We're honored to spotlight Nina Lane's breathtaking Spiral of Bliss series, Arouse and Allure. This series, hands down, is one of our favorites, EVER. The honesty, the realness, the relatable emotions that are evoked, the beautiful normalcy, and the inspiring love and passion between Dean & Liv makes this a Must Read. We respect Nina Lane for writing about the struggles of a married couple - yet her talent as a writer and storyteller made Dean & Liv's story so much more. They are perfectly imperfect and now have a permanent place in our hearts.
And, holy mother of Hot, Alpha, Geeky Professor! Dean West is one of our top BBFs.... ever. His mind and nerdiness is hot. His all-consuming love for Liv is beautiful. His way of calling Liv "Beauty" is swoon-worthy. His sexual dominance and how he works it on Liv is panty-melting. Seriously, if Dean West does not affect you, something is wrong with you!
Today enjoy an excerpt from both Arouse and Allure, meet Liv & Dean, and enter to win a Signed Paperback & SWAG for both books! Open Internationally!
And, holy mother of Hot, Alpha, Geeky Professor! Dean West is one of our top BBFs.... ever. His mind and nerdiness is hot. His all-consuming love for Liv is beautiful. His way of calling Liv "Beauty" is swoon-worthy. His sexual dominance and how he works it on Liv is panty-melting. Seriously, if Dean West does not affect you, something is wrong with you!
Today enjoy an excerpt from both Arouse and Allure, meet Liv & Dean, and enter to win a Signed Paperback & SWAG for both books! Open Internationally!
Arouse Excerpt - Liv's POV
"Liv," he said, his voice rough with tenderness, "you don't have to be afraid."
"Why not?"
"Because I'll slay monsters for you."
The promise of autumn is in the air. Breezes sweep from the surface of the lake, trees rustle, and ducks waddle along the beaches. The tourists are leaving town, and university students bustle around with their backpacks and laptops. Dean is mired in planning fall semester classes, advising, department meetings, committees. We talk, but not about anything important. Not about us.
I’ve agreed to work three days a week at The Happy Booker, and I volunteer for a few hours at the public library and the Mirror Lake Historical Museum. After an afternoon spent organizing an exhibition on colonial currency, I stop at a coffeehouse for a mocha. The scent of roasting coffee beans makes me think of my first few months with Dean.
I was twenty-four years old and had been accepted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a transfer student. I’d spent the previous three years in rural Wisconsin, working at a clothing store and taking night courses at a community college to earn transfer credits.
When my application was accepted at the UW, I’d packed up everything I owned and moved to Madison to start what I hoped would be a new life. The day I registered for classes, a woman at the registrar’s office gave me a hard time about the transferability of my community college work.
I was upset, trying not to cry while pleading with Mrs. Russell to work out a solution.
“There must be something we can do,” I said.
“Miss Winter, the courses you took won’t cover the requirements,” she informed me.
“But I wouldn’t have taken them otherwise. If I can’t get them to transfer, it puts me behind an entire semester.”
“Look.” Mrs. Russell swept the papers into a stack and pushed them toward me. “It’s all in the catalog, if you have questions. We can’t retroactively allow the credits to transfer.”
“I’m not asking you to do it retroactively!” I said. “This is my first semester here, and I’m trying to get my courses in order. If I have to take another foreign language translation class, then I’m already behind. And those classes are full already anyway.”
“The courses you took aren’t equivalent to the requirements for your academic program.” Mrs. Russell glanced pointedly at the line of students behind me. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
I blinked back tears, refusing to budge. “Why would they have told me the credits would transfer if they’re not equivalent?”
Then a tall, handsome man approached from another section of the office, his dark eyes fixed on me, his deep voice rolling over my skin like a wave of heat on a cold winter night.
“Can I help with this?” he asked.
My breath stopped in my throat. The sight of him jolted something loose inside me, and for an instant I could only stare at him, struck by the sharp, masculine planes of his face, the steadiness of his expression, his aura of complete control and self-possession.
He was wearing black trousers and a navy blue shirt open at the collar to reveal a V of taut, tanned skin. His hair shone under the fluorescent lights, and I was seized by a sudden urge to tunnel my fingers through the strands to see if they felt as thick and soft as they looked.
