Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Lilah
Owning a spicy romance bookstore was supposed to come with feral readers and a meet-cute or two. Not a billionaire in a three-piece suit trying to bulldoze my business.
Lincoln Hanover is everything that's wrong with the world. He's hot, bossy, and far too rich for his own good. He thinks he can annoy me out of business. I think he can shove his checkbook where the sun doesn't shine.
I've read every billionaire romance there is. I know how to fight fire with fire.
Lincoln will rue the day.
Or I will.
Either way, one of us is going down.
Lincoln
Modernizing downtown Santa Maria would be simple if people stopped getting in my way. I have a job to do, and that's all I'm worried about.
Until Lilah Davis threatens to chain herself to her bookstore to keep me out.
I'd love to see her chained up, all right. Preferably in my bed. Wearing my ring.
She thinks I'm the villain.
She's probably right.
But what started as a property feud is now about something far more me and her.
And I don't lose.
About the Series
Good girls need spicy books. At least, that's the philosophy at this small-town bookstore. But the group of bookish friends who call the store home never planned for the feral men willing to fall at their feet...or for the lengths they'd go to secure their own happily-ever-afters.
Now, they're up to their elbows, in over their heads, and the only experience they have with navigating love comes from the books they read.
What could possibly go wrong?
Book of Love is a small-town rom-com series set in Wine Country that's high on heat and laughter, and low on drama
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Lilah
"Ihave an idea," Jasmine Knudsen says, draping herself across the counter in front of me like she's using it as an altar. Let's be honest, though. My best friend hasn't set foot in a church since she was a kid. I'm pretty sure the only time she calls for God is when she's getting herself off.
I'm not a hypocrite, so I don't judge. If self-pleasure is a one-way ticket to hell, I'm hurtling toward my own personal sauna at lightspeed. Since it's the only kind of pleasure I get, well, let's just say I will not be running out of batteries anytime soon.
Thank you, Duracell.
"What kind of idea?" I ask, bracing myself for whatever wild shit she's about to throw at me. With her, it's always something. That's part of why I love her. We're two peas in a pod. But I might actually live long enough to regret asking her to run the book club at my new spicy romance bookstore, Book of Love.
We've only been open in downtown Santa Maria for three months. Things have been going well so far. We have a lot of avid readers who drop in to browse and buy, and since we teamed up with my brother-in-law's winery last month to offer book-and-wine night boxes, our sales have been steadily increasing.
But let's just say that book club is on shaky ground. The first book Jazz picked involved three dinosaurs and one human. The second was a Christmas romance…only the hero was a nutcracker toy. I'm not judging. Around here, we let our freak flags fly. It's basically our motto. If it's a spicy romance, we'll read it. We'll probably discuss it in all its smutty, gory detail, too.
But poor Mrs. Wesley hadn't read a romance since 1970. She was not prepared for her crash course in current smut when she joined the club. Neither was her husband. They both ended up in the emergency room after trying to spice things up using Jazz's book club picks for inspiration.
Since I used most of my trust fund to move across the country and open this place, I can't really afford to be sued the next time someone breaks a hip and their seventy-year-old husband's cock. I definitely can't afford the bad press if this store is the cause of a string of roleplay-gone-wrong injuries.
I can just see the headlines now. "Spicy bookstore leaves a string of broken cocks in its wake", or "Book club pick sends elderly couple to hospital with sex-related injuries." I'll never financially recover.
"A self-care section," Jazz announces, smiling like the Grinch with a plan, which is proof-positive that her version of self-care and the rest of the world's are not the same. She confirms my suspicion a second later. "If we add a section of vibrators, people will be beating down the doors to come."
"I see what you did there," I mutter, setting aside the blind date book I just finished wrapping.
Jazz gives me a wicked little laugh, her blue eyes sparkling with humor. "I knew you'd appreciate that."
"Who doesn't appreciate a dirty double entendre?" I grab another section of Kraft paper to start wrapping the next book.
"Good point. My idea is genius."
It is a good idea, but…
"I'll have to look into it," I say carefully. "We may need some sort of special licensing to sell sex toys."
"What? Women literally sell them out of their trunks. They have parties with them!" Jazz cries. "I doubt they have a special license for that."
"They aren't running a shop in the heart of downtown Santa Maria either," I remind her, ripping a piece of tape from the roll. At least, I try to rip it off. I end up tangling it instead. "Dammit."
"Here. Let me." Jazz grabs the dispenser, quickly unraveling the mess I made of it. Having nails must be nice. Mine are chewed to the quick. "I bet your sister could tell you if you need a special license."
I eye her blankly, genuinely mystified by how her mind works sometimes. "How would Lucy possibly know that?"
"Uh, she married into a family that owns a winery," Jazz says, like she's pointing out the obvious. "They sell adult beverages. Adult toys aren't that different."
"Then you're using them wrong," Sarah Tolliver chirps as she hurries past with bare feet and a stack of books. She helps out around here most days, running the café or the register…anything we need, really.
Jazz tosses a wad of tape in her direction, but it simply lands on the floor at her own feet. She shrugs it off, turning back to me. "You're forgetting one very important thing, Lilah. We aren't in Tennessee anymore. This is California. The only definition of a dry county here is one situated in the desert. You moved here so that you could open this store without running afoul of the Morality Police."