Short Game

“I’m going to go back to the kitchen and finish dinner, and when I come back you’re going to show me what else you can do.” “Why?” “Because I want you to,” she said, her eyebrow raising at the challenge as she looked back at me over her shoulder. “Do you always get what you want?” I stayed where I was; it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to get up and put that perky little a-- of hers on the piano and lick every inch of her smooth, pale skin. I wanted her to forget about dinner and erase those two small steps, then take two more and sit down on my lap. Wrap her ...

Florence Scovel Shinn was a gifted teacher who shaped the fields of spiritual growth and New Thought. Her practical, straightforward style empowered countless people to trust their inner knowing and overcome their challenges. With an Introduction by self-help luminary Louise Hay, who credits Florence as one of her early inspirations, this simple yet poignant book—which contains original, previously unpublished text—can help you positively transform your life. Powerful affirmations will show you how to cultivate your intuition and release any resistance, fear, and doubt.

The nine stories and one poem in this volume formed the basis for the astonishingly original film Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman. Collected altogether in this volume, these stories form a searing and indelible portrait of American innocence and loss. With deadpan humor and enormous tenderness, this is the work of "one of the true contemporary masters" ( The New York Review of Books).

Vincent St. James fell in love, or maybe lust, with Nora when he saw her dressed as a dominatrix at a college Halloween party. He never approached, told her about his love for her, how he wanted to worship the ground she walked on until he created the most potent gaming AI ever. Then, rich and powerful, he approached Nora but never told him his true desires for her. Vinnie played the macho guy for Nora. To relieve his sissy cuckold tendencies, he created a secret game just for him. But as Virtual Nora took control of Vinnie, it became harder to hide his true nature. When Nora discovers ...

Stella spends her days in the snowboard slopes practicing tricks and dreaming of one day competing in the X-games. Such a shame that she has to share the slope with the new kid who makes her wipe out. Every. Single. Day.

Mike Mignola's award-winning series Hellboy has earned fans all over the world, among them some of the most respected horror, fantasy, and mystery novelists in the field as well as some of Hollywood's most talented writers and directors. Now a who's who list of these writers are drawn together to tell their own tales of Hellboy, to play with the characters and worlds Mignola has created. As part of Dark Horse's celebration of Hellboy in 2004, Christopher Golden has brought together a stellar array of talents.

It takes a lot of effort for Jimmy Crocker to become Piccadilly Jim – nights on the town roistering, headlines in the gossip columns, a string of broken hearts and breaches of promise. Eventually he becomes rather good at it and manages to go to pieces with his eyes open. But no sooner has Jimmy cut a wild swathe through fashionable London than his terrifying Aunt Nesta decides he must mend his ways. He then falls in love with the girl he has hurt most of all, and after that things get complicated. In a dizzying plot, impersonations pile on impersonations....

She only wanted to find her brother. Finding a true mate definitely wasn't part of the plan! Ruby didn‘t care. She cared about nothing. Her brother was gone. Just like her parents were gone. And she definitely didn't need a man, let alone an alpha bear shifter. But Ruby felt the strangest feeling rise up within her. It was like she was filling and emptying at the exact same moment. Half of her, the half that had spent the last year almost entirely alone, wanted Ansel Keto.

For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times best-selling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: Ask some of the world's greatest writers-regardless of genre - to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. The results are surprising and joyous.

Time to steer the Short Shorts series in a different direction. The drift began during Short Shorts 2, but it’s time to take this series back a little to where it started. This is the fifth compilation in the Short Shorts series and likely the last, although I never planned to run these shorter short stories beyond two collections. Devoting a few weeks to put this group together from scratch allowed me to better match the plotlines to focus more on the ENF angle and to include some different ideas. This mix certainly focuses more on public humiliation. It reminds me more of Short Shorts 1...