Unnerved, I jerked my attention back to Mrs. Russell, who was explaining the situation to him. She called him “Dr. West.” Likely a professor, then. I wondered what he taught.
Dr. West listened patiently, glancing at me every so often. “What classes are you trying to take?” he asked me.
“She’s a library sciences major, and she has to register for foreign lit translation and intro to biology,” Mrs. Russell said.
“But I shouldn’t have to take those because my credits should transfer,” I persisted.
“Make an appointment with a guidance counselor, Miss Winter,” Mrs. Russell suggested. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“By the time I do that, classes will already have started.”
“You have a couple of weeks yet to finalize your courses,” she continued. “I’m sure they’ll help you sort this out.”
I knew by the tone of Mrs. Russell’s voice that she wasn’t going to give in, and the hopelessness of the situation crashed over me.
“The professors can—” Dr. West started.
“Never mind.” Because I didn’t want to start crying in front of him, I grabbed my bag and left the office.
Halfway down the sidewalk, my vision blurry with tears, I tripped on an uneven piece of concrete and went sprawling onto my hands and knees. My open satchel thumped onto the ground, papers spilling out.
“Are you okay?” Then he was there, crouching beside me to pick up the papers before the wind caught them. He reached out a hand but stopped an inch from my arm, his fingers brushing the sleeve of my gray sweatshirt.
“I… I’m okay,” I said.
He could have touched me. He was close. Close enough that I caught a whiff of him, a clean, soapy smell that settled in my blood and loosened the knot of frustration stuck in my throat. Close enough that I noticed the size of his hands, his long fingers and the dark hairs dusting his forearm where his sleeve inched up.
Awareness shot through me. I dusted the grit from my palms and straightened. He stood between me and the street, waiting in silence for me to collect my composure. A few people passed behind me, forcing me a few steps toward him.
He held out my satchel, his gaze moving over me, eliciting a surge of heat. I pushed strands of hair away from my face and looked at him. My heart hammered, my chest pooling with warmth. I was shaken all over again by the way my body reacted to him, with this hot pull of attraction I had never experienced before.
Not for any man. Ever.
“Thank you.” I took my satchel from him and straightened the papers. All I had to do now was turn and walk away.
I didn’t. He was still looking at me, his hands in his pockets, his hair ruffled by the breeze.
“Are you a professor here?” I asked.
He was big. Not all bulky and heavy, but tall with broad shoulders, long legs, and that air of self-control that made him seem in total command. The wind flattened his shirt over his muscular chest, and I had a sudden image of folding myself against that chest and feeling his arms close around me. Safe. Protected.
Nothing to fear. Not from him.
I stepped back, not having felt this way before and not knowing where it was all coming from.
Why him? Why now?
“I’m a visiting professor for the year,” he said. “Medieval history.”
He was a medieval history professor. For whatever reason—the sheer dorkiness of the field?—this admission eased some of my tension.
“Oh.” I hitched the satchel over my shoulder and folded my arms across my breasts. “Well, thanks for your help back at the registrar’s.”
“The professors of whatever classes you need to take can approve your transfer credits,” he said. “You don’t need to go through the registrar’s office first. Get the course syllabus and bibliography from your previous college, and bring them to the professors to see if it fits their curriculum. If it covers the same ground, they should approve the transfer as a direct course equivalent.”
“Why didn’t Mrs. Russell tell me that?”
“She probably didn’t know. Professors have a lot of power.”
I almost smiled. “Even medieval history professors?”
“Especially medieval history professors,” he assured me.
“Knights on horseback and all that?”
A responding smile tugged at his mouth. “And damsels in distress.”
My heart constricted. Ah, fairy tales.
“Hey, Professor West!” A young man jogged up to him. “I heard you were teaching here this year. I was at Harvard when you were a grad student. Tom Powell.”
The kid stuck out a hand. Professor West shook it and made a few appropriate comments. I backed up a step, not wanting to leave him and yet not knowing how to stay.
The other guy kept talking. Something about a paper he was working on.
Professor West glanced at me. I had the sense he was about to make an excuse, extract himself from the conversation so that he could turn back to me.
