by Shayla Black , Lexi Blake Two Men on a Mission Security Professionals Burke and Cole Lennox have shared women before but never meant to fall in love with one. Their lives are precarious, always on the edge of trouble. But Jessa Wade is too tempting, too perfect to let go. They’re on a dangerous mission, but they can’t help but get close to the beautiful, innocent artist. When their mission takes them to a foreign land, they reluctantly leave their love behind, promising to return for her one day. A Woman with a Secret After her lovers disappeared, Jessa Wade bravely moves on with her life, protecting her secret. But when she becomes the target of one of Burke and Cole’s enemies, the men leap into action, vowing to save their woman and to never leave again. As danger stalks all three, they must come together and face the mistakes of their past. On the run and out of time, Burke and Cole will fight for their future with Jessa. But will Jessa’s secret bring them together…or tear them apart?

In her startlingly sensual new story, “Rules for Virgins”—this 43-page jewel of a tale is the first fiction she has published in six years—beloved bestselling author Amy Tan (“The Joy Luck Club,” “The Bonesetter’s Daughter”) takes us deep into the illicit world of 1912 Shanghai, where beautiful courtesans mercilessly compete for the patronage of wealthy gentlemen. For the women, the contest is deadly serious, a perilous game of economic survival that, if played well, can set them up for life as mistresses of the rich and prominent. There is no room for error, however: erotic power is hard to achieve and harder to maintain, especially in the loftiest social circles. Enter veteran seducer, Magic Gourd, formerly one of Shanghai’s “Top Ten Beauties” and now the advisor and attendant of Violet, an aspiring but inexperienced courtesan. Violet may have the youth and the allure, but Magic Gourd has the cunning and the knowledge without which the younger woman is sure to fail. These ancient tricks of the trade aren't written down, though; to pass them on to her student, Magic Gourd must reach back into her own professional past, bringing her lessons alive with stories and anecdotes from a career spent charming and manipulating men who should have known better but rarely did. The world of sexual intrigue that Tan reveals in "Rules for Virgins" actually existed once, and she spares no detail in recreating it. But this story is more than intriguing (and sometimes shocking) historical literary fiction. Besides inviting us inside a life that few writers but Tan could conjure up, the intimate confessions of Magic Gourd add up to a kind of military manual for the War of the Sexes’ female combatants. The wisdom conveyed is ancient, specific, and timeless, exposing the workings of vanity and folly, calculation and desire that define the mysterious human heart.

**A young Jamie Fraser learns what it really means to become a man in this Outlander prequel novella. Featuring all the trademark suspense, adventure, and history of Diana Gabaldon’s #1 bestselling novels and the Starz original series, *Virgins *is now available for the first time as a standalone ebook.** ** ** Mourning the death of his father and gravely injured at the hands of the English, Jamie Fraser finds himself running with a band of mercenaries in the French countryside, where he reconnects with his old friend Ian Murray. Both are nursing wounds; both have good reason to stay out of Scotland; and both are still virgins, despite several opportunities to remedy that deplorable situation with ladies of easy virtue. But Jamie’s love life becomes infinitely more complicated—and dangerous—when fate brings the young men into the service of Dr. Hasdi, a Jewish gentleman who hires them to escort two priceless treasures to Paris. One is an old Torah; the other is the doctor’s beautiful daughter, Rebekah, destined for an arranged marriage. Both Jamie and Ian are instantly drawn to the bride-to-be—but they might be more cautious if they had any idea who they’re truly dealing with. *Note: Originally published as part of the [Dangerous Women](https://www./book/show/17702284.Dangerous_Women "Dangerous Women") anthology.*

**I promised my best friend I’d take care of his sister, but she’s got other plans for us.** I’ve known Princess Alina for most of her life. She was always just my best friend’s little sister, a tag along, a kid. But I spent the last year abroad and when I got back, things had changed. Alina is all grown up, and she knows what she wants… me. I can’t stop thinking about her but I don’t know how to make this work. She’s too young and I’ve made a promise to her brother to keep her safe. I doubt the king meant for me to fall in love with his little sister.

Contains five short stories. In the title story a loving and contented husband discovers the true nature of his marriage, as though he has walked through a mirror and found that the life held in the glass was not his own at all.

When God told John Wroe to comfort himself with seven virgins, his congregation gave him their daughters.This novel is their story—including the trial that brought Wroe's household to its dramatic end. Comparable to Charlotte Cory's Unforgiving, this vivid rendering of 19th-century English life is "a delight from the first page to the last" (Observer).

I never thought I’d fall in love with the woman I was supposed to marry. They call me a playboy, and I don’t mind. My marriage is arranged, my future set. I’m a prince and I’m going to be king. My wild oats only have a few months left to be sown, but when my intended ditches me without warning everything changes. Now I’ve got a new bride, and that woman is her younger sister. Gemma is everything I could ever want. Beautiful, smart, innocent, and feisty. There’s just one problem. She hates me. I have to have her, but she’s not interested in a playboy prince. It’ll take everything I’ve got to show her I can be the fairytale prince she deserves.

**I’m her Royal Guard—I’m not supposed to be in love with her.** I’ve watched over Princess Waverly for years, done my duty, protected the woman who is second in line for the crown. But I’ve got a secret. She’s the one woman I can’t stop thinking about and when she’s kidnapped during a charity ball, I’ll stop at nothing to save her. Waverly isn’t just the people’s princess, she’s my everything, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her.

Veteran journalist Jay Morgan senses that the simmering conflict in Kosovo is about to take on a new dimension when he hears rumors that a mysterious bearded foreigner, bearing weapons and money and preaching Holy War, has appeared in the rebels' mountain camps. What is this mysterious man's mission? What new horror has he brought to the city? Together Jay and his translator, the beautiful Alija—who is searching for a missing brother and is herself a victim of the war—race to find this prophet of jihad.Each danger-fraught foray across the lines and each interview— whether with a rebel commander, Serb sniper, or American spook tasked to evaluate and take out this new threat—brings Jay and Alija closer to each other and to the devastating truth about the conflict in the Middle East. Pitch–perfect and keenly observed, Fleishman's novel delivers bracing suspense in a tale of substance reminiscent of Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway.

A young man with a mission: to get himself killed, to subvert the established order in the name of the one true faith. What can come between him and the virgins he has been promised, if not the Angels in his heart? Dark humour lightens this tale of teenage longing taken to the extreme.Lee Soylent is a young man with a mission: to get himself killed. In the England of the very near future, his task is to subvert the established order in the name of the one true faith. He knows that only the next world matters. What can possibly come between him and the virgins he has been promised, if not the Angels in his heart? Dark humour lightens this tale of teenage longing taken to the extreme.

In sixteenth-century Venice, one young noblewoman dares to resist the choices made for herVenice in 1509 is on the brink of war. The displeasure of Pope Julius II is a continuing threat to the republic, as is the barely contained fighting in the countryside. Amid this turmoil, noblewoman Justina Soranzo, just sixteen, hopes to make a rare love marriage with her sweetheart, Luca Cicogna. Her hopes are dashed when her father decides her younger sister, Rosa, will marry in a strategic alliance and Justina will be sent to the San Zaccaria convent, in the tradition of aristocratic daughters. Lord Soranzo is not acting only to protect his family. It's well known that he is in debt to both his trading partners and the most infamous courtesan in the city, La Diamante, and the pressure is closing in.After arriving at the convent, Justina takes solace in her aunt Livia, one of the nuns, and in the growing knowledge that all is not strictly devout at San...

