Status Updates From Marriage Deal with the Devi...

I'm not a fan of "I can't stay with you tonight because if I do my penis will slip inside you and that can't happen because reasons."

Her tits were a glory.

Ok why do I love this line so much

Briggs just said he doesn't mind a simpering miss.

A ROMANCE HERO said he doesn't mind a simpering miss.

He didn't say he loves one, but nobody EVER says anything but negative things about a simpering miss, and I'm here for this.

MORE HEROES BE LIKE BRIGGS, THX

"You can think of other things," her mother said. "Pleasant things."

BR with Nenia today! Excited to finish up this series, completely out of order, of course.

While I have enjoyed the emotional maturity of the characters...this much emotional maturity is ridiculous- not realistic

For your orchids and your punishments 🤡

‘Isn’t that true of all of us? It is said that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but sometimes it is so satisfying to speak with vinegar, that whatever the result might be is sincerely worth the diminished returns.’

But who they were when they were alone... That was freedom. And as long as she got a taste of it... She could endure it being between herself and Briggs only. In fact, it felt lovely. Like a secret. No, not a secret, like a precious gem that you might conceal, so that it is not stolen or tarnished by anyone else. Like something too beautiful to give away.

Now that we're to the smut I'm slightly bored and starting to skim. The build up to the romance has been everything - but this is one of those romances where once they finally have sex the hea feels inevitable. The angst level goes down dramatically

‘You don’t have to know. You must only
answer, yes, Your Grace. That is the only answer that will do.’ The pause she took was only a breath. A twinkle of starlight and nothing more, but it felt like an eternity. 'Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Your Grace.’ Flames licked at his veins. Arousal pulsing through him so dark and heavy he thought he might be drowned by it.

And he felt guilt. Because he was not listening to her. And he did know it. He was denying the strength he knew was in her, choosing instead to focus on her weakness, which was a petty and small.

‘I knew that naked nymphs had something to do with it,’ she said, looking up at
him, as if in a daze.
‘Naked nymphs?’

For context she's a virgin/sheltered and no one has ever told her what sex is

& I remember the first time I escaped from the house. & I exerted myself in ways I was not permitted to. I ran through a field. My breathing did become quite hard, but I hid it. I enjoyed it, even. For it was a mark of freedom. And while I was running I fell. But the pain that I felt then was the most real thing. The ground biting into my skin. It was my consequence. It was... Somehow wonderful.’

‘Am I unbearably selfish?’
His chest felt tight. The rest of him felt...hard.
‘You are selfish, perhaps,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘But we all are. And the world favours the selfishness of men. You did what you thought you had to.’

She felt sometimes as if the stars hung
on his every word.& that the sun shone
because of his every breath. She would not
say that she carried a flame for him. No. It
wasn’t that. Briggs was beyond her. It was
simply that she..That she could not imagine her life without him.& in that way, yet again he was like the sun or the stars.
Unreachable, but it was unfathomable to imagine life without that warmth.

There was a familiarity to it that hurt. It was not something she spoke of. Not ever. For it made little sense, even to herself. Yet as her nerves began to fray she found balance in the pain in her palm. A sort of grounding sensation.
A sense of strength.
A sense that she knew herself and that
she could withstand far more than anyone
believed. It was that sense that gave her
confidence now.

But there was a point where Lady Beat-
rice Ashforth decided that while she could
not be the ultimate queen of her own exis-
tence, she could be the architect of her
own ruin. And in the end it would amount to very much the same thing.

This is lovely, unlike other contemporary harlequins the emotion feels authentic. I'm just dreading how the kink will play out, but hopefully it's subtle.

Now the Duke is talking about his deviant preferences that ladies don't enjoy...yes kinky regency romance does feel overdone to me.

lol that was a funny mishap. Regency romances can sometimes feel overdone but the author legitimately surprised me with a clever twist

damn. This is going to have bdsm kink, I can already tell. She's going on and on about "having to find a different relationship to pain" because of medical treatments as a child and now finding pain grounding....I know this is a real thing but I'm not in the mood for bdsm

She's talking about enjoying pain and I'm praying to God this doesn't have bdsm kink or spanking

Thus surprisingly has social commentary similar to The Yellow Wallpaper

& Sophia James

Millie Adams only has 2

Caitlin Crews is on Scribd too

Harlequins are so tiny and often lack substance so I like when I find them in subscriptions