Real Men Do It Better: Four Steamy Novellas - Softcover

Wilde, Lori

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312359799 ISBN 13: 9780312359799

Verlag: Griffin, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

In this sizzing collection from some of romance's hottest authors, you'll read four sexy short stories about women who discover that real men do it better...

In Lora Leigh's FOR MAGGIE'S SAKE, Maggie Chavez from Leigh's sexy Navy SEALs series is in protective custody with a member of her former lover's SEALs team. Joe, her ex-lover, thinks Maggie is hiding information from him about a powerful drug lord and the deaths of some SEALs. He intends to seduce her and get the information before she can sell it back to the drug cartel. But when a member of the notorious crime family captures Maggie and holds her hostage at gunpoint, Joe realizes how wrong he is, and only he can save her life.

In Susan Donovan's BED AND BREAKFAST, a stressed-out corporate dynamo with designer boots and a bad attitude is sent to the New Mexico mountains to "get centered" or not come back to Los Angeles. She arrives at the rustic Windwalker Lodge north of Santa Fe, only to find the place in the middle of a renovation and the hunky owner in a pair of lounge pants with no shirt and no idea she was coming. She plans to leave on the first available shuttle the next morning, but one of the area's notorious rains washes out the bridge, and she's stuck. Though resistant at first, she eventually lets the beautiful setting and the extraordinary man give her a new perspective on life, love, and especially sex.

In Lori Wilde's SIREN'S CALL, Annie Grave is back in her hometown, St. Augustine, looking after her grandfather's dive shop as he lies bedridden with a broken hip. Though she is a Harvard MBA with a high-powered finance job in Manhattan and a boyfriend on the brink of proposing marriage, she's never forgotten her first love, sun-bronzed dive instructor Duncan Stewart--or the day years earlier when she lost her virginity to him and he told her it was just a fling. But what she doesn't know is that Duncan has regretted that decision every day since. Afraid of not being able to hold onto a smart, sexy, beautiful woman like Annie, he pushed her away and ran away from St. Augustine. But now she's back, and so is he, and he's cooked up a plan to win her back. After all, what girl could resist the lure of buried treasure, and a hot, handsome Scotsman to guide her on the hunt?

In Carrie Alexander's HIS BODY ELECTRIC, an aloof stranger arrives at Karen Jaffe's farmhouse seeking shelter at the height of a violent lightning storm. Strange events follow--the power goes out, every clock stops, sparks fly from the visitor's fingertips. Alone in the dark with him, Karen uses her skills as a phone sex operator to seduce the mystery man, uncovering the secrets and erotic pleasures of HIS BODY ELECTRIC.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

LORA LEIGH is the author of Live Wire, Forbidden Pleasure, and Enigma, among many others. Writing is her passion, her peace, and her lifeline, and she can often be found daydreaming and plotting and planning with the varied characters that fill her imagination. When she isn't writing, she tends her flower gardens, watches horses romp outside her home, or spends time with the family and pets she fills her life with. She lives in the rolling hills of Kentucky.

New York Times bestseller SUSAN DONOVAN is a former newspaper journalist with degrees from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and has worked as a reporter in Chicago, Albuquerque, and Indianapolis. She lives in rural Maryland with her family and dogs.

LORI WILDE is the author of numerous category romances, including The Welcome Home Garden Club and The True Love Quilting Club.

CARRIE ALEXANDER is the award-winning author of many category romance novels, including Hidden Gems and My Front Page Scandal.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Real Men Do It Better

By Susan Donovan, Lora Leigh, Carrie Alexander, Lori Wilde

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2006 Carrie Alexander
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-35979-9

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
HIS BODY ELECTRIC by Carrie Alexander, 
BED AND BREAKFAST by Susan Donovan, 
FOR MAGGIE'S SAKE by Lora Leigh, 
SIREN'S CALL by Lori Wilde, 
Don't miss these other sexy anthologies from St. Martin's Press, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

"Cock-a-Doodle-do. May I help you?"

Thick wet breaths filled Karen Jaffe's ears.

Great. Another mouth-breather. "Sir?"

She heard movement. Far too familiar movement, accompanied by short grunts.

She adjusted her headset. "You've reached Cock-a-Doodle. How may I help you?" The caller panted up against his mouthpiece. "Help me."

"Yes, sir." Karen looked at the computer screen, even though she'd memorized the company's spiel. "Would you like the Cock-a-Doodle special, three month's supply of pills billed at the amazing low price of eighty-nine ninety-five, plus shipping and handling? Or we have the Rooster Booster package, which is —"

"What'll the pills ..." more wet breaths and slippery sounds "... do?"

Karen looked at the ceiling. He knew what the product did, or at least what the company claimed. But the callers always wanted to hear her say it. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "Rooster Booster is our trademarked powdered supplement, which may increase your potency and vitality in the bedroom. Our Cock-a-Doodle pills may increase the length and/or girth of your penis." She sped up because this was where the mouth-breathers always interrupted. "We're running a special this month for the —"

"It's getting bigger!" The caller's voice was harsh and excited. As if he'd climbed Everest. "Damn almighty. Lookee that. My dick grew just from talking to you."