It’s 1979, and Aviva Rossner and Seung Jung are notorious at Auburn Academy. They’re an unlikely pair at an elite East Coast boarding school (she’s Jewish; he’s Korean American) and hardly shy when it comes to their sexuality. Aviva is a formerly bookish girl looking for liberation from an unhappy childhood; Seung is an enthusiastic dabbler in drugs and a covert rebel against his demanding immigrant parents. In the minds of their titillated classmates—particularly that of Bruce Bennett-Jones—the couple lives in a realm of pure, indulgent pleasure. But, as is often the case, their fabled relationship is more complicated than it seems: despite their lust and urgency, their virginity remains intact, and as they struggle to understand each other, the relationship spirals into disaster.The Virgins is the story of Aviva and Seung’s descent into confusion and shame, as re-imagined in richly detailed episodes by their classmate Bruce, a once-embittered voyeur turned repentant narrator. With unflinching honesty and breathtaking prose, Pamela Erens brings a fresh voice to the tradition of the great boarding school novel.Review"Now that James Salter is in his twilight years, his considerable fan base will be ecstatic to encounter his heiress apparent, Pamela Erens, whose erotically charged prose reaches for naming the ineffable, honoring the elusive, and celebrating the bodily majesty of life. An extraordinary novel."—Antonya Nelson, author of Bound"A sensual and haunting story of sexual awakening, Pamela Erens’s exquisitely written The Virgins vividly captures the thrill of youthful innocence and the crushing pain of its loss. This is a profound—and profoundly moving—novel. I couldn't put it down, and I didn't want it to end."—Will Allison, author of Long Drive Home"Suspenseful and swift and well made, The Virgins, Pamela Erens's exciting new fiction, ratchets up the heat on the boarding school novel with ferociously sensual descriptions of frustrated love—love imagined and love experienced. Easy to fall for this book and fall hard."—Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends“Like the unforgettable Aviva Rossner, The Virgins is small but not slight—intense, sublime, vivid, uncanny, irresistible. It joins the ranks of the great boarding school novels while somehow evoking the twisted, obsessive narrations of Nabokov’s Pale Fire or Wharton’s Ethan Frome. Pamela Erens is that rare writer who can articulate—and gorgeously—the secrets we never knew about ourselves."—Rebecca Makkai, author of The Borrower“The Virgins is a stunningly beautiful novel. It is precisely observed, skillfully constructed, and brilliantly written. This is possibly the best novel of the many good ones set in a New England prep school, that terrain of elegance and envy, of flowering and blight.”—John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of Spartina"Erens writes with great believability and sensitivity about the teenage years, when school and family pressures, along with sexual awakening, can seem like life-and-death issues. Whether she's describing a visit to an ice cream stand or Seung and Aviva's explorations of lovemaking, her prose is sensual and lyrical. . . . Many readers will want to investigate this work."—Library Journal"This newest addition to the 'boarding school novels we love' category mixes the unsettling drama of A Separate Peace with the sexual juiciness of Prep. . . .The dark twist of an ending will haunt you for days."—Redbook.com"In her second novel, The Virgins, Pamela Erens paints an arresting portrait of adolescent sexuality — at once beautiful, erotic, awkward, and shameful. With its racial tensions, vile narrator, and tragic climax, The Virgins reads like a prep school Othello, set to a soundtrack of Devo and Jethro Tull."—Leigh Stein, Los Angeles Review of BooksAbout the AuthorPamela Erens was raised in Chicago and attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, where she concentrated on literary theory and women’s studies. For many years she worked as a magazine editor, including at Glamour. Her editing and freelance journalism have won national awards.Erens’s first novel, The Understory, published in 2007, was the winner of the Ironweed Press Fiction Prize and a finalist for both the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Erens has also published short fiction, poetry, and essays in literary journals and magazines ranging from Chicago Review and New England Review to O: The Oprah Magazine. She is the recipient of two New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowships in fiction and was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Dancing With the Virgins is an atmospheric, psychological stunner--perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and Peter Robinson.As winter closes in on the moors, so does death. The body of a young woman is found within a ring of ancient cairns, her arms and legs arranged to look as though she's dancing.Now another young woman has been found, savagely wounded and severely traumatized, but alive. Ben Cooper and Diane Fry must unlock the memories trapped inside her mind before more blood is shed amongst the stones . . .

