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Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6 EAN: 9780312368739 ISBN: 0312368739 Label: St. Martin's Griffin Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 368 Publication Date: January 06, 2009 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Release Date: January 06, 2009 Studio: St. Martin's Griffin Editorial Review: Product Description: Since Chase Falladay came to her rescue two years ago, Kia Stanton has never been able to forget the powerful man or the kind of life he leads. So two years later when she runs into Chase and his friend, Khalid, and leaves with them that night, she knows exactly where it is all heading. However, little prepares her for what it is like to be in Chase’s arms, and in his bed. After years of holding back, Kia is finally able to be the woman she’s always dreamed of being in his arms. Kia is a dream Chase has not allowed himself to entertain. Now that he has her, it’s her heart he’s after and he’s determined to win it, no matter the cost. And even though they both agreed that it would only be for pleasure, somewhere along the way it becomes and all-consuming love. Related Items:      see moreAverage Rating:
 Rating: - Hotter than hot menage romance!Years ago, Kia Stanton's husband tried to force an unexpected and unwanted threesome on her. Kia fled the situation and the marriage. The incident sparked a scandal involving Kia, her ex and the secretive, exclusive group he belonged to, a group of powerful men who habitually participate in ménage sex with their women. The scandal threatened to destroy Kia's life, and the lives of those she cared about. Chase Falladay promised to protect her then, and he did, helping to quell the worst of the gossip. Kia has never stopped thinking about Chase - and not only because of how he helped her. She's had more than one fantasy starring the sexy private investigator. Now Chase is back in her life and she has the opportunity to live those fantasies. Chase wants Kia more than he has ever wanted any woman. That's what scares him most. He has tried to stay away, but when the opportunity arises to experience a night of pleasure with her, he can't resist. But what they have can only be pleasure - never more, he promises himself. Soon, however, ONLY PLEASURE isn't nearly enough. For years, fans of Lora Leigh's BOUND HEARTS series have heard about Kia Stanton, the woman who let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. This is the woman who fired the rumors about the men of The Club and their extreme sexual practices. Much like the other characters in these stories, we've assumed much about her motivations, believing them to be motivated by vengeance or maliciousness. In ONLY PLEASURE, we finally see Kia Stanton's side of the story. We learn about the unforgivable betrayal her husband perpetrated upon her, betraying her trust in the worst way. After plying her with alcohol, he tried to trick her into allowing an additional man in their bed without her agreement or foreknowledge. It's no wonder that Kia spun a little out of control at first - what woman wouldn't seek support from her closest friend after such a horrific scene? Unfortunately, the story didn't stop with Kia's friend, and that's where the trouble really grew. Of course, if it weren't for all that trouble, Chase Falladay wouldn't have needed to step into her life to do damage control and help her through the mess, protecting her from the gossip and from her ex-husband. That proximity brought out feelings of protectiveness in him for the lovely little divorcee, though he stifled them for years. For all that he is a strong, determined Alpha-male type, Chase can only hold out for so long. He denies his feelings for Kia for a while, but they soon get the best of him. Although that may be a little misleading - he knows he has feelings for Kia, but he believes her to be too fragile to handle what he would need from her long-term. And there are the repeated tragedies in his past regarding people he cared about to make him hesitant to get close to her as well. For Kia's part, she's willing to give Chase anything he asks for - up to a point. After enjoying a few nights of unbridled passion with him, she realizes she can't handle more nights of ONLY PLEASURE with Chase - she needs much more from him. In true ornery Alpha-male style, though, the harder she pushes him away, the more he comes around. You've gotta love it... *grin* Romance readers who love a dominant, tortured, panty-ripping hero will adore Chase Falladay and won't be able to help being a little jealous of the lucky Kia, regardless of how likable she is. ONLY PLEASURE is a wild ride into eroticism balanced with an equal measure of pure romance. You won't put it down until you've reached the very end! **Courtesy of Wild on Books** Series Order: Ties That Bind (Bound Hearts, Book 1) Bound Hearts: Submission & Seduction (Books 2 and 3) Wicked Sacrifice (Books 4 and 5) Bound Hearts: Shameless Embraces (Books 6 and 7) Forbidden Pleasure (Bound Hearts, Book 8) Wicked Pleasure (Bound Hearts) Only Pleasure |
Three of them date from the '20s and '30s and were produced by Samuel Goldwyn. The 1926 silent The Winning of Barbara Worth gave Western stunt man and bit player Cooper his first featured role (by accident--the actor originally cast didn't report for work!). A cowboy whose visionary surveyor father aims to "redeem the desert and make it one fine garden," Cooper's character is the third corner of a romantic triangle, ordained by the Hollywood caste system to lose lifelong sweetheart Vilma Banky to engineer Ronald Colman. Colman has lots more screen time than Cooper and bears the moral-ethical brunt of the eco-conscious drama; he's also surprisingly persuasive wearing a sweat-stained Stetson and trading gunshots with the bad guys (if this were a sound film, Colman could never have gotten away with it). But the camera and the audience are locked onto Cooper whenever he's on screen. In longshot or vulnerable closeup, he's already one of the gods of the cinema. As for the movie, the quality of the print is excellent, its clarity intensified by bronze, yellow, and moonlit-blue tinting that often seems on the verge of resolving into full color. Director Henry King shows a good eye for action and bold vistas, and a visual adventurousness mostly absent from his later work.
Next up chronologically is The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), and the best thing about this misbegotten movie is Garson Kanin's description, in one of his Hollywood memoirs, of how Leo McCarey sold the idea for it to Sam Goldwyn. McCarey was, of course, a comedic master (recently Oscared for directing The Awful Truth), and his exuberant pitch convinced Goldwyn and his staffers that audiences would "piss" themselves laughing at this romantic comedy about a daughter of privilege (Merle Oberon) who falls for a rodeo rider (Cooper) and learns homespun values. Goldwyn paid McCarey off, assigned some writers to the script, then realized there was no real story--"no there there," as Gertrude Stein might have put it. The resultant unfunny and unromantic endeavor oozes bad faith from every pore, with neck-snapping life changes foisted on the hapless Cooper and Oberon from reel to reel, and excruciating scenes (jitterbugging in a drawing room, playing house back on Cooper's ranch) that strain charmlessly for McCarey's patented brand of fey. H.C. Potter directed, understandably without conviction.
We and Cooper are back on track with The Real Glory (1939). The reliable Henry Hathaway helmed this second cousin to his and Cooper's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, with Cooper as an Army doctor assigned to the Philippine Constabulary on Mindanao in 1906. The movie was well-received when it came out; encountered in the shadow of the Iraq War, its tale of U.S. occupiers trying to help the local populace "stand up" against a fanatical and murderous insurgency takes on new fascination. There are some amazing passages--two horrendous murders by bolo knife--and the final battle sequence puts the CGI-riddled action films of the present day to shame. But the most impressive element is Cooper, and we can't improve on the verdict of that astute film critic Graham Greene: "Mr. Cooper ... has never acted better.... Watch him inoculate [Andrea King] against cholera--the casual jab of the needle, and the dressing slapped on while he talks, as though a thousand arms had taught him where to stab and he doesn't have to think any more."
For the final film in the set we jump into the '50s--the century's and Cooper's. Vera Cruz (1954) casts him as a former Confederate officer who's ridden into Emperor Maximilian's Mexico, hoping to make a fortune in the new civil war south of the border so that he can rebuild his own devastated homeland. Costar Burt Lancaster (whose company Hecht-Lancaster was producing) plays another mercenary, a real sociopath, and it's fascinating to watch these two stellar icons of very different Hollywood eras make common cause--Lancaster at the height of his grinning-predator mode, Cooper an aging knight whose aim is still true. Director Robert Aldrich keeps finding dynamic uses for the SuperScope format and flavorfully fills it with sublime uglies like Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Charles Horvath, Jack Lambert, and Charles Buchinsky-about-to-become-Bronson. Pieces of this movie found their way into the dreams of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. --Richard T. Jameson
