The world knows me as the Demon's Daughter. He's a famous serial killer. And I may have been his accomplice. But no one knows for sure except for me. The dangerous, cruel men of the Sphinx secret society intend to uncover my secrets...and break me. Stellan, my childhood crush who lost his sister to the Demon. Cain, the boy with the face of an angel to who manipulation comes as easy as breathing; Remington, the playboy soccer star full of secrets. Pax, the dark psycho who hides behind his fists. I hoped for a second chance at Darkwood University, only to have my dream ripped away the first time I kissed one of the handsome bastards. They know who I am. And they're determined to make me pay. They should have thought twice about who they were playing with. Because I am the demon's daughter. And just because they have the power, the connections, the faces and bodies of gods... do they really think they'll win? I wanted a new life, not a war. But if they insist, we'll see who ends up playing.
Bartender Mackenzie Ellinsworth has always gone it alone. So when she has a chance to open her own bar and restaurant, she's got a plan for how it should go. Not in that plan: a ripped and rugged playboy stepping in to take over. Mack doesn't do players, and she doesn't do one-night stands. If Connor wants to work with Mack, he's going to have to keep his strong, sexy hands to himself. Connor Branding is determined to prove he's not the directionless playboy Mack thinks he is. But opening a place together causes more problems than it solves. The two of them can't agree on anything—except how scorching hot their chemistry is. Connor may be ready to indulge every desire Mack's been denying herself...but turning business into pleasure is likely to get him burned. Each book in the Men of Gold Mountain series is STANDALONE: * Make Me Stay * Make Me Beg * Make Me Want * Make Me Yours
Amidst the merriment of the Cause for the Paws Benefit Winter Festival, Princess Daisy comes face-to-face with her ex, stirring memories of their painful past. As the holiday magic weaves its spell, will this unexpected reunion lead them back into each other's arms just in time for Christmas?
The monsters almost made me love them. And now I'm paying the price. But so are they. Stellan, Cain, Remington, Paxton and I are locked together in a war that I refuse to lose. They've taken my freedom, my money, my reputation...but they can't take my soul. They keep forgetting I was forged in fire by a demon. Monsters don't scare me. They think I'm trapped in their mansion with them. They think every time I seek their mouths, their hands, it means something. They think they can break me with their punishments...and their pleasures. But I'm only playing their game to win our war. One by one, I'll find their secrets, however bloody they are, and make them think I'm saving them...only to use those dark secrets against them. Death. Bloodshed. Betrayal...and now Sex. That's all my life will ever be. Now it's time to welcome these men into my nightmares. These monsters think they're the kings of the world. But the king always falls without the queen. And the kings in this game...are going to burn. Book 2 of the Rich Demons of Darkwood series *Recommended 18+ due to mature language, adult situations, triggers, and sensitive content.
You are a good person. You are one of the 84 million Americans who volunteer with a charity. You are part of a national donor pool that contributes nearly $200 billion to good causes every year. But you wonder: Why don't your efforts seem to make a difference? Fifteen years ago, Robert Egger asked himself this same question as he reluctantly climbed aboard a food service truck for a night of volunteering to help serve meals to the homeless. He wondered why there were still people waiting in line for soup in this day and age. Where were the drug counselors, the job trainers, and the support team to help these men and women get off the streets? Why were volunteers buying supplies from grocery stores when restaurants were throwing away unused fresh food every night? Why had politicians, citizens, and local businesses allowed charity to become an end in itself? Why wasn't there an efficient way to solve the problem? Robert knew there had to be a better way. In 1989, he started the D.C. Central Kitchen by collecting unused food from local restaurants, caterers, and hotels and bringing it back to a central location where hot, nutritious meals were prepared and distributed to agencies around the city. Since then, the D.C. Central Kitchen has been named one of President Bush Sr.'s Thousand Points of Light and has become one of the most respected and emulated nonprofit agencies in the world, producing and distributing more than 4,000 meals a day. Its highly successful 12-week job-training program equips former homeless transients and drug addicts with culinary and life skills to gain employment in the restaurant business. In Begging for Change, Robert Egger looks back on his experience and exposes the startling lack of logic, waste, and ineffectiveness he has encountered during his years in the nonprofit sector, and calls for reform of this $800 billion industry from the inside out. In his entertaining and inimitable way, he weaves stories from his days in music, when he encountered legends such as Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, and Iggy Pop, together with stories from his experiences in the hunger movement -- and recently as volunteer interim director to help clean up the beleaguered United Way National Capital Area. He asks for nonprofits to be more innovative and results-driven, for corporate and nonprofit leaders to be more focused and responsible, and for citizens who contribute their time and money to be smarter and more demanding of nonprofits and what they provide in return. Robert's appeal to common sense will resonate with readers who are tired of hearing the same nonprofit fund-raising appeals and pity-based messages. Instead of asking the "who" and "what" of giving, he leads the way in asking the "how" and "why" in order to move beyond our 19th-century concept of charity, and usher in a 21st-century model of change and reform for nonprofits. Enlightening and provocative, engaging and moving, this book is essential reading for nonprofit managers, corporate leaders, and, most of all, any citizen who has ever cared enough to give of themselves to a worthy cause.
