Book Series Novels

Closer (Stage Dive 4.60) Read Free *************** CHAPTER ONE I couldn’t have been more tired if I tried. It felt like a billion hours of traveling cross country for a two-day shoot. And it hadn’t helped that I was modelling winter clothes on the streets of New Orleans during the middle of their hot, wet summer. Honest to God, I was ready to lie down and die. Or at least snooze for a really long time, Sleeping Beauty style. Once I got up to my new apartment, of course. After so many years of my life being in a constant state of flux, it was beyond nice to have a home. “Miss Cooper,” said Leonard, the concierge/security guard, with a smile. He was a big strong man in his fifties, if I had to guess. Not someone you’d want to mess with. “Welcome back.” “Thanks.” “How was your trip?” “Good. How’s your week been?” “Fine, miss,” he said. “A parcel came for you. I’ll just grab it.” “Thanks, Leonard.” He headed for a door behind the counter as I set my LV Keepall Bandouliére on the floor. One day I would learn not to overpack. Probably not anytime soon, however. I rolled my shoulder back a few times then forward. It didn’t help the ache. Finding exactly the right place to put down roots hadn’t been easy. The apartment block sat in the middle of the Pearl District. Right in the heart of a heap of great shops and restaurants. I loved it. New York and Los Angeles might be more fashion world relevant, but Portland was my hometown. Art deco stonework surrounded the front door and the lobby was all shiny surfaces. The building had lots of old world charm. Lots of rock stars too, what with rising star Adam Dillon and half the members of the world famous Stage Dive band taking up the top two floors. They were the cause of occasional fans lurking outside. Thankfully I wasn’t the one drawing crowds, which was how I liked it. Live next to someone more famous than yourself and you’re bound to be left in peace—most of the time. Leonard stepped out of the back room with a box in his hands and a frown on his face. “Something’s leaking.” “Oh no.” A drop of red fell onto the white marble floor. The box was the wrong size for a bottle of wine and I highly doubted someone would have sent me tomatoes. “What the hell?” He set it on the counter. Several of his fingers were smeared with the stuff. We both stared in growing horror as more of the red stuff oozed from a corner of the unopened box and the scent of copper filled the air. “I-I think it’s blood.” I swallowed hard. “Leonard, can you please call the police?” “I don’t want a bodyguard.” “Around about the time someone sends you a dead cow’s heart with a knife stabbed through it, you’ve kind of lost that option.” Lena Ferris laid down the law while daintily pushing her red acrylic glasses further up her nose. She had a point. Not that I was yet ready to admit it. My head fell back against the couch. “But I enjoy being on my own. I like my privacy.” “Oh, please. This is just another side effect of your chosen vocation. Y

The Rhythm Method (Stage Dive 4.80) Read Free From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Kylie Scott comes a new story in her Stage Dive series…It all started in Vegas...After a wild and tumultuous beginning to their relationship, Evelyn Thomas and her rock star husband David Ferris have been happily married for years. Nothing needs to change, their life together is perfect. Which means that change in the shape of an unexpected pregnancy is bound to shake things up some. But could it be for the better?**Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you'll enjoy each one as much as we do.** *************** One Thousand and One Dark Nights Once upon a time, in the future… I was a student fascinated with stories and learning. I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast library at my father’s home and collected thousands of volumes of fantastic tales. I learned all about ancient races and bygone times. About myths and legends and dreams of all people through the millennium. And the more I read the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually become part of them. I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I would not be telling you this tale now. But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off with bravery. One afternoon, curious about the myth of the Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar (Persian: ??????, “king”) married a new virgin, and then sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written and I had read that by the time he met Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand women. Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had never occurred before and that still to this day, I

