Seven Nights.
Seven Rooms.
One Erotic Lesson.
College student Mackenzie is invited to a secret house of pleasure, where she'll experience sexual fantasies for an entire week. Meanwhile, the guy down the hall might be everything she wants and more. Will she quit the house for love, or continue in the Hall of Art and Pleasure?
The Hall of Art and Pleasure
Chasing Pleasure Trilogy Book 1
by Darcy Monroe
Genre: College Erotic Romance
Mackenzie’s love life is a wreck. Drinking her troubles away in a strip club seems like the best solution until a dancer slips her a business card with a local address on it.
When she walks through the door, she’ll never be the same…
The address leads to a house with the deal of a lifetime: complete seven nights of “education” in The Hall of Art and Pleasure, and on the eighth night, step through a different door to be tested. She accepts the challenge and begins an awakening unlike any other. Room by room, Mackenzie starts to take back her confidence.
Then she meets Tristen. Heartbreakingly sweet, he seems interested in her for more than her body. Mackenzie is torn between the desire to finish her time in the Hall and her longing for a real relationship. If she continues her carnal quest, she may lose Tristen, but if she quits, she’ll never know what lies behind the final door…
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I fingered the weathered paper on the door again as I read the fragment of poetry.
Thy self: cast all, yea, this
white linen; hence,
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then
What needst thou have more
covering than a man?
—John Donne
I hadn’t exactly studied poetry, but I am naked first didn’t really need to be translated. If I opened the door, would a nude man be standing there? Would it be the stripper from the night before?
I remembered the way he’d looked at me, all sexy and serious at the same time. I’d felt an instant connection with him, or I never would have let him handcuff me.
A full minute passed as I braced my hand against the handle, the desperate beat of my heart threatening to break through my rib cage. Then I twisted the knob and, in a rush, pushed through and slammed the door.
I stood facing it a while before I dared turn around. Would someone approach me?
No one did. I can do this.
I slowly turned, and the sight of the room stole my breath. I pressed my hand to my chest as I was transported to another time and place. Candles created a softly lit atmosphere. The room was draped in white silks that floated lazily in the breeze of a few fans. There was a canopied four-poster bed directly in front of me, and it was like… like Arabian Nights. Like I was Scheherazade or something. The walls were completely made of mirrors, making the room look larger and more elaborate, the bedroom reflected golden and beautiful on every wall.
This was the romance missing in my life. Not the hasty hookups that were so common in college. Not the way I’d lost my virginity in the back of a cramped sports car, all awkwardness and pain. This was a romance novel, a dream.
A low chuckle rumbled from the side of the room.
I turned, startled to see a man leaning back in an opulent chair, staring at me. His dark brown hair was pulled back. He wore a button-down white shirt and black slacks, like he had just gotten in from the office. Not naked after all. He appeared to be about twenty-five with kind, hazel eyes and… wow. His legs were long. I’d never slept with someone who promised to be so tall.
I bit my lip. He wasn’t the stripper from Cherries.
He gestured to the room with one hand. “You like it?” he asked in a mild tenor.
I nodded.
He unbuttoned the cuffs of his dress shirt, his eyes downcast.
I twisted my hands together in front of my coat. This was so awkward! “So, the contract…”
He chucked again but didn’t say anything.
“Kind of crazy, huh? What exactly am I doing here?”
Having undone his cuffs, he moved on to his shirt with slow deliberation, but he didn’t answer me.
“And how do you get to be a part of a, um… this?” I asked, retreating until my back was flat against the door.
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in a ball to the side of the room, then unbuckled his belt. It whipped through the loops of his pants, and he held it for a moment, his mouth quirked into a teasing smile before it hit the ground with a dull thud.
His eyes zeroed in on where my hand rested, just inches from the door handle. “Do you feel safe?”
I shook my head once. This man was anything but safe. This house? Completely unsafe. It was like some weird fever dream, the whole thing.
I could leave right now. If I wanted to.
I felt behind me until my fingers touched the doorknob.
The man paused in undressing, one hand on his zipper, his tanned skin glowing in the low light of the room. He arched an eyebrow.
It was like he could see the thoughts as they raced through my head.
Why did I sign that paper? I chose this room, but… I’m not ready. Am I? I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Mackenzie,” he said softly, “we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but there was a reason you said ye. A reason you chose my door. I get it if I’m not your type.”
I opened my eyes. It was my turn to frown at him. He couldn’t possibly doubt his attractiveness. His chest was toned, tapering into a flat stomach. He was the type of man who evoked the cavewoman in girls, the need to feel protected. A knot formed in my throat as I observed the trail of light-brown hair that began below his navel and disappeared into the band of his black trousers.
I shook my head, and his face fell.
“No, I didn’t mean—” My hand left the knob, and I took a step forward.
His teasing smile was back, and I realized what he’d just done. He was messing with me, trying to get me to abandon my desire to flee to comfort him.
I folded my arms, slightly annoyed, but mostly amused. “Well played.”
He bowed like an actor in a Shakespearean play with the flourish of an imaginary hat, managing to drop his pants at the same time.
I giggled. I couldn’t help it. It was so smooth yet so funny.
When he straightened, the warmth in his eyes had changed. Now, they smoldered with something different, something primal.
Oh, boy. What did I get myself into?
Darcy Monroe is an avid romance reader and spicy romance writer. She enjoys binging Netflix, dancing in the rain, and imagining all sorts of steamy scenes with kind, kinky guys.
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