She had never been more beautiful to him than when she was making him hurt. Corinne was young once. Reese wasn’t her first lover, but he was the first to submit to her. For a while they had something special, but it ended badly. She’s a little older now — and the wealthy businessman who just bought the company she works for bears little resemblance to that boy. He’s commanding, domineering, and seems hell-bent on pushing her past her limits. In a flash of anger, she falls back into their old pattern—and Reese falls right in with her. Before she knows it, she’s testing him. Then tasting him. Corrine knows she can’t afford to get involved again. Her life is complicated enough without throwing in a slew of kink. Now if only Reese would stop making her feel like the goddess she used to be…and showing her who’s been the boss all along. But if he wants her, he’s going to have to beg for it.
It’s the ultimate erotic experience: a handpicked group where every man’s craving can be satisfied. But for Teresa Knight, it’s also a place where sensual adventures can spiral dangerously out of control. Hired to probe a suspicious death, the part-time investigator enters the sizzling New York fetish scene—a seductive, uncertain world that will test the limits of her own sexuality with every potential lover she meets. For gaining entry into this elite BDSM cult means that Teresa must let down her defenses—in more ways than one. Her search for answers brings her into contact with an enigmatic businessman who takes her to the brink of her own untapped desires even as he enlists her help in solving a crime that dates back forty years and crosses continents. From exotic Bangkok to gleaming Manhattan, Teresa finds herself locked in a sensual power struggle with a shadowy man who has a deadly agenda. What she uncovers is a shocking conspiracy of murder that will imperil her life while giving a whole new meaning to going all the way.
Rory Freedman, co-author of the #1 New York Times mega-seller Skinny Bitch, returns with a call-to-arms to all animal lovers. So many of us call ourselves animal lovers and worship our dogs and cats -- but we could be using that love as a force for helping all animals. Beg is a battle cry on their behalf, as well as an inspirational, empowering guide to what we can do to help them. With the same no-nonsense tone that made Skinny Bitch a multi-million copy success, Beg galvanizes us to change our choices and actions, and to love animals in a radical new way.
Poetry. "T.J. Sandella's poems have compassion, humor, grace, and range. He writes about himself and others, about music and sex and trees and Houdini, and death, of course, else how would we recognize him as a poet? But what moves most deeply across and within these poems is an engaging mixture of curiosity and conscience, a need to discover various kinds of truth, whether ethical or aspirational. In poems that 'keep bending / into questions,' he moves graciously across what he sees, what he has done and what he has imagined doing or becoming. One poem asks, 'How long / until we become what we've always wanted to be?' That none of the poems answer that question shouldn't be held against Sandella. That all of them try is to his credit and our immense benefit."--Bob Hicok "WAYS TO BEG risks the big questions. These poems ignite, they incinerate the straight line--the easy road to sweetness--to ask: What does it mean to be sanctified? In an avalanche of grit and tenderness, Sandella roils with heartbreaking humanity. He speaks in the voice of the working class, of salvation and truth as a wild act. This is a brave and beautiful book."--Jan Beatty "WAYS TO BEG aches as it gazes into the upended present with an unflinching eye, searching for a home. There's loneliness here, and a belief in companionship and the power of another to both heal us and to open us. I love the way surprise leads us to the familiar and the familiar to surprise, and how the poet renders the ordinary and the tragic as equals. Woven together into a fugue, each poem builds moment by intimate moment. These poems begin in the noise and commotion of the world and travel toward quiet reflection after the loss of a mother. It is here that the work crescendos, the pain of grief reminding us to hold each moment and to make it, in no small way, sacred."--Dorianne Laux