So we could finish what we’d started.
I retreated another step, staring at the sunlight glinting off his hair, the sharp edges of his profile, the muscles of his neck, and the confidence of his stance.
Professor West was beautiful. He was beautiful and warm and wanted to help a distraught girl in a ragged gray sweatshirt. Even though his eyes seared me like a caress he hadn’t made a move to touch me or invade my space. If anything, he seemed to restrain himself from doing so.
If I could trust myself with anyone, I thought, it might be him.
Before he looked at me again with those penetrating eyes, before I could think of an excuse to stay, I surrendered to my fear and hurried away. I had to force myself not to look back.
I’ve agreed to work three days a week at The Happy Booker, and I volunteer for a few hours at the public library and the Mirror Lake Historical Museum. After an afternoon spent organizing an exhibition on colonial currency, I stop at a coffeehouse for a mocha. The scent of roasting coffee beans makes me think of my first few months with Dean.
I was twenty-four years old and had been accepted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a transfer student. I’d spent the previous three years in rural Wisconsin, working at a clothing store and taking night courses at a community college to earn transfer credits.
When my application was accepted at the UW, I’d packed up everything I owned and moved to Madison to start what I hoped would be a new life. The day I registered for classes, a woman at the registrar’s office gave me a hard time about the transferability of my community college work.
I was upset, trying not to cry while pleading with Mrs. Russell to work out a solution.
“There must be something we can do,” I said.
“Miss Winter, the courses you took won’t cover the requirements,” she informed me.
“But I wouldn’t have taken them otherwise. If I can’t get them to transfer, it puts me behind an entire semester.”
“Look.” Mrs. Russell swept the papers into a stack and pushed them toward me. “It’s all in the catalog, if you have questions. We can’t retroactively allow the credits to transfer.”
“I’m not asking you to do it retroactively!” I said. “This is my first semester here, and I’m trying to get my courses in order. If I have to take another foreign language translation class, then I’m already behind. And those classes are full already anyway.”
“The courses you took aren’t equivalent to the requirements for your academic program.” Mrs. Russell glanced pointedly at the line of students behind me. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
I blinked back tears, refusing to budge. “Why would they have told me the credits would transfer if they’re not equivalent?”
Then a tall, handsome man approached from another section of the office, his dark eyes fixed on me, his deep voice rolling over my skin like a wave of heat on a cold winter night.
“Can I help with this?” he asked.
My breath stopped in my throat. The sight of him jolted something loose inside me, and for an instant I could only stare at him, struck by the sharp, masculine planes of his face, the steadiness of his expression, his aura of complete control and self-possession.
He was wearing black trousers and a navy blue shirt open at the collar to reveal a V of taut, tanned skin. His hair shone under the fluorescent lights, and I was seized by a sudden urge to tunnel my fingers through the strands to see if they felt as thick and soft as they looked.
Unnerved, I jerked my attention back to Mrs. Russell, who was explaining the situation to him. She called him “Dr. West.” Likely a professor, then. I wondered what he taught.
Dr. West listened patiently, glancing at me every so often. “What classes are you trying to take?” he asked me.
“She’s a library sciences major, and she has to register for foreign lit translation and intro to biology,” Mrs. Russell said.
“But I shouldn’t have to take those because my credits should transfer,” I persisted.
“Make an appointment with a guidance counselor, Miss Winter,” Mrs. Russell suggested. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“By the time I do that, classes will already have started.”
“You have a couple of weeks yet to finalize your courses,” she continued. “I’m sure they’ll help you sort this out.”
I knew by the tone of Mrs. Russell’s voice that she wasn’t going to give in, and the hopelessness of the situation crashed over me.
“The professors can—” Dr. West started.
“Never mind.” Because I didn’t want to start crying in front of him, I grabbed my bag and left the office.
Halfway down the sidewalk, my vision blurry with tears, I tripped on an uneven piece of concrete and went sprawling onto my hands and knees. My open satchel thumped onto the ground, papers spilling out.
“Are you okay?” Then he was there, crouching beside me to pick up the papers before the wind caught them. He reached out a hand but stopped an inch from my arm, his fingers brushing the sleeve of my gray sweatshirt.