Lick (Stage Dive 1) Read Free Waking up in Vegas was never meant to be like this.Evelyn Thomas’s plans for celebrating her twenty-first birthday in Las Vegas were big. Huge. But she sure as hell never meant to wake up on the bathroom floor with a hangover to rival the black plague, a very attractive half-naked tattooed man, and a diamond on her finger large enough to scare King Kong. Now if she could just remember how it all happened.One thing is for certain, being married to rock and roll’s favourite son is sure to be a wild ride. *************** CHAPTER ONE I woke up on the bathroom floor. Everything hurt. My mouth felt like garbage and tasted worse. What the hell had happened last night? The last thing I remembered was the countdown to midnight and the thrill of turning twenty-one, legal at last. I'd been dancing with Lauren and talking to some guy. Then BANG! Tequila. A whole line of shot glasses with lemon and salt on the side. Everything I’d heard about Vegas was true. Bad things happened here, terrible things. I just wanted to crawl into a ball and die. Sweet baby Jesus, what had I been thinking to drink so much? I groaned and even that made my head pound. This pain had not been part of the plan. “You okay?” a voice enquired, male, deep, and nice. Really nice. A shiver went through me despite my pain. My poor broken body stirred in the strangest of places. “Are you going to be sick again?” he asked. Oh, no. I opened my eyes and sat up, pushing my greasy blonde hair aside. His blurry face loomed closer. I slapped a hand over my mouth because my breath had to be hideous. “Hi,” I mumbled. Slowly, he swam into focus. He was built and beautiful and strangely familiar. Impossible. I’d never met anyone like him. He looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties—a man, not a boy. He had long, dark hair falling past his shoulders and sideburns. His eyes were the darkest blue. They couldn’t be real. Frankly, those eyes were overkill. I’d have swooned perfectly fine without them. Even with the tired red tinge they were a thing of beauty. Tattoos covered the entirety of one arm and half his bare chest. A black bird had been inked into the side of his neck, the tip of its wing reaching up behind his ear. I still had on the pretty, dirty white dress Lauren had talked me into. It had been a daring choice for me on account of the way it barely contained my abundance of boobage. But this beautiful man easily had me beat for skin on show. He wore just a pair of jeans, some scuffed black boots, a couple of small silver earrings, and a loose white bandage on his forearm. Those jeans … he wore them well. They sat invitingly low on his h*ps and fit in all the right ways. Even my monster hangover couldn’t detract from the view. “Aspirin?” he asked. And I was ogling him. My gaze darted to his face and he gave me a sly, knowing smile. Wonderful. “Yes. Please.” He grabbed a battered black leather jacket off the floor, the one I’d apparently been using as a pillow. Thank

Love Song (Stage Dive 4.70) Read Free *************** Chapter One “No,” said the bodyguard. “But—” “Miss, do you have any idea how many people try to get backstage by claiming they have some sort of relationship with Mr. Dillon?” Face a careful blank, the man in the slick black suit stared down at me. He had a point. I’d pushed through a crush of fans, getting my toes stomped on several times, along with taking an elbow to the kidney, just to talk to this guy. God only knew what it took to get near the star of the show. “I’d imagine a lot,” I yelled back at him. Necessary given the volume of the music filling the space. “The difference here is I’m not lying.” “But since everyone says that, you can see from my perspective how that’s not actually a point of difference.” Adam Dillon, rock star extraordinaire, gyrated his slim denim-clad hips like an Alt-Rock Elvis on the nearby stage. He pouted and crooned about the woman who’d done him wrong. Me. That’s right, I was the big bad ex who’d broken him and woke him to the dangers of love. Or so the song said. The song lied and then some. According to the lyrics he was currently wailing, I’d ground his heart beneath my five-inch heels before blowing him a kiss goodbye. From memory, there’d been a lot of shouting, but no blowing of kisses. And having just kicked off the flats I wore