I was hanging with the girls, celebrating my divorce when I saw him, my crush, sitting in the corner of the bar all alone. Being single and looking for a wild night, I asked him if he wanted to join me. To my delight, he said yes.
Drinks were consumed, fun was had and then . . . one drunken conversation with a cranky gondolier in Las Vegas led to an Uber lift through a drive-thru wedding chapel with the incredibly hot, British bad boy, Pike Greyson.
On paper, it seemed like I hit the jackpot. And if I wasn’t fresh from a toxic marriage, I would have absolutely noticed the finer things about him.
But I wanted nothing to do with being married, so when I arrived back home from my eventful weekend in Vegas, the last thing I expected to see was a new doting husband already moved in.
I asked for an annulment, he pulled a Ross Geller and said no.
That’s right, he said NO! Instead, he asked for three months to prove we could be good together.
Insanity clearly knocked him in the head and the only way I could convince him to give up on our sham of a marriage was to show him just how wrong we were for each other. Only problem with that was, he saw right through my every prank, every trick, and every yearning emotion I attempted to mask.
About the Author:
USA Today Bestselling Author, wife, adoptive mother, and peanut butter lover. Author of romantic comedies and contemporary romance, Meghan Quinn brings readers the perfect combination of heart, humor, and heat in every book.
Especially if he’s anything like Erik Wilder: former football player, world class know-it-all and unapologetic grump.
To be clear, I didn’t want a bodyguard (hence the fake dating idea). Most days, I can’t figure out why he wants the job either. We drive each other insane, probably because we’re as opposite as two people can be.
He’s suspicious, never talks about his past and has the comfort skills of a cactus. I’m a happily ever after kinda girl who knows exactly what she wants out of life.
Erik’s words might say that the lines have to stay firm between us, but those dark eyes of his? They tell another story when he looks at me.
He’s just as stubborn as I am, but when our fake dating plan starts to feel a lot more real, it’s only a matter of time before his professional walls come crashing down.
I just have to hope my heart doesn’t get buried in the rubble.
Well, let’s see … I’m a wife and a mother. If the things that I write bring a smile to someone’s face, then I’ve done my job.
I am obsessed with Outlander (both the books and the show). I’m almost exclusively a romance reader, which means some people will never consider me a literary snob.
If I could meet one historical figure, it would be Jane Austen. I received my Bachelors in Public Relations and worked in health care marketing before I had my babies.
I hate Twitter. I do it, but I hate it. Also, if you want to get on my good side, bring me wine and I’ll love you forever.
With the final book of the Bayside Heroes series of standalones, you’ll find, what I believe to be, the best of the bunch. Tangled Up, in my mind, ties with Washed Up, book 1 of this series, as the most interesting, offering layers of the story grounded in second chances and abiding love. Tia Louise has crafted a story that makes her readers work harder for that happy ending, something that only one other book in the series, Washed Up, did. For this reader, it makes for a more interesting fraught read. I’m a personal fan of the second chance trope. Add to that some romantic suspense in the form of a stalker, and you love Beck and Carly’s story. Tia Louise provides her readers with several twists in this story: the reasons for Beck and Carly’s first break-up, the challenges of re-kindling their fated relationship, a father who interferes, and a patient bent on revenge. All of these plot points conspire to bring the best of the best at the ending of this series. I also love that Tia Louise provides a bonus epilogue, one of her signatures, for this story. It offers up a bit more for Beck and Carly’s happily ever after, and it gives us a quick nod to the other couples of the Bayside crew.
If I have any criticism for Tangled Up, it would be Carly’s characterization. For a psychologist, her responses to Beck feel inconsistent with the nature of a psychologist. However, this never overpowers the gravity of the hurt that Beck must overcome to win her back.
This series has been a lovely respite during a busy, chaotic time of the year. Tia Louise’s Tangled Up ends it beautifully and makes the suggestion that Kandi Steiner, Harloe Rae, K.K. Allen, and Tia Louise should write more series together in the future.