Karen raised her brows at Kong, the overweight brindle cat sleeping in her lap. His whiskers twitched. She made kissy lips for him. "Would you like to place an order?"

"No — I mean, yeah." The squidging, fleshy sounds sped up. "Yeh. Yeh, yeh, yeh —"

Beep. Karen disconnected the call.

She sank her fingers into the cat's silken fur and returned to studying the water-spotted ceiling. She loved her big, old, rambling farmhouse, but it had come with a list of to-dos as long as Santa's naughty roster. For the past ten months, she'd been working her way through the house, painting, patching, stripping, and refinishing. Yet the space she used most often, the back room that had become her office and studio because of the tall north-facing windows, remained last on the list. Why was that, when, after nine years of marriage and one year spent discovering that she wasn't cut out for the Manhattan singles scene, she finally had no one to please but herself?

Another call came in. The computer software brought up the corresponding spiel and order forms as she checked the screen. She took 1-800 calls for products from a company that sold everything from foam mattresses to Miximakers, the ten-in-one kitchen appliance that looked a lot like a food processor to Karen.

Just her luck. Cock-a-Doodle again. It was almost seven-thirty in Iowa, so the PST-zoners must be getting home from work. She glanced at the sky, which had darkened to a steely blue within the past few minutes. The roots of her hair tingled at the electricity in the air.

She beeped in. "Cock-a-doodle-do. May I help you?"

A silence stretched before snapping with a short, sharp cough. "Cack. Uh. Sorry. Is this the, uh, place that sells, uh, those grow-your-penis pills, because, uh, like, my dick's only, uh, one inch long. Uh. One and a quarter."

"One and three-eighths," said a muffled second voice, followed by giggles.

"That's right." Karen answered with her sternest manner. She must have tensed up, because Kong jumped down from her lap with a heavy thud and an insulted miaow. "If you're over eighteen years of age, sir, you may place an order."

She heard more laughter, followed by urgent whispers. Ten ... nine ... eight ...

The caller came back. "Uh, wait a minute. We're measuring for the record."

Seven ... six ... five ...

"Because, uh, if my teeny weenie doesn't grow, I'm gonna sue."

Beep. Sometimes she didn't have to wait for one. The company wasn't a stickler about the age thing, as long as the credit card number was good. Crank calls could be suspended at her choice. Even though she was paid per minute of talk time, the sooner she hung up the phone the better, in her opinion. She didn't earn enough to listen to jokers and jerk-offs.

She was a VSR — virtual service representative. The job enabled her to work odd hours at home, making ends meet while she tried to spark gallery interest in her welded metal sculptures. She could set her own schedule, then, in between calls, sketch or work on twisted wire maquettes, smallscale replicas of her large pieces. Tools and bits of wire littered the desktop she'd made by resting an antique oak door on sawhorses rescued from the barn loft. For a make-do type of person, the old barn that had come with the house was a treasure trove.

She stared broodingly at one of the unfinished miniatures, abstract figures engaged in a twisted dance that looked a lot like sex.

Karen groaned. She had sex on the brain these days, and all because of her job. Not Cock-a-Doodle, which was as sexy as dirty socks and nose hair. But before Cock-a-Doodle there'd been a short-term experiment with phone sex, which she'd tried for the better pay, continued because she was good at it, then quit because it hadn't been good for her.

Two more calls came in. Karen kept them waiting while she got up and closed the casement windows around the room. She paused at the third to inhale. The sense of space and the clean country air had been what she'd missed most during her time in the city. Here in Iowa, her home state, she had room to think and to create. While the art scene in New York had been inspiring in an electric, intense way, she wanted her work to come from within. It was there, waiting to be released, if she could just find the key.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Next came the soft patter of raindrops in the upper branches of the tall trees that surrounded the farmhouse, sparse enough that few reached ground.

The phone rang again. She shoved down on the warped window frame and took the calls, completing a couple of orders, including one for the Miximaker from a little old lady with a Texas twang who actually wanted to chat about her grandson's trouble with the police. While trying not to think about her own loneliness — loneliness being less accurate but more polite than horniness — Karen told the lady about the approaching thunderstorm and gently sent her off to make a solitary dinner.

Karen cleared the screen, shut down the computer, and crawled under the desk to unplug the phone line. It was too quiet outside. The air was dank and heavy with the threat of a bad storm. Power could be tricky in the countryside, going in and out at any provocation.

The rain increased, splattering against the windowpanes. Her skinny black cat, Shadow, appeared in the doorway with a tiny mew. Time to round up the animals for the night.

The house looked gloomy in the early darkness. Karen yawned and lifted her hair off her neck, where prickles sprang up as distant lightning briefly brightened the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Griffin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312359799
• ISBN 13: 9780312359799
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland