Navy SEAL teams with a sexy NCIS agent undercover as a stripper to find a missing naval officer. Navy SEAL Remy LaDue wants Mitchell Sanders, but hasn't made a move since he slept with her the night of his buddy, her former boyfriend's funeral. A year later, his plan to be her Valentine date runs amuck when he finds her undercover as a stripper at a local club. NCIS agent Mitchell Sanders never wanted to settle, dedicated to her job and justice is finally ready to commit to the SEAL she accidentally fell in love with. When her friend, a female navy officer, goes missing she puts her love life on hold and goes undercover to find her friend, only to discover her SEAL is back in town and threatening to blow her cover. Remy and Mitchell join forces to find her friend and uncover a human trafficking organization in the darkest heart of Virginia Beach while their attraction for each other burns hotter than the sun.

He’s her fiercest protector. She’s his only weakness. A Navy SEAL doesn’t expect to find a beautiful hostage when running his op… Navy SEAL Blake “Raptor” Reynolds is a legend in his own right. His ability to sneak into enemy territory, sight unseen, and eliminate the target has earned him the reputation of being cool, hard, and calculating. When his team infiltrates an enemy camp in Colombia to disarm a terror cell, the last thing he expects is a beautiful, injured blonde to bring him to his knees. Biologist Clarissa Rothschild has been conducting research in the Colombian rainforests. When she leaves her camp one day, she is captured by insurgents. The leader of a Navy SEAL team with penetrating dark eyes and brute force strength is just what she needs to get out alive—and exactly the type of man she’d never fall for. When they’re separated from the others, the sparks between them begin to ignite. Heated nights in the jungle shouldn’t lead to wanting anything more, but Blake realizes he’ll risk everything for Clarissa’s safety and the chance to make her his. SEAL’s DESIRE, a standalone novel, is book one in the sizzling Alpha SEALs Coronado series. From a USA Today bestselling author.

Ten years ago, in the middle of a natural disaster, Navy SEAL Greg Devon lost his heart to a young documentary film director, and when he found out she’d been put in charge of Base Camp, a reality television show, he jumped at the chance to participate. Now he’s in big trouble. If he doesn’t marry in forty days, the sustainable community he’s helping to build will be bulldozed. And Renata Ludlow still barely knows he exists. Renata was fresh out of film school, directing her first film in the Andes, when a mudslide destroyed her subjects’ village and she took on financial responsibility for a school full of girls. When billionaire Martin Fulsom made her an offer, she took it and exchanged her dream career for a steady paycheck. With two years to go before the last of her girls graduates, she’s got no choice but to keep Fulsom happy—even if it means joining the cast of Base Camp for forty days. She can’t marry Greg until she’s fulfilled her promise, though. Even if she’s beginning to realize he’s the man she’s always wanted. With his deadline looming, Greg keeps gambling he can convince Renata to be his bride—and Renata keeps gambling on everything in sight, determined to pay what she owes. Can Greg convince Renata to take a chance on him? Or will she push her luck too far and lose everything? The Navy SEALs of Chance Creek: BOOK 1: A SEAL's Oath BOOK 2: A SEAL's Vow BOOK 3: A SEAL's Pledge BOOK 4: A SEAL's Consent BOOK 5: A SEAL's Purpose BOOK 6: A SEAL's Resolve BOOK 7: A SEAL's Devotion BOOK 8: A SEAL's Desire BOOK 9: A SEAL's Struggle BOOK 10: A SEAL's Triumph

Subject: Petty Officer Christian "Cowboy" Laramie Mission: Locate a missing person…without seducing the man's fiancée! Navy SEAL Christian Laramie knows everything about explosives, including how to avoid them. But he sure as hell isn't prepared for Sammi Jo Wilson—all gorgeous red hair and long-legged sexiness—in a wedding dress, asking him to find her kidnapped fiancé. Yep, he is definitely dealing with one dangerous bombshell… Laramie has a rep for thoroughly pleasing the ladies, but he's not interested in emotional entanglements. He has rules—and engaged women are a definite no-no. Yet the searing heat between him and Sammi is like nothing he's ever experienced. Each touch gets hotter. Each kiss more intense. And if Laramie can't disarm this desire, it will blow up in the only way possible…in bed!

The ancient cultivators of great powers, once they thought of becoming demons, and once they thought of becoming buddhas, there were also experts of the martial way that broke through the void. They were the only ones who had the right to do so. In chaotic times, geniuses would rise to prominence. The imperial government, sects, aristocratic families, and foreign races would battle with each other for karmic luck. Who could emerge from the masses and become a true dragon, reaching the peak of perfection? Like this book... 