“I… I’m okay,” I said.
He could have touched me. He was close. Close enough that I caught a whiff of him, a clean, soapy smell that settled in my blood and loosened the knot of frustration stuck in my throat. Close enough that I noticed the size of his hands, his long fingers and the dark hairs dusting his forearm where his sleeve inched up.
Awareness shot through me. I dusted the grit from my palms and straightened. He stood between me and the street, waiting in silence for me to collect my composure. A few people passed behind me, forcing me a few steps toward him.
He held out my satchel, his gaze moving over me, eliciting a surge of heat. I pushed strands of hair away from my face and looked at him. My heart hammered, my chest pooling with warmth. I was shaken all over again by the way my body reacted to him, with this hot pull of attraction I had never experienced before.
Not for any man. Ever.
“Thank you.” I took my satchel from him and straightened the papers. All I had to do now was turn and walk away.
I didn’t. He was still looking at me, his hands in his pockets, his hair ruffled by the breeze.
“Are you a professor here?” I asked.
He was big. Not all bulky and heavy, but tall with broad shoulders, long legs, and that air of self-control that made him seem in total command. The wind flattened his shirt over his muscular chest, and I had a sudden image of folding myself against that chest and feeling his arms close around me. Safe. Protected.
Nothing to fear. Not from him.
I stepped back, not having felt this way before and not knowing where it was all coming from.
Why him? Why now?
“I’m a visiting professor for the year,” he said. “Medieval history.”
He was a medieval history professor. For whatever reason—the sheer dorkiness of the field?—this admission eased some of my tension.
“Oh.” I hitched the satchel over my shoulder and folded my arms across my breasts. “Well, thanks for your help back at the registrar’s.”
“The professors of whatever classes you need to take can approve your transfer credits,” he said. “You don’t need to go through the registrar’s office first. Get the course syllabus and bibliography from your previous college, and bring them to the professors to see if it fits their curriculum. If it covers the same ground, they should approve the transfer as a direct course equivalent.”
“Why didn’t Mrs. Russell tell me that?”
“She probably didn’t know. Professors have a lot of power.”
I almost smiled. “Even medieval history professors?”
“Especially medieval history professors,” he assured me.
“Knights on horseback and all that?”
A responding smile tugged at his mouth. “And damsels in distress.”
My heart constricted. Ah, fairy tales.
“Hey, Professor West!” A young man jogged up to him. “I heard you were teaching here this year. I was at Harvard when you were a grad student. Tom Powell.”
The kid stuck out a hand. Professor West shook it and made a few appropriate comments. I backed up a step, not wanting to leave him and yet not knowing how to stay.
The other guy kept talking. Something about a paper he was working on.
Professor West glanced at me. I had the sense he was about to make an excuse, extract himself from the conversation so that he could turn back to me.
So we could finish what we’d started.
I retreated another step, staring at the sunlight glinting off his hair, the sharp edges of his profile, the muscles of his neck, and the confidence of his stance.
Professor West was beautiful. He was beautiful and warm and wanted to help a distraught girl in a ragged gray sweatshirt. Even though his eyes seared me like a caress he hadn’t made a move to touch me or invade my space. If anything, he seemed to restrain himself from doing so.
If I could trust myself with anyone, I thought, it might be him.
Before he looked at me again with those penetrating eyes, before I could think of an excuse to stay, I surrendered to my fear and hurried away. I had to force myself not to look back.
Allure Excerpt: Dean's POV
I tilted my head back to look at him. He’d waited a long time for me. His gaze searched mine.
“Thanks for waiting,” I whispered.
“My beauty,” he said, “I’d wait for you forever.”
I’m a guy. When I first saw Liv five years ago, I didn’t think I would really like to understand that woman.
I thought: Damn, she’s pretty.
I thought: I want to kiss her.
I thought: What does she look like naked?
I would have stayed on that lusty train of thought if she hadn’t turned her brown eyes on me, and I realized she was on the verge of tears. Then my protective instinct kicked into high gear, and I thought: I need to help her.
