D'Artagnan Conti was born into poverty, raised to be a soldier in my father's savage regime. I grew up in luxury, longing to escape my family's cruel machinations, and the young man with sapphire eyes and the voice of an angel became not just my forbidden crush but my everything. Then he was taken from me, killed in a brutal attack by our enemies. Or so I was led to believe....

One wardrobe malfunction. Two people who don’t belong together. Three awful words: “Be my wife."

I fought his control, but I knew I wouldn't win...and in my heart I don't think I even wanted to. Not after he called me his good girl, stripped me bare and spanked me with his belt, and then made me blush and beg and come so hard I forgot all about being his only for a few more days.

Ten years ago, I fell in love. The pop princess and the rock star. On paper, we should never have worked. In public, she was a sweet girl-next-door bubble-gum pop singer. But when we were together, her passion matched mine. I was ready to make her mine forever, and then she told me it was over.

In the Marines they called me Big Rig. She'll just call me sir. Alexis Harding is used to telling men exactly what she thinks, but she's never had a roughneck like me as a boss before. On my rig, I make the rules and sassy little girls get stripped bare, bent over my desk, and taught their place, first with my belt and then in a much more shameful way. She'll be sore and sorry long before I'm done with her, but the arousal glistening on her thighs reveals the truth she would rather keep hidden. She needs it rough, and that's how she'll get it.

In my world, a bride can be given...or she can be taken. When Winter O'Brien was given to me, she thought she had a say in the matter. She was wrong. She is my bride. Mine to claim, mine to punish, and mine to use as shamefully as I please. The sting of my belt on her bare bottom will teach her to obey, but obedience is just the beginning. I will demand so much more.

Treating a mobster shot by a rival’s goons isn’t really my forte, but when a man is powerful enough to have a whole wing of a hospital cleared out for his protection, you do as you’re told. To make matters worse, this isn’t first time I’ve met Giovanni Calduchi. It turns out my newest patient is the stern, sexy brute who all but dragged me back to his hotel room a couple of nights ago so he could use my body as he pleased, then showed up at my house the next day, stripped me bare, and spanked me until I was begging him to take me even more roughly and shamefully.

He's rough, he's dirty, and he's not going to be gentle. When I took a job on an oil rig to escape my scheming stepfather's efforts to set me up with one of his business cronies, I knew I'd be working with rugged men. What I didn't expect is to find myself bent over a desk, my cheeks soaked with tears and my bare thighs wet for a very different reason, as my well-punished bottom is thoroughly used by a stern, infuriatingly sexy roughneck.

I came to Spain hoping to start a new life away from dangerous men, but then, I met Rafael Santiago. Now, I'm not just caught up in the affairs of a mafia boss, I'm being forced into his car. When I saw something I shouldn't have, Rafael took me captive, stripped me bare, and punished me until he felt certain I'd told him everything I knew about his organization...which was nothing at all.

He's a big, angry former Marine, and I'm going to be sore when he's done with me. Hawk Travers is not a man to be trifled with. I learned that lesson in the hardest way possible, first with a painful, humiliating public spanking and then much more shamefully in private. She came looking for trouble. She got a taste of my belt instead. Bryce Myers pushed me too far and she ended up with her bottom welted. But as satisfying as it is to hear this feisty little reporter scream my name as I put her in her place, I get the feeling she isn't going to stop snooping.

When I knocked on Kirill Sabatin's door, I didn't know he was the Kozlov Bratva's most feared enforcer. I didn't expect him to be the most terrifyingly sexy man I've ever laid eyes on either.. I told him off for making so much noise in the middle of the night, but if the crack of his palm against my bare bottom didn't wake everyone in the building my screams of climax certainly did. I shouldn't have let him spank me, let alone seduce me. He's a dangerous man, and I could easily end up in way over my head.

"When a fortune cookie on my birthday said “you will meet a tall, dark stranger”, I had laughed it off, but my mom wasn't so sure. As a powerful witch, she mixes potions like a professional chef, and casts incantations like a poet. And me? My greatest accomplishment is burning a can of soup. A practical witch I am not. So when my dreams begin to piece together an ugly picture, I'm not sure what to do or who to trust. And that tall, dark stranger turns out to be more than just a figment of my imagination. This is more than a simple birthday hex.

I hate Dante Moretti. He is cold, calculating, and vicious. It’s no secret that he wiped out his former fiancée and her entire family on the eve of their wedding. He’s the kind of evil that makes even devils cry. But that’s not why I hate him.