This book is the winner of the 2020 Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 Book Prize, awarded by the Association for Asian Studies. In Song Dynasty Figures of Longing and Desire, Lara Blanchard analyzes images of women in painting and poetry of China’s middle imperial period, focusing on works that represent female figures as preoccupied with romance. She discusses examples of visual and literary culture in regard to their authorship and audience, examining the role of interiority in constructions of gender, exploring the rhetorical functions of romantic images, and considering connections between subjectivity and representation. The paintings in particular have sometimes been interpreted as simple representations of the daily lives of women, or as straightforward artifacts of heteroerotic desire; Blanchard proposes that such works could additionally be interpreted as political allegories, representations of the artist’s or patron’s interiorities, or models of idealized femininity.

According to William Leach, religious communities that have come to North America have not been able to withstand the damaging influence of its consumer-oriented society which has subverted ecclesial customs, values, and practices. Rather than resisting, most of these groups have sought to integrate Christianity into the new culture. By doing so, they run the risk of marginalizing the church and fundamentally altering its teachings and practice. Of course, the real danger does not reside in the occasional use of isolated elements of our culture, the unreflected application of any technology available, the replacement of traditional ecclesial practices with the techniques of the business world, or even the substitution of ecclesial foundations of authority. Rather, danger lies in a set of fundamental principles that together define a basic orientation which is naturally and almost mindlessly attracted to these secular devices, sees no harm in them, justifies and amplifies their effects, and effectively supplants the mind of Christ which is supposed to govern the church. This study analyzes and documents the effects of that mindset and calls us back to the biblical and traditional alternatives that alone can bring healing and recovery to the church.

A “drop-dead shocker” (Washington Post Book World) that uses evolutionary psychology to explain human mating and the mysteries of love If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question, we must look into our evolutionary past, argues prominent psychologist David M. Buss. Based one of the largest studies of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first work to present a unified theory of human mating behavior. Drawing on a wide range of examples of mating behavior — from lovebugs to elephant seals, from the Yanomamö tribe of Venezuela to online dating apps — Buss reveals what women want, what men want, and why their desires radically differ. Love has a central place in human sexual psychology, but conflict, competition, and manipulation also pervade human mating — something we must confront in order to control our own mating destiny. Updated to reflect the very latest scientific research on human mating, this definitive edition of this classic work of evolutionary psychology explains the powerful forces that shape our most intimate desires.

Divorcee Rider Grayson left his high-powered job at a multi-million-dollar firm in Dallas, retreating to his hometown of Hellfire, Texas to start over. A mechanic in his own auto repair business and a volunteer firefighter, he just wants to be left alone to do what he does best, fixing things. Selena Sanchez has daydreamed about Rider Grayson since she was a little girl growing up on the Grayson Ranch as the foreman’s daughter. She accepts she’ll never have him as they come from completely different backgrounds and cultures. They are worlds apart even though they work practically across the street from each other. When a turf war flares around the convenience store, Rider steps in to protect Selena and discovers the little girl who dogged his teenaged footsteps is all grown up and one hot little spitfire. Together they feed the flames of their passion while fighting the factions who would tear them apart in Hellfire, Texas. Warning: Flames are spreading in Hellfire, Texas.

More than any other major religion, ideology or philosophy, Christianity associates sex, and especially sexual desire, with sin and evil. People may be able to avoid earthly punishment for their sexual indiscretions, but they can not escape God's judgment; an afterlife of eternal pain and suffering in hell. Religious sanctions of this sort are supposed to be in opposition to man's sinful nature; restraining his dangerous sexuality. However, punishing others for sex is actually part of man's nature. In nature, sex is highly competitive. Dominant males fight and threaten as they try to control sexual access to fertile females. Human males behave similarly. Rather than being in opposition to human nature, religion actually reinforces man's "animal instinct" to control the sexual behavior of others. This explains why religion-inspired sexual restrictions and punishments are so popular among men. Of course, religion claims that it's really all about morality. Without strict religious control over sexual behavior human passions would lead to the destruction of society. God has given us His law in order to protect us from ourselves. Religion, it is often said, is what is good for society. But if this is so, why is it that those societies where religious belief is strongest and which have the harshest penalties for breaking the sexual code are also the societies that tend to be the least orderly and the most corrupt, brutal and violent? Religion is taken very seriously in many of the Islamic societies of the Middle East, and the strictest sexual code is adhered to. Yet, these societies are characterized not by prosperity and social order, but by poverty, violence and oppression. Meanwhile, the most sexually liberal societies, especially those of Western Europe, are the freest and the most democratic, prosperous and orderly. If strict sexual morality is not really good for society, why do religious conservatives everywhere continue to clamor for it? And why do people so willingly accept religion that tells them their sexuality is sinful and shameful? The truth is that most of the time people act on their own selfish feelings and desires, not on what is good for society as a whole. The desire to limit and control the sexual behavior of others is felt by women as well as men. Powerful feelings, such as sexual jealousy, inspire aggressive behavior. Strict anti-sex religious morality allows people to act aggressively on these feelings in a sociably acceptable way. Thus, it's not really about doing what is good for society, it's all about individual desires. This is best explained from an evolutionary perspective, which is exactly what this book does.