Tales beyond the darkness!If you could bring your daughter back from the dead...should you? If you could forget the worst event in your life...would you?In this collection of twenty-five dark tales from Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Everson, you'll meet a host of provocative characters. Learn the secrets of the man whose pumpkin carvings look strangely, disturbingly real. Visit a small town where the tavern game isn't about shots, but sharks. Meet the woman who finds an ancient sex toy—and a salacious spirit—entombed beneath her garden. From quiet tales of ghosts and cemeteries to extreme tales of erotic horror, Sacrificing Virgins will take you to the bleeding edge...and beyond.

Product DescriptionThey may be inexperienced in sex, but when it comes to love, there's a lot they can teach a man. Discover the thrill of romance the first time around as ten "good girls" help their men discover there's nothing as intoxicating as the allure of innocence! Bundle includes The Virgin's Price, The Virgin's Proposal, His Virgin Secretary, One Hot Texan, The Innocent Virgin, Undercover Virgin, A Single Demand, The Virgin's Seduction, Craving Beauty and The Millionaire's Virgin Mistress

A drug related murder at a senior high school becomes an assignment for a new PI, pretty and feisty Sarah Walsh. 22 years old and still a virgin, she goes undercover as a 17 year old high school student. She meets the gorgeous head cheerleader and her squad. She shouldn't fall for her AND shouldn't get involved with the squad's games in the shower, but does she really want to stop?

After twenty-five years of marriage, Violet and Max agree their vanilla sex life needs a little spice. Spending their anniversary at a tropical fantasy resort just might open the door to a new love life and bring them closer together. But engaging in pleasure with another couple produces different results for each of them, and unleashed desires could do more harm than good and ruin their marriage after all.

One look, one touch, and there is no denying the heat… Twenty-one and single, Alexis Lopez hopes her lackluster response to men is a problem she’s eager to solve by volunteering for the Interstellar Brides Program. One look at the large, dominant alien who claims she belongs to him sets her body on fire. When he tells her, in explicit detail, how he’ll claim her in every way, she is eager to give her mate everything, body and soul. Von of Everis is a ruthless and high ranking Hunter who’s spent years fighting in the Hive wars. But his bed, and his life, are empty until Alexis arrives. One look at his innocent little bride and he knows she belongs to him. Simple, right? Nope. The match is challenged by one of the most feared warriors on the planet and stolen kisses and mind-numbing pleasure won’t save Von from a deadly duel. But Von is a Hunter, a warrior, a protector, and someone is trying to take what belongs to him. Only him. He will do whatever it takes to protect, save and claim his virgin mate.

For the seniors at Immaculate Heart High, hormones triumphed over the State of Grace—and everyone's vocation was to DO IT. The Map of Forbidden Sexual Delights extended its boundaries nightly in the back seats of tail-finned cars. And nothing—not even the Anti-Smut League—could keep the boys and the girls from a rowdy, raunchy romp through those heart-stopping, heart-wrenching days of growing up!"To read Virgins is to remember the days when a kiss was two tightly closed mouths colliding and there were definite rules as to where a roving hand could rove... and no, if you are too young to remember those days, Caryl Rivers is not making it all up. Rivers has written a very funny book." —The Washington Post"Miss Rivers demonstrates her sharp comic form right from the start." —The New York Times Book Review"Rivers doesn't give one time to pause for breath between the bawdy laugh-out-loud and wrenchingly moving moments in her new book. [...]...

Prim and proper Bessie Mae Baxter knows all about being a good admin but nothing about sex. It's her birthday and she has had it up to here with being a good girl. Time for a change. Sexy masked dom by night, high-powered CEO by day, Reece Ferguson is the man to help with Bessie's dilemma. He's also her new boss. Milady's Pleasure supplies the man (Reece)...and the masks (glittery) to keep everyone's identity a secret. The problems: Bessie discovers the joy of sex. Reece discovers the joy of Bessie. Company policy prohibits 'fraternization'. Reece really wants to keep his job. Keeping the nights and days separate works. Almost. For a while. Until Reece realizes Bessie is his masked seductress, and Bessie recognizes Reece as the man with the whip. They both know you can't have everything. Or can you?