for work, I’d been barefoot, my legs and back aching. No way had I been strutting around in stilettos. Home from a hard day at the hair salon, I’d returned to find Adam on the couch. The same place he’d been when I’d left for work approximately eleven hours earlier. The same place he’d been for what felt like months as I worked my ass off to pay the rent. That’s when all hell broke loose. However, it wasn’t the only issue that had caused our relationship to bomb. Nothing’s ever simple. But back to the here and now. I grabbed the slip of paper out of my front pocket, holding it up for his perusal. “My name is Jill Schwartz. How many of those people claiming to know him have one of these?” His eyes widened as he scanned the name on the check, before widening again at the amount. And fair enough too. I’d had a mild panic attack myself when it had first arrived. When Adam decided to make a statement, he didn’t bother with subtle. If only I could figure out what it all meant. If it meant anything at all, of course. And that question was what had brought me here tonight. The bodyguard looked me over more carefully this time. His expression remained unimpressed. Understandable, given I didn’t resemble a rock star’s girlfriend, past or present. A bit below average height, sharp chin, pronounced cheekbones, olive skin, and a resting bitch face that was the envy of many. Or so I liked to think. I was basically a squirrel with attitude, who didn’t mind cracking the odd nut or two to get things done. Meanwhile, Adam with his long dark hair, tattoos, and lanky body had appeared perfectly at home on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine the

Lead (Stage Dive 3) Read Free *************** PROLOGUE Two months ago … The man’s mouth kept moving but I’d long since tuned out. They weren’t paying me enough for this. Impossible. Day two on the job and I was ready to throw myself out a window. The music biz will be fun they said. It’ll be glamorous they said. They lied. “… is that so hard to understand? Am I getting through to you? An éclair is a long, chocolate-frosted donut with custard in the middle. Not this, this … round thing you’ve bought me. AGAIN,” the idiot thundered, jowls shaking. Over at her desk, his P.A. slunk further down in her seat, just in case he decided to make her the next target, no doubt. Fair enough. She probably wasn’t getting paid enough either. Only a masochist would enjoy this for under a hundred bucks an hour. Usually I tried to get temp jobs that lasted a couple of months or so. Long enough to make some money, short enough to avoid getting caught up in any drama. Usually. “Are you listening to me?” Fake-tanned flesh turned from orange to a startling shade of burgundy as his anger grew. If he had a heart attack, I wasn’t giving him mouth-to-mouth. Some other brave soul could make the sacrifice. “Miss … whatever your name is,” he said. “Go back to the shop and get me what I asked for this time!” “Morrissey. My name is Lena Morrissey.” I passed him a napkin, taking care not to touch him because a true professional always kept her distance. Also, the guy was just that repugnant. “And this is for you.” “What is it?” “It’s a message from the duty manager at the donut shop apologizing for the lack of long, tasty, phallic-shaped éclairs. Apparently they don’t get baked until later in the day,” I said. “Since you failed to believe me when I explained this to you yesterday. I thought you might be more inclined to believe it if it came from a higher authority in the donut world.” The poor perplexed darling looked from me to the napkin and back again. “His name was Pete. He seemed nice, you should call him if you need further verification. You’ll see I got him to write his number down there at the bottom.” I tried to point to the digits in question but Adrian snatched his hand back, scrunching the napkin into a ball of rubbish. Oh well, I tried. Sort of. Laughter burst forth from the corner of his office. A good-looking guy with long blond hair grinned at me. Glad Blondie was amused. I on the other hand was probably definitely about to get fired. Wait, was that Mal Ericson from Stage Dive? Fuck a duck, it was. So the three other men must be the rest of the band members. I tried to avert my eyes, but my eyes had other ideas. Famous people. Huh. At least I’d managed to see some up-close before getting my ass canned. They didn’t seem particularly different than us normal human beings, just a little prettier, perhaps. Even with having sworn off men, their wow factor couldn’t be denied. The two guys with dark hair and fair faces were huddled together, flicking through some docum