I ended up not doing a damn thing for her at the university registrar’s office where she had a problem with transfer credits, even though she thanked me afterward. I knew I wanted to see her again, but not because I was being chivalrous or useful or sensitive.
I wanted to see her again because when we stood there on the sidewalk, a few strands of hair swept across her face and clung to her cheeks. Because I noticed that her mouth had an indentation in the upper lip. Because I tracked my gaze to her breasts moving with her breath under a white T-shirt and ragged gray sweatshirt, and my blood got hot. She had rounded hips. Legs encased in faded jeans with a rip in the denim exposing a pale strip of thigh.
She was curved. Sexy. Alive.
My chest filled with heat when I looked at her. It had been a long time since I’d had that rush. I wanted to feel it again.
It hadn’t happened with the business administrator I’d dated a few times over the summer. Rebecca was my age, an attractive brunette with short hair and a serious face who could talk about finance systems and process analyses as if she were discussing what to make for dinner. She read books about the economy, power-walked every morning, and always looked like she was thinking about something important.
She reminded me too much of me. Never once did my heart pound harder when I saw her. We went our separate ways as soon as the semester started. Shortly before I met Liv.
Olivia. That was how I thought of her those first couple of weeks when we’d see each other at the coffeehouse where she worked. Olivia R. Winter. I wondered what the R stood for.
One day she stopped next to the table where I was sitting at Jitter Beans. I’d been pretending to work on my laptop while actually sneaking glances at her. I liked the way she moved, her long ponytail swinging every time she turned to fill a mug, the bend of her body as she reached to take something from the dessert case.
“Free sample,” she said. Her apron was tight across the front of her body, dusted with cocoa powder and streaks of chocolate. “Our new peanut-butter brownie. Would you like one?”
She held out a tray of tiny paper cups filled with squares of chocolate. A speck of chocolate clung to the corner of her lip.
She tries the free samples. I tucked that bit of information away along with the other things I was learning about her.
She smiles at every customer.
She sits at the corner table during her breaks and reads one of the magazines.
She wears a pendant on a silver chain around her neck.
She’s older than most other undergrads, but no more than twenty-five.
She’s not a flirt.
She doesn’t notice when men look at her. Or she turns away from them.
She doesn’t turn away from me.
“Sure.” I reached out to take one of the paper cups. I wanted to ask her when her shift ended. Wanted to ask her to go somewhere with me.
I couldn’t yet. Though I knew the university’s policy about dating students, knew it was acceptable if the student wasn’t subject to the professor’s authority, I needed to make damn sure Olivia R. Winter and I wouldn’t cross academic paths for the rest of the year.
“Was it good?” I asked.
“What?”
I gestured to the crumb on her lip. Wished I could wipe it away. “Looks like you tried it.”
“Oh.” She rubbed her fingers across her mouth. “It’s delicious, sure. Peanut butter and chocolate—can’t go wrong. Right?”
She smiled. My heart thumped against my ribs.
It was a strange feeling, foreign, that anticipation making me feel like a teenager with his first crush. I couldn’t even remember my actual first crush. I’d been too busy training for the football team or burning my brain out studying for AP classes.
My girlfriends in high school and college had been the same way. They’d had to be. Ivy League universities, scholarships, the right classes and majors, junior years abroad, grad school, fellowships, published papers, guest lectures, prestigious jobs…
Driven. Focused. Serious. So freaking tedious.
Like me.
There was nothing tedious about this girl with the long hair and pretty smile who blushed when she met my gaze.
I thought: I want to get you alone.
When I finally did, the night of a lecture I was giving at a local museum, I discovered there was something contradictory about her, a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Like she wanted to be brave but wasn’t sure what would happen if she dared to let herself. A mouse peering out of its hole, whiskers vibrating with the urge to dart out.
I’d never wanted to prove myself to anyone the way I did Liv. I liked her too much. Liked the way I didn’t feel cold inside when I was with her, the way I didn’t think about anything except her. I liked that she was a mystery. I liked the way she looked at me, as if she knew I would protect her. That I could.
Until… I couldn’t.
The admission still lodges like a blade inside me.
