Asking For It by Lilah Pace is a gutsy, intense look into the world of non-consensual sex, and it’s not as taboo as you may be thinking. Non-con is a sensitive subgenre of romance that has been gaining steady underground popularity over the past few years. Not many publishers are brave enough to touch it, so I give major kudos to Berkley Romance for seeing Asking For It as the treasure it is. The hard truth is that people have sex different ways. Not everyone is vanilla and not everyone gets off on the same stimuli. That may make sexual fantasies like non-con kinky, but it doesn’t make them wrong. With the wildfire popularity of books solidly outside the realm of straight contemporary recently, now is the prime time to introduce the topic of non-con and how (and why) it can affect people the way it does. And why you may not have heard much about it until now. Read on for a peek into author Lilah Pace’s tantalizing world of Asking For It…

*DISCLAIMER: This subject matter is not for everyone! This book contains no real rape or non-consensual sex (except as a brief flashback), but if you have sensitivity to rape or questionable-consent scenarios acted out as a “scene”, I advise you to skip this post and this book completely.

“This is who I am. This is what I want. Now I need a man dangerous enough to give it to me.”

Graduate student Vivienne Charles is afraid of her own desires—ashamed to admit that she fantasizes about being taken by force, by a man who will claim her completely and without mercy. When the magnetic, mysterious Jonah Marks learns her secret, he makes an offer that stuns her: they will remain near-strangers to each other, and meet in secret so that he can fulfill her fantasy.

Their arrangement is twisted. The sex is incredible. And—despite their attempts to stay apart—soon their emotions are bound together as tightly as the rope around Vivienne’s wrists. But the secrets in their pasts threaten to turn their affair even darker…

Reader Advisory: Asking for It deals explicitly with fantasies of non-consensual sex. Readers sensitive to portrayals of non-consensual sex should be advised.

READ OUR REVIEW FOR ASKING FOR IT HERE!

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Read an excerpt

“Enough about me,” I say as the weekend-night bustle flows around us – college kids heading to bars, stores open late to take advantage of the foot traffic, guitar music and drumbeats audible from the door of every club. “What about you? What made you decide to study earthquakes?”
“And volcanoes,” he adds.
“Can’t leave out the volcanoes,” I say, and am rewarded with a small smile.
“Well, when I was about ten years old, my mother and stepfather took the whole family to Hawaii.”
Stepfather, I note. Jonah could have no memory of his real father, and Carter Hale’s been married to Jonah’s mother for almost three decades. Most kids in that situation would wind up calling their stepfathers Dad. Not Jonah.
He continues, “Like most tourists in Hawaii, we went out to see the volcanoes. I hadn’t imagined you could get that close to the lava flow. When I saw it – glowing orange with heat, pure liquid stone –” To my surprise, he grins. “I was ten, so I thought it was totally cool.”
I laugh out loud. “So that’s how you picked your scientific specialty? Because it was cool?”
“Any scientist who tells you something different is lying. If you’re going to spend your entire life studying something, it needs to thrill you. Volcanoes and earthquakes thrilled me when I was a kid, and they still do. Even after all the studies and the dissertation and months of looking at nothing but seismograph readings. I get a charge out of it every time.”
“Hey, they always say that if you do what you love, it doesn’t feel like work,” I say.
“Which is a crock.” When I raise an eyebrow at Jonah, his smile regains some of the fierceness I know so well. “If you spend twelve hours in a row doing something – anything – it feels like work.”
Laughing, I admit, “Okay, yes. The studio’s my favorite place to be, but there are times when I feel like if I go in there one more time, I’ll tear my hair out. Still, I’d rather go crazy making art than do anything else.”
Jonah nods. “That’s it exactly.”
“So you get to spend your whole life chasing lava.”
“And you’ll spend yours making art.”
“Yes and no,” I say. “After graduation I’m hoping to go into museum work. Preserving old etchings, curating important pieces, even using original plates from centuries ago to make new prints.”
He gives me a look. “You should do your own work. Not worry about taking care of someone else’s.”
“It’s not either/or. I’ll never stop creating my own work. But even if I set the entire art world on fire, it’ll be years before I can support myself through my etchings alone – if ever. So there’s going to be a day job for a while, probably a long while. Should I do something boring that sucks my soul away one day at a time? Or should I surround myself with some of the greatest etchings of all time, and help other people understand how amazing they are?”
After a moment, Jonah nods. “When you put it that way, okay. I see it.”
Then his hand brushes against mine. At first I think he’s drawing me aside as we go past a group of college kids drunkenly weaving along the sidewalk. After they pass, though, he adjusts his grip, twining our fingers together.
Jonah Marks has screwed me hotter and dirtier than any other man ever has – and yet my heart flutters like a girl’s as he holds my hand for the first time.

About the author

Lilah Pace is a pseudonym for a New York Times bestselling YA author. This is her first adult novel.

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