Learning to Breathe · Jessica Book One (Van Zant Series 5)

Three suitors, a little rope, and a lot of kink makes for a liberating fresh start…but a case of mistaken identity and an assassin leaves her running for her life.

The celebrated widowed wife of a hometown hero, Jessica leaves Boston for a new beginning in a Cape Hatteras beach house with her teen children. She vows to give up cigarettes and start dating again. She never expects to fall hard for her new boss, Joe, at the fish and beer shop where she gets a job bartending. When he accidentally triggers her need for rope, she needs a quick fix for a shibari addiction she’d believed herself cured of long ago…

A drunk dialing moment leads to her sister’s fiancé—a man who has tied her in the past and has a lot of shibari connections—who delivers Francisco, the man he considers to be a shibari-master and a perfect match. Francisco gives Jessica an amazing long weekend of kink, both in and out of his rope, but when he asks her to consider being his submissive full-time, she runs…

…and ends up in bed with Joe. In a weak moment, she shares her secret love of bondage, but Joe really over-reacts and insists she’s the victim of deviant men, and that he would offer her a normal, healthy love. Wounded by his misunderstanding, she turns to her besties whiskey and cigarettes for respite.

As if her sex life isn’t complicated enough, a case of mistaken identity catches her in the crosshairs of an assassin. When Jessica seeks sanctuary in Cincinnati for the holidays, her sister gifts her with a night with a shibari master who goes by the name of St. Nicholas. She quickly finds herself on the naughty list but will she also lose her heart to the guy who makes her laugh, keeps her tied in knots, and makes no demands for more?

Author's Note:

118 K words

SERIES INFO: Van Zant Siblings 5: Jessica Book One

This 2018 Edition has been revised and expanded, previously released in 2016