Fired Up by K.K. Allen, the third book of the Bayside Heroes series of standalones is a revelation about Allen. To date, much of Allen’s stories feature heavily in angst. Fired Up, however, is a sweet contemporary romance with a hero, Asher, who falls hard instantly for Allen’s heroine, Meadow. A single mom, Meadow is focused on her son, her work as a
photographer, and re-settling in Tampa after a move from California. She’s tentative with Asher at first, fighting the pull of him. However, Asher is charming and tenacious, and he works hard to win her over. There is nothing awkward with these two throughout the entire story. It isn’t easy street, however, for these two. They have to overcome a challenge to their relationship, but it’s clear from the second chapter that Asher and Meadow are fated. Allen offers them lots of steam, lots of sweetness, and a happy ending sure to give you cavities.
If you love K.K. Allen’s stories, you will be pleasantly surprised by her newest story, Fired Up.
CD Reiss’s Take Me is the first book in her newest trilogy, as yet named. As is the case with many of her stories, Take Me launches you quickly into the action of the story, holds you there in its grasp, and quickly leaves you with some twist or turn, requiring the next book to release you from its thrall. Take Me follows Dario Lucari who we met in Reiss’s DiLustro Arrangement Trilogy. Set in Manhattan, Dario kidnaps Sarah, the daughter of the man in charge of Precious Blood, a cult-esque mafia family. In kidnapping Sarah, Dario’s hope is revenge for past wrongs. What he receives is a woman who tests his control. Dario is everything that Reiss has crafted him to be: dangerous, decided, and dark. His means to frighten Sarah into submission which doesn’t go very far, earning his respect. I predict that Sarah will be the most interesting character of this trilogy as she comes to Dario innocent, naive, and with very little life experience due to the captivity of her upbringing. Through Dario’s kidnapping, Sarah has been ignited which means a journey to fully embrace her power. However, the huge cliffhanger of Take Me will leave her a bit untethered. I don’t know for certain, but I imagine we will see characters from the DiLustro Arrangement in the next book.
If you’re a fan of CD Reiss, Take Me is quintessential her: incredible steam, a hero who is cruel yet becomes unwound by the heroine, a heroine who is seemingly powerless but holds all of the power, and a story with more loops and curves that you can’t help yourself at turning pages to find out how Reiss will resolve the plot twists of her story.
Take Me is but a nibble of the greater trilogy. Enter at your own risk as you will fall hard into Dario and Sarah’s story.
“CD Reiss writes dark mafia romance like no other. Dario is the anti-hero of all anti-heroes.” —Serena Akeroyd, author of The Filthy Series
Take Me, an all-new forced marriage, mafia romance from New York Times bestselling author C.D. Reiss is now available!
Mafia King, Dario Lucari spent years planning his revenge. Today, he executes it. Kidnapped on my wedding day. Held by a monster who wants vengeance on my father. Married to him against my will. Suddenly thrust into a world of betrayal, lies and deviance, all I have to do to escape is destroy everything I’ve ever loved, and love the man I must destroy.
About CD Reiss CD Reiss is a New York Times bestseller. She still has to chop wood and carry water, which was buried in the fine print. Her lawyer is working it out with God but in the meantime, if you call and she doesn’t pick up she’s at the well hauling buckets. Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere but it did give her a big enough ego to write novels. She’s frequently referred to as the Shakespeare of Smut which is flattering but hasn’t ever gotten her out of chopping that cord of wood. If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
That’s what my missing groom told me over the phone . . . on our wedding day, no less.
I wasn’t about to go down that road again—love, marriage, forever. I had enough on my plate serving as deputy general counsel of our family business and keeping my matchmaking parents off my back.
Then Wayland Ramirez comes roaring back into my life.
The boy who asked me to be his girlfriend in middle school. The man I shared a sizzling night of passion with five years ago. The man who made me trust him . . . then disappeared.
This time, I know better than to put my heart in anyone’s hands.
But when Dad throws down an ultimatum—bring a date to the office Christmas party or meet a stranger of his choosing—I spontaneously ask Wayland to play the part of my doting fake-boyfriend for a night.
He just wasn’t supposed to give an Oscar-winning performance.
