Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Professional: Part 3
    The Professional: Part 3
    The Professional: Part 3
    Audiobook3 hours

    The Professional: Part 3

    Written by Kresley Cole

    Narrated by Kimberly Alexis

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateFeb 4, 2014
    ISBN9781442372023
    The Professional: Part 3
    Author

    Kresley Cole

    Kresley Cole is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Immortals After Dark paranormal series and the young adult Arcana Chronicles. Her books have been translated into over twenty foreign languages, garnered three RITA awards, and consistently appear on the bestseller lists in the US and abroad. Before becoming a writer, Cole was a world-ranked athlete, coach, and graduate student. She has traveled over much of the world and draws from those experiences to create her memorable characters and settings. She lives in Florida with her family and “far too many animals,” and spends any free time traveling. You can learn more about her and her work at KresleyCole.com or Facebook.com/KresleyCole.

    More audiobooks from Kresley Cole

    Related to The Professional

    Related audiobooks

    Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Written In Ink

      Oct 3, 2023

      Written In Ink
      5 min read

    • Article

      Playing Nurse

      Sep 1, 2018

      Playing Nurse
      9 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind

      Jun 1, 2018

      I have spent countless nights like this, lying awake, anticipating life, trying to escape imprisonment through my mind’s eye. I imagine the things I will do once I’m free. Flashes of me laughing with family and friends at a cookout or enjoying the co

      5 min read

    • Article

      Love, Lust, and More

      Feb 12, 2020

      Fleetwood Mac was singing She is dancing away from you now, and I squirmed in my seat. Kabir was rubbing my thigh as he drove, a gesture I once thought was reserved for me. Bah! I also used to think he only took naked selfies in bed with me, but then

      11 min read

    • Article

      Prohibition

      Sep 10, 2021

      It had been ten days since my last fix. I knew what I was going to do was wrong, but unless you knew the yearning that your body exerts, the internal pull which strangles your very soul into submission, then you cannot judge me. Yes, it was wrong. Ye

      15 min read

    • Article

      A Wolf On The Bus

      May 10, 2021

      Exhaustion flooded my body, leaving a dull ache pulsating just behind my eyes. With my right thumb and index finger, I squeezed the bridge of my nose, exhaling deeply, trying to soothe the pain. This tactic worked temporarily; at least until the bus

      17 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Sorrow

      Aug 19, 2019

      Sweet Sorrow
      8 min read

    • Article

      Draw Me

      Jul 5, 2023

      Draw Me
      2 min read

    • Article

      Body Issues

      Jul 23, 2019

      Body Issues
      4 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      loved best. Words I have neversaid. New sentence, at 80. Of coursenot more than his children, and their children. That goeswithout saying—but I want to lay down eachelement of love’s house. First,the hole, under—apple cellar, potato cellar,cellar to

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of Secretion

      May 5, 2022

      The Art Of Secretion
      8 min read

    • Article

      Weaponry Of The Cold War

      Sep 1, 2020

      Weaponry Of The Cold War
      7 min read

    • Article

      KILL A STRANGER Chapter 2

      Dec 31, 2020

      If you’ve never been in a situation like this before, you just can’t understand it. I’ll be blunt. It was absolutely terrifying. The nightmare started just like that. Bang. I literally woke with a start, and realised that I was being flung around in

      5 min read

    • Article

      On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

      Jun 12, 2019

      That night, bellydown on the hardwood, your face resting on a pillow, you asked me to scrape your back. I knelt beside you, peeled your black T-shirt over your shoulders, unhooked your bra. Having done this hundreds of times by now, my hands moved on

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Wolf On The Bus

      Apr 10, 2024

      Exhaustion flooded my body, leaving a dull ache pulsating just behind my eyes. With my right thumb and index finger, I squeezed the bridge of my nose, exhaling deeply, trying to soothe the pain. This tactic worked temporarily, at least until the bus

      17 min read

    • Article

      Letting Go

      Oct 29, 2021

      Letting Go
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letting Go

      Oct 30, 2021

      Letting Go
      7 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Words

      Jun 3, 2023

      Finding The Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      Soft Blues

      Feb 15, 2021

      Soft Blues
      15 min read

    • Article

      A Speck In the Sea

      Jun 13, 2017

      A Speck In the Sea
      15 min read

    • Article

      One Word: Striking

      Jun 26, 2019

      One Word: Striking
      4 min read

    • Article

      Longer on Moon

      Sep 22, 2022

      Longer on Moon
      19 min read

    • Article

      Radiation Days

      Mar 5, 2018

      Belly down on the hot seat, I can feel the liquid StyrofoamShape itself around me as both armor and target.What I can’t feel is the bull’s-eye BB delicately placedDead center on the wrinkled sphincter, as the tattooistInks five blue beads around my p