Human populations have ballooned to seventy billion. The world teems to capacity with complacent human beings, and only strict adherence to crushing routine maintains order. Despite harsh discipline, the planet's prisons swell with rebels and reprobates. To maintain peace and ease congestion, the International League of Diamond Ballers formed and then passed their game's Rule Number One - condemned criminals can earn their freedom by competing in the One True Game, a lethal five-day spectacle televised around the world to its teeming inhabitants. After his father's execution for rebellion ...

A new collection of Christmas adventures, starring 12 incarnations of the Doctor plus many of his friends and enemies. Inside this festive audiobook of Doctor Who stories, you'll find timey-wimey mysteries, travels in the TARDIS, monster-chasing excitement and plenty of Christmas magic. Find out what happens when the Third Doctor meets Jackie Tyler, the Seventh Doctor and Ace encounter an alien at Macy's department store, and the Ninth Doctor tries to get Rose a red bicycle for Christmas.

This is the audiobook for Sly Flourish's Fantastic Adventure, a book of 10 short adventures for the fifth edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game. This audiobook helps the listener bring these adventures into their head and is intended to be used along with the print copy of the book for use at the actual gaming table. Listening to these adventures helps prime your DM mind with the material you need to run the game at the table.

★★★★★ "Oddly genius!" - Amazon Vine Review ___ Original and unique tongue twisters created for warming up the mouth muscles, just plain fun and overall ease of speaking. Note: This book will actually show how to use these tongue twisters in a game setting also. Parties and social gatherings are just a few of the perfect opportunities for testing your skills. So go challenge your family and friends to see who can be the first to say these fabulous tongue twisters the fastest without getting flustered! Tongue twister books aren't always created equal. For many of them, they often ...

The beloved author of Early Morning Riser (“The funniest novel of the year.”—The Washington Post) brings us twelve glittering stories of love—friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts—in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime.

These women all want to hook up an alien, and what better way to find one than on a TV show? Too bad the show isn't all that it seems. These high-heat short stories include women who are just looking to hook up with aliens and didn't plan to become fated to one. The Bolan men are dominant in the bedroom and know exactly how to thrill their human mates. Contains all four stories in the Mated to the Bolan series, as well as Halloween Mating, which is a related story. Alien Love Games: The Arena Ava's tired of her life and is obsessed with aliens. When she's handed the opportunity to go on the...

She’s not even a contestant on the Alien Love Game show, so how did she become fated to one of the alien men? Lyra I was finally taking a break from my grueling tour schedule on Earth between album releases. I was trying to do a good deed and helped my sister get on an alien love reality show. Somehow it got all messed up. The man my sister chose is now claiming I’m his one and only. How do I get out of this mess so I can go back to Earth and continue living my dream. Dhavoi When I saw Lyra, it was like I was hit over the head with a sledgehammer. She’s the only one for me, and now I ...

Longtime contributor to the Hellboy mythos Christopher Golden brings together a crew of luminaries including Joe R. Lansdale and China Miéville, cross-genre sensation Barbara Hambly, celebrated mystery writer Ken Bruen, best-selling science-fiction and fantasy novelist Tad Williams, and a bevy of other skilled storytellers eager to spin a tale or two about the world's greatest paranormal detective. Some of the biggest names in horror, mystery, and fantasy come together to pay homage to Mike Mignola's Hellboy!

In the shadowy underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, a studio fixer finds himself protecting men he'd rather see behind bars. As he navigates through a world where desperate starlets trade their souls for a shot at fame and ruthless power brokers pull the strings, our hero struggles to preserve what remains of his moral compass. Each case chips away at his already fragile sense of justice, but this one – this case might be the one that finally breaks him. Step into a noir world where dreams turn to darkness and even the angels have fallen from grace. Will this be the investigation that pushes ...

Stephen Crane's fascinating story "The Blue Hotel" is seen by many as a study of fear. Crane used the stereotypical 1890's American West as his setting, and the story uses a card game to show how fear feeds upon itself. There are both inner fears and fears existing in reality, and the ways that they interact with each other make for a fascinating tale.