Once more, his whispered words, his searing kisses, his body against mine almost have me believing that this could last. Almost.
I say love is a sham, a reservoir that depletes with time.
He says he wants it all—my todays and tomorrows.
But can I trust him with my tomorrows? Can I trust him to pick me up if I fall?
I prefer to call myself a storyteller rather than an author. I’m a mom to two beautiful little girls and a wife to an incredibly supportive husband. My days start with caffeine and sometimes end with a glass (or three) of wine.
I’m a Texas raised Indian American currently living in the Bay Area. With a degree in Computer Science and an MBA, I’ve had a successful career building software products but writing is both my hobby and my passion.
For me, writing and reading are an escape from real life. I love meeting and creating characters who I’d love to take out for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. My goal as a storyteller is to distract my readers from their daily grind with stories about everyday couples finding and fighting for incredible love with the help of a little luck.
Mafia King, Dario Lucari spent years planning his revenge. Today, he executes it.
Take Me, an all-new sexy and addictive, dark mafia romance from New York Times bestselling author C.D. Reiss is releasing December 25th, and we have your first look!
How can I still be here? I clutch the sharp piece of pottery under my glove. It’s a safety blanket. A choice I can make in a situation where my decisions are meaningless. Hovering in half-consciousness, my eyes are closed when the door bangs open again and Dario enters, carrying a tall glass of water. He sets it on a dirty counter in front of me, then leans against the table, crossing one long leg over the other. I get to my feet and approach the glass, wary but unable to stay away from it. I’ve never been this thirsty in my life; my eyeballs burn, and my tongue is cracked into layers of plaster. Dario watches me silently, but as I reach out to take the glass, he slaps my hand away. I’m already weak and dizzy, and the force of the blow makes me stumble and spin. “Please!” I cry. I realize I’m on my knees. I had intended to be strong, to refuse to let him see me suffer any more, but I am so, so thirsty. “Take that stupid dress off.” I shake my head. I’m past caring about modesty. I care about the dress. It’s ruined, but it’s mine. I worked on it for months, my fingers numb from stitching, my eyes and back aching as I labored into the night. It may be the only piece of home left to me besides my own body, and I will not take it off. He shrugs and picks up the glass of water. I remain defiant. He turns to go. And when I feel the triangle of clay inside the wrist of my glove, I think, with blinding clarity, I cannot die here. “Okay,” I say. He stops, turns around, but does not put down the glass. I slip the dress off slowly, regretfully, because as awful as it looks, the fabric is still fine, soft and sweet, a reminder of who I was and what I expected so few sunrises ago. The gloves stay and so do the undergarments I wore to please Sergio because Dario just said to take off the dress and I’m weak but not dead. I’m not giving him anything he doesn’t ask for. He places the glass back on the table. Then he sweeps a hand through the dust and dirt on its surface and sprinkles them into the water. I watch helplessly as it clouds over in the sunlight. “Down to the skin,” he says. “Show me every inch.” The suggestion in his command floods my dry veins with resistance. “You said the dress.” I hold out my left hand—the one without the distorting piece of pottery under the glove. “Give it to me.” This time, he takes a discarded nursery container and pinches out white-flecked potting soil. He drops it in the water like a chef seasoning too heavily. “It’s going to be mud soon,” he says. “If you aren’t naked.” “Where’s my father?” I squeak without spit. “Did he give you what you want?” “Haven’t spoken to him since the car.” “I don’t believe you.” “We tried. He won’t negotiate with outsiders . . . so . . . take off all your fucking clothes.” I do everything I can not to keep from crying as I lower my white lace underpants and slip out of my matching bra, hands shaking the entire time. I leave the gloves and garter, hoping they’re beside the point. “I know what you’re hiding in your glove. You’re not going to kill me with a broken flower pot.” “It wasn’t for you.” He nods with understanding but not compassion, as if knowing suicide is on the table adds to a data point and no more, then flicks his finger at me. I peel off the gloves. The shard clatters to the floor. I am now naked except for one thing. “The garter.” “Not that.” I ball my hands into fists and look at the floor. “Please.” He says nothing. I can’t see him, so I let myself hope that he’s considering letting me keep this one strip of fabric and elastic that’s tying me to this earth, to my identity, to the one person who loved me like no other. Maybe he’ll find it arousing. I’ll risk it, even embrace it, for that glass of cloudy water. The sound of a plop and a splash catches my attention, and I look up to see him slowly pouring a thin line of water onto the tile. With a gasp, thoughts of my mother are gone, and I rip off the garter before I lose another precious