From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lexi Blake comes a new story in her Masters and Mercenaries series…

A snarky submissive princess

Sarah Stevens’s life is pretty sweet. By day, she’s a dedicated trauma nurse and by night, a fun-loving club sub. She adores her job, has a group of friends who have her back, and is a member of the hottest club in Dallas. So why does it all feel hollow? Could it be because she fell for her dream man and can’t forgive him for walking away from her? Nope. She’s not going there again. No matter how much she wants to.

A prince of the silver screen

Jared Johns might be one of the most popular actors in Hollywood, but he lost more than a fan when he walked away from Sarah. He lost the only woman he’s ever loved. He’s been trying to get her back, but she won’t return his calls. A trip to Dallas to visit his brother might be exactly what he needs to jump-start his quest to claim the woman who holds his heart.

A masquerade to remember

For Charlotte Taggart’s birthday, Sanctum becomes a fantasyland of kinky fun and games. Every unattached sub gets a new Dom for the festivities. The twist? The Doms must conceal their identities until the stroke of midnight at the end of the party. It’s exactly what Sarah needs to forget the fact that Jared is pursuing her. She can’t give in to him, and the mysterious Master D is making her rethink her position when it comes to signing a contract. Jared knows he was born to play this role, dashing suitor by day and dirty Dom at night.

When the masks come off, will she be able to forgive the man who loves her, or will she leave him forever?

Excerpt: Enchanted

“Now let’s talk about the other thing I need from you.”

“An invitation to Sanctum?” Kai asked, his lips curling up in a knowing smile.

There was a reason he needed the invitation. He’d run away from a lot of things when he’d left Dallas last time. “I gave up my membership when I walked away from Sarah.”

Kai studied him for a moment. “You’re ready to try this again?”

“I know she doesn’t want to talk to me, but she agreed to do the documentary. That has to mean something. I won’t hurt her. If she chooses to not play with me, I’ll probably go home and I won’t bother her again. She spoke to me on the phone a couple of months back about the project.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t mention it to me.” Kai was married to Sarah’s best friend. They were deeply entrenched in each other’s daily lives.

“I suspect she’s embarrassed.” He’d thought for a long time about why Sarah wouldn’t forgive him. “For a couple of months, we regularly talked. And then she stopped all of a sudden.”

“She stopped returning your calls?” Kai asked. “That doesn’t sound like Sarah. She’s not afraid of confrontation. What happened the last time you talked to her?”

He’d gone over it again and again. He’d replayed that phone call a thousand times in his head. “We talked about her day. She’d worked a long shift because of a massive traffic accident. She wanted me to tell her stories about celebrities I’ve met. I think she found that soothing. Especially the ones where they turn out to be assholes, and that’s a surprising number of them.”

“I do not find that surprising at all,” Kai replied. “So you two didn’t argue?”

“No. We were even doing something together. We bought those DNA tests, the ones that tell you where you come from.” It had been a silly thing to do, but they’d spit in the little vial together one night, making fun of each other over a video chat. She’d teased him telling him she was way better at swallowing. They’d been moving forward. “We were betting on who was going to have the more boring ancestry.”

“And then she refused to talk to you?”

“I was gone for three weeks filming in Asia. It’s a streaming movie that comes out next summer. We were in a pretty remote spot and I wasn’t able to keep in touch. But I’d told her I would call her when I got back. I was going to ask her to come out and see me. I thought we’d gotten to be friendly again and maybe it was time to move into something more. I’d cleaned up my personal life entirely. You remember my friend, the one I pretended to date to keep the press off both of us? Well, I explained I couldn’t do it anymore because I needed Sarah to understand she would be the only woman in my life. I was going to explain this to her but when I got back to the States, she refused to take my calls.”

“Something happened,” Kai mused. “Recently. She’s been quieter than normal. When I ask, she simply smiles and tells me nothing’s wrong and I’m being too ‘shrinky,’ as she puts it. That is not a technical term, by the way.”

But it sounded very much like a Sarah term. She was utterly adorable. “She finally replied to an email I sent about the documentary. She agreed to do the interview but she demanded more cash and asked that I not call her again until it was time to film. I don’t understand. She seemed like she was getting over it.”

“Getting over you dumping her?” Kai asked in that tone that let him know he’d said something stupid. “You know that’s a dumbass move when you’re in love with a woman. She tends to take exception.”

He’d had his reasons. They’d seemed like good ones at the time.