Deep (Stage Dive 4) Read Free *************** PROLOGUE Positive. I reread the instructions, doing my best to flatten out the creases in the piece of paper one-handed. Two lines meant positive. Two lines sat on the test. No, not possible. My gaze darted back and forth between the two, willing one of them to change. I shook the test and turned it this way and that. I stared and stared, but just like with the first one sitting rejected beside the sink, the answer remained the same. Positive. I was pregnant. “Fuck.” The word echoed around and around the small bathroom, bouncing off the white-tiled walls and beating at my head. This shit shouldn’t be happening to me. I didn’t break laws or do drugs. Not since that blip after Dad left. I was studying hard for my degree in psychology and I behaved. Mostly. But those definite neat pink lines stood loud and proud in the pregnancy test’s little window, taunting me, the evidence irrefutable even when I squinted or crossed my eyes. “Fuck.” Me as someone’s mom. No. What the hell was I going to do? I sat on the edge of the bathtub in my plain black underwear, covered in goose bumps. Outside, a barren limb swayed in and out of view, buffeted by the wind. Beyond it lay the endless gray of a February Portland sky. Screw it all. All of my plans and dreams, my whole life, changed at the say of a stupid plastic stick. I was only twenty-one, for goodness sake, not even in a relationship. Ben. Ah, man. We’d barely talked in months, what with me doing my best to avoid any situation where he might be present. Things had been a little awkward ever since I threw him out of my hotel room in Vegas minus his pants. I’d been done with him. Finished. Kaput. My uterus apparently did not agree. We’d had sex once. Once. A secret that I’d long since decided to take to my grave. Him never telling anyone was a given. But still, his penis went in my vagina one time only, and I’d watched him roll the condom on, god damn it. Me lying spread out on the California king–size, trembling with excitement, and he’d just kind of smiled. There’d been this warmth in his eyes, a gentleness. Given the obvious tension running through his big body, it’d seemed so strange and yet wondrous. No one had ever looked at me that way, as if I meant everything. An unwelcome warmth filled my chest at the memory. It’d been so long since I’d thought of him with anything other than ugh. At any rate, apparently someone had diddled away their shift at the prophylactics factory and here we were. Pregnant. I stared unseeing at my skinny jeans, lying discarded on the floor. Sure, they’d fit. As in, I could wiggle up the zip halfway and the button was out of the question. The pressure they inflicted upon my belly was a definite no go. Things were changing so fast. I was changing. Normally, I had more going on in the back than up front. But for the first time in my life, I actually had the makings of a rack. Not enough boobage to get me a job at Hooters or anything, b

Play (Stage Dive 2) Read Free *************** CHAPTER ONE Something was wrong. I knew it the moment I walked in the door. With one hand I flicked on the light, dumping my purse onto the couch with the other. After the dimly lit hallway, the sudden glare was dazzling. Little lights flashed before my eyes. When they cleared all I saw were spaces … spaces where, just this morning, things had been. Like the couch. My purse hit the floor and everything came tumbling out, tampons, loose coins, pens and make-up. A stick of deodorant rolled into the corner. The now empty corner since both the TV and its cabinet were gone. My thrift store retro table and chairs remained, same with my over-flowing book case. But the bulk of the room lay bare. “Skye?” No answer. “What the hell?” A stupid question, what had happened here was obvious. Across from me, my roommate’s door stood wide open. Nothing but darkness and dust bunnies in there. No point in denying it. Skye had bailed on me. My shoulders slumped as the weight of two months’ worth of back rent, food and utilities came crushing down upon me. Even my throat closed tight. So this is what it felt like to have a friend f**k you over. I could barely breathe. “Anne, can I borrow your velvet coat? I promise I’ll …” Lauren, my neighbor from the apartment next door strode in (knocking never had been her style). Then, like me, she stopped dead. “Where’s your couch?” I took a deep