Jake and his friends become Ben Raphael's All-Star Virgin Order. It takes a tragedy to make the BRAVO boys realize what's important in life.

In this enthralling new novel, Barbara Quick re-creates eighteenth-century Venice at the height of its splendor and decadence. A story of longing and intrigue, half-told truths and toxic lies, Vivaldi's Virgins unfolds through the eyes of Anna Maria dal Violin, one of the elite musicians cloistered in the foundling home where Antonio Vivaldi--known as the Red Priest of Venice--is maestro and composer. Fourteen-year-old Anna Maria, abandoned at the Ospedale della PietÀ as an infant, is determined to find out who she is and where she came from. Her quest takes her beyond the cloister walls into the complex tapestry of Venetian society; from the impoverished alleyways of the Jewish Ghetto to a masked ball in the company of a king; from the passionate communal life of adolescent girls competing for their maestro's favor to the larger-than-life world of music and spectacle that kept the citizens of a dying republic in thrall. In this world, where for fully half the...

Review'A hectic comedy thriller!a rip-roaring knockabout farce!refreshingly unpompous, faintly dishevelled and often very funny.' Mail on Sunday 'At the centre of his first novel, a light comedy, is a terrorist plot of frightening ingenuity!the comedy is reminiscent of Tom Sharpe.' Sunday Times 'Johnson scores in his comic handling of those most sensitive issues!he succeeds in being charming and sincere!Boris Johnson has written a witty page-turner.' Observer 'Among the hilarious scenes of events and the wonderful dialogue which keeps the story moving at a cracking pace, Johnson uncovers some home truths!I can give no higher praise to this book than to say that I lapped it up at a single uproarious sitting.' Irish Examiner 'As an author, the Shadow Arts Minister is in a class of his own: ebullient, exhausting but irresistible.' Daily Mail 'fluent, funny material!the writing is vintage, Wodehousian Boris!it has been assembled with skill and terrific energy and will lift morale in the soul of many.' Evening Standard 'This is a comic novel, but Johnson is never far away from making serious points, which he leads us towards with admirable stealth.' Daily Telegraph 'a splendidly accomplished and gripping first novel!Few authors could get away with it, but this one most certainly does. Highly recommended.' Sunday Telegraph 'The rollicking pace and continuous outpouring of comic invention make the book!The guardians of our author's future need not worry. This is a laurel from a new bush, but certainly a prizewinner.' Spectator 'invents a genre all of his own: a post 9/11 farce!a pacy, knockabout political thriller which takes in would-be terrorists careering through Westminster in a stolen ambulance, a visit from the US president, celebrity chefs, snipers, tabloids chasing extra-curricular!as much fun reading it as Johnson had writing it.' GQ 'As well as Mr Johnson's inside knowledge of Parliament and his exuberantly idiosyncratic prose style, Mr Johnson is also brilliant at characterisation -- each one of his cast of hundreds leaps to life in a few sentences!and yes, I laughed out loud approximately every 30 minutes.' Country Life About the AuthorBoris Johnson is the editor of the Spectator, MP for Henley, writes a column for the Daily Telegraph and has just been appointed Shadow Arts Minister. He lives in London and Oxfordshire with his wife and their children.

After a life on the streets, Katie chooses the Interstellar Brides Program for a chance at a new life, a new identity. But when she arrives on Everis, her Marked Mate refuses to claim her. As an Elite Hunter, Bryn has to travel to Hyperion, a known world of gangs and vicious evil to bring an assassin to justice, and leave her behind. She might be innocent in body, but Katie knows her honorable mate is walking into a foreign world, a world she knows all too well. If she must seduce him, she will. If she must steal away on his ship and follow him to another world, she will. And if she must seduce the sexy-as-sin leader of the criminal legions they meet to save her mate? Well then, her innocence is a weapon, and she's not afraid to use it. **