drop, throwing it at his feet. “There,” I say, finally bare before him, exposed as I have never been before a man. My breath skips, and I finally cry, but I don’t have enough water in my body to make tears or snot over this destroyed moment—the first time a man’s eyes see my skin, my nipples, my utter vulnerability. The moment I took that dress off was supposed to be one of the most beautiful of my life. Instead, it is a violation. He isn’t satisfied yet though. “Stay still,” he commands. He walks behind me, hovering for a moment before grabbing my hair and yanking it back so that I’m gazing up into the camera’s merciless eye. “Can you imagine how good it will feel,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my neck, “when I let you drink?” He lays his other hand under my chin and slides it down as he speaks. “That cold, sweet water sliding down your throat?” I nod helplessly, gulping what feels like a lump of garden pebbles. “Even with a little dirt, a little dust, you’ll take it all down, won’t you? You’re just about ready to beg for it.” “I’ll beg,” I agree with a voice I don’t recognize. “I’ll do it.” “You need it,” he says, and I can feel the cruelty of the smile in his voice. “Please,” I whisper. “Please… please…” “Say it for the camera.” Who’s on the other side? His boss? My family? The entire world? “Please give it to me.” “Let me swallow it,” he whispers thickly. “Beg.” “Let . . . let me swallow it all. Please.” “I know what your body needs. And what you’ll do to get it.” And then, just as abruptly as he’d grabbed me, he spins me around so that I’m facing him and he pushes me to my knees. “This will go much easier for you if you play along,” he murmurs. I’m so weak and dizzy I almost tip over before he pulls me up by the hair on top of my head. “Steady, principessa.” With his free hand, he opens the fly of his pants, exposing the thick bulge beneath cotton underwear. He’s going to take it out and force me to taste his cock. Take it down my throat. Swallow his come. I’ve spent my life waiting for this, and I don’t want it this way . . . but I want it. My body aches to just give up, taste whatever he puts on my tongue. I look up at him, offering whatever he’s willing to take as long as he gives me something to drink. But he does not release his erection. Instead, he pulls my head into his crotch. The fabric is damp on my lips, heavy and musty on my nose as he grinds into my face. And he’s hard. So hard. He forces the shape of his shaft along the opening between my lips, and I taste no more than an essence of him . . . but it’s enough. My clit fills and drops, weighted by a constant, brutal pulse of arousal that’s timed to the way he pushes into my face, holding my head still. My hands steady me against his thighs, then pull him closer. I want it. I surrender. I’ll suck him for water or a glass of sand. Why is he keeping it behind his clothes? “Yes,” he growls, putting both hands behind my head and pushing me into his crotch so hard his erection feels like stone on my chin. I put out my tongue, licking the damp fabric. He stops for a moment. His growl turns into a gasp, and the clothed organ against me pulses. A warm wetness gathers at my cheek. Then he lets me go, and I fall back on my hands, gasping as I notice the thick wet stain where he came as I licked him. “Okay,” he says, zipping up. He’s bored again, casual as he hands the glass to me by the top. “You can drink now.” I do. I am shameless and desperate. I hold it with both hands and savor every drop, dirt and all. He leaves before I finish, apparently not interested in watching me debase myself further. I lie naked where he left me, legs in the letter K, bare skin on cold tile, the empty glass a few inches from my hand, watching the clouds form in the grid above me. The door clicks and whooshes open. The room spins when I bolt to a sitting position. A tray of food, accompanied by a whole pitcher of water, is pushed across the threshold. The door claps shut again, and the deadbolt smacked home. I glance at the camera. He’s watching. He has to be. I should stand up and walk like a human, but by the time I finish making that decision, I’m already crawling on my hands and knees like an animal. The tray contains a plastic clamshell with a sandwich inside—pink meat spills from a circle of bread split into a pocket. Hushing the raging hunger for a moment, I peek into the pocket and find cheese and the familiarity of mayonnaise. A pink container of yogurt proudly proclaims—next to a bulbous strawberry—that it has REAL FRUIT inside. I rip it open, ready to suck it down, but I stop. I stand carefully, my head still swimming not just from my hunger and thirst and poor night’s sleep, but from what just happened. I walk over to my discarded pile of garments and put them on again: the underwear and bra, the ruined dress, my shoes—one close by and one under the camera. I slide the garter up my leg. I leave the gloves and shard. Then I put the tray on the counter, right a white plastic chair that matches the one on the roof, and—dressed in silk garments that were once a hopeful symbol of my purity but are now nothing more than a painful, ridiculous reminder of everything I have lost—I hydrate and nourish myself, dreaming of the day I escape the man named Dario with shadow eyes and an empty heart.