breath and let it out slow. It didn’t help. “I guess Skye took it.” “Skye’s gone?” My mouth opened, but really, what was there to say? “She’s gone and you didn’t know she was leaving?” Lauren cocked her head, making her mass of long dark hair swing to and fro. I’d always envied her that hair. Mine was strawberry blonde and fine. Anything past shoulder length and it hung limp like I’d stuck my head in a bucket of grease. It’s why I didn’t tend to let it grow longer than jaw length. Not that hair mattered. Making rent mattered. Having food to eat mattered. Hair styles? Not so much. My eyes burned, betrayal stung like a bitch. Skye and I had been friends for years. I’d trusted her. We’d trash talked boys and shared secrets, cried on each other’s shoulders. It just didn’t make sense. Except it did. It so very painfully did. “No.” My voice sounded strange. I swallowed hard, clearing my throat. “No, I didn’t know she was leaving.” “Weird. You two always seemed to get along great.” “Yeah.” “Why would she take off like that?” “She owed me money,” I admitted, kneeling to collect the contents of my purse. Not to pray to God. I’d given up on him a long time ago. Lauren gasped. “You’re joking. That f**king bitch!” “Babe, we’re running late.” Nate, my other next door neighbor, filled the door way, eyes impatient. He was a tall well-built guy with an edge. Normally, I envied Lauren her boyfriend. Right then the glory of Nate was lost on me. I was so f**ked. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking around. “Hey, Anne.” “Hi, Nate.”

Strong (Stage Dive 4.50) Read Free *************** CHAPTER ONE “I don’t believe this,” I bitched. “My Valentino boots are actually sticking to the floor. That’s how gross this place is.” Lizzy just smiled. “Told you to dress casual.” “I am.” The smile widened. “Jeans and a tee is casual.” “A tee? It’s velvet, Martha.” She held a bottle of beer up to her lips, taking a sip. “I said we were going to a dive bar. You have only yourself to blame for the fashion faux pas.” “But velvet is in!” “Would you two quit talking? I’m trying to listen,” said my brother, Ben. The big hairy idiot was slouched back in his chair, bopping his head in time to the music. Lizzy shuffled closer all conspiratorial-like. “I know why you’re all dressed up.” I said nothing. There was nothing to be said. Next her gaze went to the man standing at the end of the bar across from us. No, no, I would not turn my head. I would not fall prey to her bullshit. After all, I’d managed to successfully avoid him for the forty-eight or so hours since my not so triumphant surprise return to the West Coast. Even with us both being in the same house. A very big sprawling house, but still. On the other hand, it should probably be mentioned that he looked awfully good tonight in jeans and a white T-shirt with a leather jacket. Samuel Rhodes, otherwise known as Sam. Not a pretty man with his harsh features and bull-like neck, but something about him appealed to me. As always, his head was shaved and his body was built and my idiot fingers itched to explore. Okay. So I guess at some point I must have turned my head. And shit, he caught me looking. The corner of his lips rose just a little, just enough to mess with me, before he returned to doing his job by casually surveying the packed room. My heart did not speed up due to anything done by him. Clearly, I hadn’t totally caught my breath from when we’d walked in half an hour ago or something. That was all. Interesting to note, he did none of the checking me out typical of a heterosexual male who might have been into me. In fact, he didn’t really give me any signals at all. Ever. What did the odd almost smile mean? Not a hell of a lot. It wasn’t like he ran around all of the time anyway. Sam tended to be kind of scary as per the job description. No, Lizzy had to be wrong, the man did not have a thing for me. A small amount of chemistry and weirdness didn’t amount to a whole hell of a lot. Not if he wasn’t willing to act on it. Because God knows I wasn’t about to, not with my convoluted romantic history. “Ooh, busted,” said Lizzy. “The bodyguard caught you looking.” “Shut it.” I inched my chin up a bit, trying not to frown because frowning gave you lines. “Sam and I have known each other for years and nothing has ever happened. You’re completely wrong about this.” “Am I?” “Yes, there’s nothing between us.” “So that’s why you were staring at him?” I chose not to answer that. “And you know he prefers to be called executive protection officer instead