“Oh, look, Pirates of Penzance is playing at the Civic Center.” Liv’s voice breaks into my darkening thoughts. She’s sitting across from me at the kitchen table, peering at the local section of the newspaper. “Want to go?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Or Cats will be there this spring, if you’d rather see that,” she remarks.
“I’m not really a cat person.”
“More of a pirate person, huh?” She glances at me with amusement. “Okay, I’ll see if tickets are still available. I love that ‘Modern Major-General’ song.”
It’s a measure of how much I love my wife that I just agreed to sit through two hours of dancing, singing pirates.
I thought: Damn, she’s pretty.
I thought: I want to kiss her.
I thought: What does she look like naked?
I would have stayed on that lusty train of thought if she hadn’t turned her brown eyes on me, and I realized she was on the verge of tears. Then my protective instinct kicked into high gear, and I thought: I need to help her.
I ended up not doing a damn thing for her at the university registrar’s office where she had a problem with transfer credits, even though she thanked me afterward. I knew I wanted to see her again, but not because I was being chivalrous or useful or sensitive.
I wanted to see her again because when we stood there on the sidewalk, a few strands of hair swept across her face and clung to her cheeks. Because I noticed that her mouth had an indentation in the upper lip. Because I tracked my gaze to her breasts moving with her breath under a white T-shirt and ragged gray sweatshirt, and my blood got hot. She had rounded hips. Legs encased in faded jeans with a rip in the denim exposing a pale strip of thigh.
She was curved. Sexy. Alive.
My chest filled with heat when I looked at her. It had been a long time since I’d had that rush. I wanted to feel it again.
It hadn’t happened with the business administrator I’d dated a few times over the summer. Rebecca was my age, an attractive brunette with short hair and a serious face who could talk about finance systems and process analyses as if she were discussing what to make for dinner. She read books about the economy, power-walked every morning, and always looked like she was thinking about something important.
She reminded me too much of me. Never once did my heart pound harder when I saw her. We went our separate ways as soon as the semester started. Shortly before I met Liv.
Olivia. That was how I thought of her those first couple of weeks when we’d see each other at the coffeehouse where she worked. Olivia R. Winter. I wondered what the R stood for.
One day she stopped next to the table where I was sitting at Jitter Beans. I’d been pretending to work on my laptop while actually sneaking glances at her. I liked the way she moved, her long ponytail swinging every time she turned to fill a mug, the bend of her body as she reached to take something from the dessert case.
“Free sample,” she said. Her apron was tight across the front of her body, dusted with cocoa powder and streaks of chocolate. “Our new peanut-butter brownie. Would you like one?”
She held out a tray of tiny paper cups filled with squares of chocolate. A speck of chocolate clung to the corner of her lip.
She tries the free samples. I tucked that bit of information away along with the other things I was learning about her.
She smiles at every customer.
She sits at the corner table during her breaks and reads one of the magazines.
She wears a pendant on a silver chain around her neck.
She’s older than most other undergrads, but no more than twenty-five.
She’s not a flirt.
She doesn’t notice when men look at her. Or she turns away from them.
She doesn’t turn away from me.
“Sure.” I reached out to take one of the paper cups. I wanted to ask her when her shift ended. Wanted to ask her to go somewhere with me.
I couldn’t yet. Though I knew the university’s policy about dating students, knew it was acceptable if the student wasn’t subject to the professor’s authority, I needed to make damn sure Olivia R. Winter and I wouldn’t cross academic paths for the rest of the year.
“Was it good?” I asked.
“What?”
I gestured to the crumb on her lip. Wished I could wipe it away. “Looks like you tried it.”
“Oh.” She rubbed her fingers across her mouth. “It’s delicious, sure. Peanut butter and chocolate—can’t go wrong. Right?”
She smiled. My heart thumped against my ribs.
It was a strange feeling, foreign, that anticipation making me feel like a teenager with his first crush. I couldn’t even remember my actual first crush. I’d been too busy training for the football team or burning my brain out studying for AP classes.
My girlfriends in high school and college had been the same way. They’d had to be. Ivy League universities, scholarships, the right classes and majors, junior years abroad, grad school, fellowships, published papers, guest lectures, prestigious jobs…
Driven. Focused. Serious. So freaking tedious.