Charming. Devastatingly handsome. Ridiculously rich. Kristoff Baldwin came without warning. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and before I could even realize the impact he was making, I was too far gone, despite knowing the consequences of falling. A future together was the impossible dream. My past haunted me and even he had ghosts of his own. Then everything changed when his past came after me and my daughters.

I’m a desperate man. One week out of prison and trouble found me again. When a mafia hitman comes after me, I end him with my bare hands. But the beautiful florist witnesses my crime. Now she’s my prisoner. I can’t let her go. My soul's unsalvageable, forever living in a den of sin. But the rest of me knows what it wants. And I want her.

After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”

Kidnappers grabbed Jenna in broad daylight, right in front of her children and their horrified classmates. Her family was issued an insane ransom demand: $25 million in cash and jewels, payable by the end of the school day, otherwise they’ll never see her again. As Jenna’s mother scrambles to gather the money, detectives Mo Butler and George Ortega follow the trail of the kidnappers, which will lead them through a sordid landscape of jealous lovers, broken dreamers, and twisted schemers. But every second counts, and there’s one thing Jenna Wade doesn’t have: very much time.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.

Cassie thinks she has met the perfect man. Joel is sweet, handsome, romantic, and best of all, he’s crazy about Cassie. She thinks she’s found the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Have children with. Grow old with. Yes, she knows about his perfect ex-girlfriend, Francesca. The beautiful, brilliant chef, beloved by all his friends. But she thinks Francesca is out of the picture. She thinks Francesca is gone for good. Think again, Cassie.

Jenny sits in the same seat on the same train every week, seeing familiar faces come and go. Until a chance encounter shatters her world. Sixteen years ago, Jenny survived a traumatic ordeal that left her best friend, Susie, missing and presumed dead. The world has its theories about what happened to Susie Patterson, and one of those theories points the finger at Jenny. Now she lives a quiet life, volunteering at a crisis helpline while trying to deal with her own anxiety and the true crime fans obsessed with finding her missing friend.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

They were madly in love. The perfect couple. That was the story everyone in South River believed...until Gin Talcott and Adam Archer are found shot in their bed. Adam is dead at the scene. Gin is fighting for her life. Detectives Greta Jessup and Finn Pate are assigned to the case. Greta has a long history with Gin’s first husband, Eddie, and is determined to protect his 18-year-old twins. Piper discovered the bodies. Daniel is missing—and so is Adam’s gun.

Sloan will go through hell and back for those she loves. And she does so, every single day. Caught up with the alluring Asa Jackson, a notorious drug trafficker, Sloan has finally found a lifeline to cling to, even if it’s meant compromising her morals. She was in dire straits trying to pay for her brother’s care until she met Asa. But as Sloan became emotionally and economically reliant on him, he in turn developed a disturbing obsession with her—one that becomes increasingly dangerous every day.

Tess Strebel can’t recognize her own face. She can’t recognize her home. Her bedroom is unfamiliar. And she can’t remember the handsome stranger lying next to her in bed. A stranger who claims he’s her husband. Tess reads a letter in her own handwriting, composed during a rare lucid day, explaining her life as it now exists: she was in a terrible car accident one year ago. Every morning, she wakes up unable to remember most of the last decade. Including her own wedding.

Maxwell Powers swept into my life after my father was gunned down, but the moment those piercing blue eyes caught mine, I knew he would be doing more than just avenging his old friend.

D'Artagnan Conti was born into poverty, raised to be a soldier in my father's savage regime. I grew up in luxury, longing to escape my family's cruel machinations, and the young man with sapphire eyes and the voice of an angel became not just my forbidden crush but my everything. Then he was taken from me, killed in a brutal attack by our enemies. Or so I was led to believe....

When I knocked on Kirill Sabatin's door, I didn't know he was the Kozlov Bratva's most feared enforcer. I didn't expect him to be the most terrifyingly sexy man I've ever laid eyes on either.. I told him off for making so much noise in the middle of the night, but if the crack of his palm against my bare bottom didn't wake everyone in the building my screams of climax certainly did. I shouldn't have let him spank me, let alone seduce me. He's a dangerous man, and I could easily end up in way over my head.

When I caught her sneaking into my home, I thought Raven was just a girl doing a silly sorority dare, so I set her bare ass on fire with my belt and then taught her a much more shameful lesson. My seed was already dripping down her thighs before I learned she's my enemy's daughter. That's when I decided I would be keeping her. And that I'd be making her my bride.

Tearing off the gilded veneer of elite privilege exposes the sordid scandals, dark secrets, and taboo desires of New York's jaded high society in this dark romance series from best friends and USAT bestselling authors Zoe Blake and Alta Hensley, writing under their new pen name, Blake Hensley.