailer.Together, they journey through everything Quinn’s been too afraid to face, and along the way, Quinn finds the courage to be honest, to live in the moment, and to fall in love.

    there's no way this will ever work.Hiking, cold weather, and cabins in the woods are not my thing. But when my two best friends beg me to join them for a trip to the mountains, I cave.“It’ll be fun,” they said.“You need to get out more,” they said.Everything was fine until I realized it’s all a setup. A weekend-long blind date orchestrated with the help of their boyfriends. To say I’m annoyed is an understatement. But then he shows up, looking like a lot more than a tall glass of milk. And soon, I begin to feel that maybe this isn’t a bad idea after all.There’s only one problem. He doesn’t seem to know he’s here to meet me. Which would be cool if I could just move on and forget I nearly made a fool of myself. Mother nature has other plans and sends a bad storm our way, locking us all in a potentially uncomfortable situation.AVALANCHE is a BWWM blind date gone wrong novella. Previously released in the Emerging Temptation boxed set and now with a BONUS chapter and epilogue.

    She doesn't even spend that much time online. And even if she did, she would not be looking up personal ads. But going home alone for her family's summer reunion is an invitation for every single relative to butt into her personal life. She simply can't handle another blind date with the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker from her hometown. So when she finds the Craigslist ad for a boyfriend-for-hire, she's ready to pay to play. Heading Home and Need a Buffer? I'm the REAL DEAL. Theo Banks has been running from the past for years. He's this close to finally settling all his debts, and one more job as a boyfriend-for-hire will do the trick. He's no gigolo. Please. He's something of an actor, and he knows how to slip into any role, including pretending to be April's new beau -- the bad boy with the heart of gold.Even if it means sleeping in close quarters in that tiny little bed in her parents' inn. Even if it means spinning tales of a romance that starts to feel all too true. What neither one of them counts on is that amid the egg toss, the arm wrestling, and a fierce game of Lawn Twister that has them tangled up together, they might be feeling the real deal.She only wanted to show her family once and for all that she had no need to settle down.He didn't expect to have the time of his life at her parent's home.They didn't plan on loving every single second of the game.But can a masterful game of pretend result in true love?