Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 25768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Gabriella Davenport is a gorgeous, twenty-two-year-old virgin with a trust fund, vacationing in the Hamptons for the summer and running from family pressure to marry someone she doesn’t like, let alone love.
Maddox James is a sexy bar manager, older than Gabby by a decade. Though he made his fortune on Wall Street, he has returned to his working-class roots with a healthy distrust of wealthy women.
✔️ Grumpy Sunshine
✔️ Age Gap
✔️ Virgin
✔️ Good Girl/Bad Boy
✔️ Opposites Attract
✔️ Close Proximity
The last of the Dirty Dare series is here. Don’t miss this sexy standalone novella!
* *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.* *
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
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: شهريار, “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
cannot explain.
Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have
taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can
protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to
protect herself and stay alive.
Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales.
And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a
point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more.
And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that
he might hear the rest of my dark tale.
As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new
one... like the one that you, dear reader, have before
you now.
Chapter One
Gabriella Davenport sat in the library of her parents’ summer house, hiding out from all the stuffy guests they had invited to their annual dinner party in the Hamptons. These events reeked of superiority, something exhibited by her mother, Madeline, her father, Aaron, and everyone else at this event. Gabby wasn’t like her friends in her social circles. Oh, she’d learned early on how to play the game well enough, not wanting to stand out or be lonely growing up. But she’d never been one of them.
She’d escaped the party and pulled up the reading app on her phone. She was in the middle of a steamy romance about a blue-collar guy and a runaway heiress bride who found herself stuck in a small town with a broken-down vehicle.
The author was one of Gabby’s favorites, her love scenes catnip to a virgin like herself. At twenty-two, she should have given it up long before now, as had most of the girls at the private Manhattan high school she’d attended. She’d been privy to many locker room conversations she wished she could unhear.
The same talks occurred between her friends at Columbia University. She’d graduated a few weeks earlier and wondered if she’d keep any of those friendships, either. The men she’d met in college weren’t any better than the adults in the other room. In other words, full of themselves, entitled, and utterly unappealing.
She was saving herself for the one. If that made her a romantic, so be it, she thought, turning her attention back to her book, where the sexy hero had pinned the heroine against the wall. He was about to take her hard when the creaking sound of the library door opening interrupted Gabby’s reading.
Annoyed, she looked up to find Preston Barrett III standing in the entry. “There you are. Your mother sent me to see where you’d disappeared to.”
Of course she had, since her parents were actively trying to pair her off with Preston in an attempt to cement their status with his family, and to curb Gabby’s more common tendencies. Because for some reason, her enjoying painting and wanting to work instead of giving parties and playing the socialite wife was an embarrassment to them. Her parents acted like they were the Vanderbilts instead of second-generation wealth.
Preston ran a hand over his perfectly styled blond hair. “You’re missing the party.”
He picked a nonexistent piece of lint off of his light blue Brioni jacket that he’d matched with navy dress pants, and a pale-blue button down shirt. Navy drivers were on his feet. He was a mini-version of his father, Preston Barrett, Jr. And if Gabby just happened to be name-dropping when taking in his outfit, it was because he did it when bragging, which was often.
She lifted one shoulder. “That was the point. It was stuffy with all those people milling around and I was looking for a little privacy.” Why beat around the bush when the truth would do?