Title: Mad Dog Author: Ophelia Bell Series: Second Skin #1 Genre: Contemporary Military Romance
Not even the king of Los Angeles’s underground can stop me from loving Celeste.
Arturo Flores could make me disappear with a snap of his fingers, and nearly did. Limping away from a beatdown when I was seventeen didn’t change the fact that his daughter was worth the pain. Running into her in my tattoo shop twelve years later, she still makes my blood run hot with a glance.
But I’m not that clueless teenage boy anymore. And Celeste isn’t the only one I want.
Leo is a temptation I crave, but in our world, admitting desires like mine could get me killed. The gangbanger is as ruthless as he is beautiful, yet he can’t see anything beyond Celeste. That hurts like hell to admit, but I would sooner die at her crime lord father’s hands than let either of them get hurt.
I’m prepared to let them have each other when Leo comes to me with an offer. One that could connect the three of us in a way that flies in the face of the world we live in. His proposal ignites a fire in my veins. If it fails, we’ll all get burned, but for a man with nothing to lose, I’m just desperate enough to take that chance.
My pulse speeds up at the mere mention of what we did back then. “I thought we knew each other well enough.”
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Maybe conversations aren’t really our thing.” Then he spears me with a sharp look that makes my insides go molten.
“Maybe not.” My heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe. My feet have a mind of their own when I start to walk again. I pass by him, feeling his gaze on me all the way as I head around the corner and through the door to the locker rooms.
The space smells musty and old, a mix of stale sweat and lemon cleaner. There are no showers—just two rows of lockers with benches in front and a restroom with a trio of toilet stalls and a row of sinks beyond another door. The boys’ side is a mirror to the girls’ side, though less used due to the majority of students being female. The gleaming chrome of brand-new locks on the lockers catches the sparse light from a high window.
I pause in front of the locker at the far end. This was where it happened. My eyebrows twitch at the etched lines engraved into the metal in the center of the locker: M + C. Reaching out, I trace the letters. They weren’t there before. Did he come back? Or did these initials belong to some other lovesick teenage girl?
His intense gray eyes are fixed on my fingertips. He closes the distance, takes my hand, and raises my fingers to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally able to say to him what I never had the chance to until now. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for a more detailed apology, but all thought disappears when he hauls me close and slams his mouth onto mine.
Ophelia Bell loves a good bad-boy and especially strong women in her stories. Women who aren’t apologetic about enjoying sex and bad boys who don’t mind being with a woman who’s in charge, at least on the surface, because pretty much anything goes in the bedroom.
Ophelia grew up on a rural farm in North Carolina and now lives in Los Angeles with her own tattooed bad-boy husband and four attention-whoring cats.
If you’d like to receive regular updates on Ophelia’s publications, freebies, and discounts, please subscribe to her mailing list: http://opheliabell.com/subscribe/
Death didn’t scare Lilith Whitlock. At the ripe age of twenty, she preferred to take whatever life threw at her, and if death was a curveball, she’d catch it.
What she didn’t expect was for impending death to be stalled by being transformed into a vampire.
With sharp, pointy teeth and a hunger for blood, Lilith adapted to her new life. Befriending three hot vampires with a mission to maintain balance had something to do with that, but the paranormal world wasn’t perfect.
Especially when she learned creating new vampires was illegal. Now, she had to prove herself as indispensable to the Order of the Void, or she’d be obliterated from existence.
No one mentioned that being a new-blood came with a looming threat and imminent danger.
Crimson Tears is book one of three in the Crimson Demon Trilogy. It is a paranormal why-choose romance centered around three vampires and one demon. It contains mature subject matter that might not be suitable for all readers.
My eyes shot open, and I lunged at Kai, catching him off guard. I smacked into him, toppling us over his chair and crashing into the floor. The hardness of his body beneath mine sent my sense of touch into overdrive. The devouring thoughts of blood were replaced by thoughts of Kai underneath me.
I stared down at him, tilting my head to the side. Our gazes were locked in a heated battle. I couldn’t tell if he was testing me about the blood in his hand or if he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
“Blimey.” He reached his other hand up, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling me toward him until our breaths mingled. “I’m impressed you were able to stop yourself from taking the blood out of my hand.”
Lyra Winters is a twenty-something Kentucky woman who adores the book world. When she’s not typing away on her laptop or daydreaming book ideas, Lyra is occupying her time taking care of her two spunky daughters and dreamy husband. She’s addicted to Coca-Cola, 2000s rap music, and bubble baths. Her dream is to write love stories that touch the reader’s hearts.
Rachel Ferrer thinks she’s already hit rock bottom, but then the ground crumbles beneath her feet. Alone, she is finally forced to face the darkness she’s been avoiding. Rachel doesn’t dare hope the spark of light in the distance might include Nicolas, even when she can’t forget the feel of his lips on hers.
Nicolas Rivera has always been the stable one. He is who others come to when their worlds shatter, but suddenly his life is the one in ruins. He doesn’t hope to connect with Rachel in the aftermath, but he discovers her in the last place he expected to. Uninhibited at last, the electricity between them finally ignites.
Is their flame enough for Rachel and Nicolas sift through the rubble, rebuild, and finally emerge, together, into the light?
Absolution is Volume 2 of the Lightning Crashes Duet and should be read after Temptation. Melt into this forbidden, slow-burn duet with a guaranteed happily ever after today.
Rachel lifted the quilt covering Nicolas and slipped beneath it. He made as much room for her as he could, but his legs were already hanging over the far arm, his back pressed against the cushions.
Rachel didn’t need much room as she snuggled into his side, tucking the quilt back around them. “It’s freezing in here,” she said, her voice husky and low, her breath feathering against his neck.
“You need to check your insulation,” he said. “And probably get new windows.”
“I’ll get right on that,” she said in a voice that implied the opposite.
She shivered, and Nicolas allowed himself the indulgence of pulling her closer against him. In the name of keeping her warm. “What are you doing up?”
Rachel’s hand found his waist under the blanket, her fingers icy against his bare skin, but he didn’t dare flinch, lest he scared her off. “I wanted to see if you showed up. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“It’s good you got some rest.”
“More like I sobbed myself to sleep in Naomi’s bed, but yeah, sleep was good. How are you?”
He sighed, at a loss for words to describe how he was feeling. His face ached, his body felt drawn, like he’d worked out too hard without enough food afterward. Nicolas couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He wasn’t even sure he had a digestive tract anymore. Who had room for food when they were filled with heartbreak and betrayal? Was it possible to be yawning open with emptiness and full of dread and darkness all at the same time? It felt like the same thing, and yet entirely different.
Rachel’s hand was playing over his torso in a way that she probably didn’t even realize she was doing, but in a way that was distracting, allowing temptation to edge in on the periphery.
Marla Holt believes in second chances, romance, and the radical notion that everyone deserves a happily every after. She’s living her own fairy tale, writing contemporary romance novels in her Kansas farmhouse with her husband, three boys, three cats, and flock of imaginary sheep. Follow her at marlaholt.com or on Instagram as @marlaholtauthor
