Pleasure Quartet

A boiling cauldron of emotions was churning inside of me. I had not felt this way or worn anything like this for a long time. Not since Dominik. Shaken by the sudden death of her lover, Dominik, renowned violinist Summer Zahova finds her sadness quickly giving way to anger at being left alone. Distancing herself from friends and family, she embarks on a grueling world tour, alleviating her grief through frenzied nights with strangers. Summer's heartache finally starts to heal when she meets Antony, a mysterious theater director who casts her in his new play and quickly becomes her lover. But when Antony's production begins to lose investors because of its explicitly sexual tone, Summer contacts Aurelia and Andrei, the organizers of a mysterious ball, in the hopes of finding a different kind of stage on which to perform. They present her with the opportunity of a lifetime-one that takes her to the heights of ecstasy, where pain and passion meld into a breathtakingly powerful overture . . .

The chain and the leather belt still adorned her, although in different configurations, no longer binds but an integral part of her body, jewels of passion, branches of transgression that she had earned by her wanton abandon. Nursing the end of her dancing career and first love, Giselle Denoux returns home to Paris with a broken heart to face her disapproving family. At a flower shop in the Latin Quarter, she meets a magnetic artist named William Tremblay. Desperate to know more about him, Giselle signs on as one of his models-an act that binds them together, turning Giselle into both muse and master. When a horrifying accident forces them apart, Giselle jumps at the chance to work for a decadent affair known as the Ball, an event of sexual excess and delirium-one she's sure will heal her pain. At the Ball, Giselle moves up from dancer to madame, finessing her craft until an explosive moment many years later takes both her and William completely by surprise.

My heat rose as I listened to the sound that our bodies made, the slap of damp skin on leather, the low humming growl she made in her throat, the scraping of my fingernails clutching the furniture. To Moana Irving, the rediscovery of the Ball seems impossible. Lonely and lost, working in the wings of an English theater, she obsessively recounts the heat and sensuality of the memorable event-a night of unharnessed sexual release and exploration. Feeling ignored by her best friend, Iris, and disconnected from the rest of the world, Moana throws herself into mad nights of forced rapture, pushing away the regret that always overcomes her immediately after. But Moana and the Ball are linked in ways she is yet to realize, and hints and whispers about the grand fête follow her persistently. When she uncovers a long-hidden secret about Iris's family in the underbelly of the theater-a story of heaving passion and loss, and the secret birth of a child-the Ball becomes even more irresistible, promising Moana and Iris answers rooted in excitement and pleasure, and offering them a chance to belong to the grandest gala of them all.

How could I possibly explain all the events of a lifetime, try to tell him who I was and what secrets I carried inside me? As if he were my confessor and I his supplicant. Dissatisfied with the normalcy and safety of what appears to be the perfect relationship, Noah Ballard finds himself more and more distracted by the sensuality of the world around him. A passionate and talented record executive, he feels that he is not cut out for domesticity and longs for something darker and more powerful, an encounter that could stir him as deeply and ritualistically as music does.   Summer Zahova also craves an experience that is just beyond reach. Since the death of her lover Dominik, no one has been able to free the lust and shame she has buried within. An acclaimed violinist who has cast her music aside, Summer has spent the past few months in Brazil working as the organizer of the latest Ball-an erotic fête of the senses in which guests can truly be themselves and let their demons out to play. But her work for the Ball seems to touch only the surface, and she desires more: Summer needs love.   The duo finally meets in a back alley of the city of Recife, and what follows is an ecstatic symphony of lust and anguish, fear and surrender that puts the most intimate parts of Summer's soul on display. . . .