Like me.
There was nothing tedious about this girl with the long hair and pretty smile who blushed when she met my gaze.
I thought: I want to get you alone.
When I finally did, the night of a lecture I was giving at a local museum, I discovered there was something contradictory about her, a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Like she wanted to be brave but wasn’t sure what would happen if she dared to let herself. A mouse peering out of its hole, whiskers vibrating with the urge to dart out.
I’d never wanted to prove myself to anyone the way I did Liv. I liked her too much. Liked the way I didn’t feel cold inside when I was with her, the way I didn’t think about anything except her. I liked that she was a mystery. I liked the way she looked at me, as if she knew I would protect her. That I could.
Until… I couldn’t.
The admission still lodges like a blade inside me.
“Oh, look, Pirates of Penzance is playing at the Civic Center.” Liv’s voice breaks into my darkening thoughts. She’s sitting across from me at the kitchen table, peering at the local section of the newspaper. “Want to go?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Or Cats will be there this spring, if you’d rather see that,” she remarks.
“I’m not really a cat person.”
“More of a pirate person, huh?” She glances at me with amusement. “Okay, I’ll see if tickets are still available. I love that ‘Modern Major-General’ song.”
It’s a measure of how much I love my wife that I just agreed to sit through two hours of dancing, singing pirates.
Book Summaries and Purchase Links
“Easy, beauty,” He presses his mouth to the tears that have slipped from the corners of my eyes and down my temples. His breath rasps against my ear. “Come first, and then I’ll fuck you.”
- Arouse by Nina Lane
Arouse "One day I'm going to touch you in a thousand different ways and show you how to touch me," he said. And he did. Struggling with a tormented past, undergraduate Olivia Winter once led a practical but isolated life. Then she met Professor Dean West, a brilliant scholar of medieval history who melted Liv's inhibitions and taught her the meaning of both love and erotic pleasure. But after three years of a blissful, lusty marriage, Liv and Dean now face a crisis that threatens everything they believe about each other...and sex might not be enough to save them. | Allure “We both want this so badly. I can feel it resonating between us like the hot pull of our first attraction, tangible and intense.” After lies and betrayal almost destroy their marriage, Dean and Olivia West reignite their blissful passion. The medieval history professor and his lovely wife are determined to fix their mistakes, and Liv’s unexpected pregnancy intensifies their desire to fall madly in love all over again. Then a family crisis forces Dean back into a feud with his parents and siblings, dredging up guilt over a painful family secret. Dean fights to shield Liv from the hostility, but for the first time, Liv resists her white knight’s defense. Her newfound resolve clashes with Dean’s desperate need to protect her. Liv and Dean have battled obstacles together before, but bitter family conflicts now endanger their fragile intimacy. And when Dean’s career is suddenly threatened, he and Liv must struggle with events that could damage them in ways they had never imagined. |
Our relationship, our love, cannot and will never be perfect. It will, however, always belong only to us in all its flawed, intense beauty. Perfect in its very imperfection.
- Allure by Nina Lane
Author Bio: Meet Nina Lane!
USA Today bestselling author Nina Lane writes hot, sexy romances and spicy erotica. Originally from California, she loves traveling and thinks St. Petersburg, Russia is a city everyone should visit at least once. Nina also spent many years in graduate school studying art history and library sciences.
Although she would go back for another degree if she could because she's that much of a bookworm, she now lives the happy life of a full-time writer. Nina's novel The Erotic Dark hit #1 on Amazon's Erotica Bestseller list, and she is currently working on the third book in the Spiral of Bliss series.
Connect with the Author: Website | Facebook | Twitter |Goodreads
Although she would go back for another degree if she could because she's that much of a bookworm, she now lives the happy life of a full-time writer. Nina's novel The Erotic Dark hit #1 on Amazon's Erotica Bestseller list, and she is currently working on the third book in the Spiral of Bliss series.
Connect with the Author: Website | Facebook | Twitter |Goodreads
"Since the day we met, I haven't wanted anyone but you," Dean says.
My heart jumps a little.
"Never looked at another woman," he continues, "Never thought about one. It's always been you, Olivia."
- Arouse by Nina Lane
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