Synopsis A dark and twisted mafia romance from New York Times bestselling author CD Reiss. Mafia King, Dario Lucari spent years planning his revenge. Today, he executes it. Kidnapped on my wedding day. Held by a monster who wants vengeance on my father. Married to him against my will. Suddenly thrust into a world of betrayal, lies and deviance, all I have to do to escape is destroy everything I’ve ever loved, and love the man I must destroy.
About CD Reiss CD Reiss is a New York Times bestseller. She still has to chop wood and carry water, which was buried in the fine print. Her lawyer is working it out with God but in the meantime, if you call and she doesn’t pick up she’s at the well hauling buckets. Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere but it did give her a big enough ego to write novels. She’s frequently referred to as the Shakespeare of Smut which is flattering but hasn’t ever gotten her out of chopping that cord of wood. If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
Slow burn, thy name is Penny Reid’s Homecoming King. This newest book of Reid’s is the first in a series of three standalones, Three Kings. This first book releases this year, with the next book releasing in December of next year. While seemingly a Christmas story, the holiday aspects of Homecoming King are mild; they tinge the story without making it an over-the-top, predictable holiday read. There are many reasons to love Penny Reid, her irreverent stories are many of my favorites. What we find in her other stories, we find in this one too: a heroine with a keen interest in hobbies, a hunk who needs the heroine to add shades to his life, and a story that compels your forward to its happy ending.
In Homecoming King, Abigail “Abby” has loved Rex McMurtry, the celebrated professional football player, from afar…since preschool. Even though she is one of the tallest girls in her school, she exists in the periphery, and Rex never notices her. Many years later, he ends up in the bar where she bartends, finds himself too drunk to make it home, and she takes him home to care for him. From there, a friendship blossoms. This leads to a proposal: a marriage between the two of them so Rex doesn’t have to worry about friends and family members foisting women on him. Always accommodating in her empathic way, Abby agrees, and she and Rex marry at the 50-yard line. However, are they destined for each other, or is this “too good to be true?”
For both Rex and Abby, that saying “too good to be true” is the mantra of their lives, and Reid deftly weaves their struggles with vulnerability around moments of humor and companionship between the two. Through their struggles, Reid uses their silence to build the tension between these two. Abby is such a lovely character in that she is compassionate about people. She sees something in Rex, and she reads him in a way that no one else seems to do. Yet, her ability to lower her defenses blinds her to his interest in her. This, in turn, evolves their slow-burn.
Since Rex also worries over becoming vulnerable with her, the tension between these two grows as the pages turn. It takes much of the book for these two to allow themselves to voice their interest in the other. Once this occurs, it is full steam ahead with only a minor complication.
There is so much to love about the Homecoming King. Abby and Rex’s ease in contrast to the ways they protect themselves causes you to fall in love with them. As you move through the story, you want to yell at them to figure it out; however, Reid’s timing is impeccable for them. If you love to laugh and to fall in love with characters who fall deeply in love with each other because they see each other better than anyone else, then Homecoming King should be your next read.
Professor Romance 