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Professional

    4/5

    112 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Left me breathless and speech less one of her best work
    • 5/5
      LOVE the ending to this PART 3 of the book THE PROFESSIONAL in THE GAME MAKER SERIES now i am on to book 2 THE MASTER and than book 3 THE PLAYER these books have so much emotion i was like up and down with emotions. Have fun your listener B.MOE
    • 4/5
      Great series! The characters were interesting, lots of very hot bedroom scenes, and light suspense.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book, but I did not love it. The plot was OK. For me, the story and characters needed to be better developed. I wished that the story had started in Russia with Svastyan and then moved on to the US. Maybe some details about him stalking Natalie and how he comes to fall for her would have helped the story.In addition, I found numerous errors (more than a dozen). I am NOT an editor, but I am very good at finding missing words and word order problems, because I have to read every single word, and being the detail person I am…. It drives me crazy! If you can ignore the copy errors, and you like hot steamy sex, then you will like this book. Otherwise, I suggest you find something else.
    • 3/5
      Contemporary Romance. Aleksandr mafia enforcer and Natalie, longlost mafia princess. Not even close to her IAD series. OK- 
    • 5/5
      I've spent years studying Russia, and the language. So, when I saw this book I decided it was worth a shot, even though it was not in a genre I normally read.That said, this was a story that draws the reader in from the first chapter. It was quite the interesting story, and kept me engrossed to the last word!
    • 5/5
      Wow! What intensity! I was wiped out when I finished reading THE PROFESSIONAL. I loved Natalie and Sevastyan. These are two strong characters who have to force the other into communicating, believing what is said, and accepting that what is said is true. Natalie is picked up from a small town and put into a Russian mafiya's stronghold to be protected when she finds her birth father. I was happy she found him and that they got to know one another. I also liked that she was able to break through Sevastyan's emotional distant wall. He needed to learn trust but I could understand why it was hard for him. I also liked that Natalie pushed Sevastyan to believe that she wanted what he wanted in the bedroom. I loved his reason for his proclivity's. HOT! I cannot wait for the next book.
    • 3/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: A Nebraska girl finds herself swept away to Russia by her father’s enforcer. Along the way, he will teach her things about desires she never knew she had. It’s safe to say her life will never be the same.Opening Sentence: Sorry to e-mail you yet again, but I was so excited to learn of the potential DNA match you discovered last month.The Review:I had mixed feelings before starting this book. On one hand, I’m not a huge fan of erotica. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good steamy scene, but I tend to think of erotica as all sex and no plot, and I really need some plot to go along with my steamy scenes. On the other hand, I love Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, so I had a feeling that, even if this is a genre I don’t normally read, I was still going to get a very well written story. In the end, I honestly still have mixed feelings. The first half of the book exceeded my expectations, but then the last half was more in line with my previously mentioned worries about the book.Natalie is a 24-year-old PhD student. She has a great life, but something is missing. She’s always wondered about her biological parents. The private investigator she hired has disappeared after sending her some information that he found. She’d given up hope of ever finding out any further information. Then one night, Natalie meets Aleksandr Sevastyan. He tells her that her father has sent him to bring her to Russia in order to keep her safe from enemies of her father’s who are on their way to find her. Regardless of the immediate attraction she feels for Sevastyan, Natalie is hesitant to drop everything and leave. Sevastyan takes matters into his own hands and forces her to come with him. Thus begins a journey that will change Natalie’s life forever.While I found Natalie an easy heroine to like, she did frustrate me at times. She never seemed to be able to make up her mind as to what she wanted from Sevastyan, and then all of a sudden, she was falling for him. Based on how little she knew of him, I found her feelings a little hard to believe. On the positive side, she often had me laughing out loud with some of her internal monologue, which made the book move incredibly quickly.As for Sevastyan, I never really warmed to him, mostly because we never learn anything substantial about him until the last 10-15 percent of the book. Without that information, it makes it very hard to connect to him when he’s being so hot and cold with Natalie. When he does finally open up, it seems to happen almost too quickly when you take into consideration how much he’s resisted sharing his life up to that point. As much as I love an alpha male, his alpha-ness wasn’t enough to make up for the things that bothered me about his character.As I stated briefly before, I thought the first half of the book was great. The plot seemed interesting, and there was a good balance of steaminess and story. There were some predictable elements to the plot, but I was able to overlook it. Then at about the halfway mark, part of the plot got wrapped up, and the rest of the story was pretty much all sex. Whereas I was originally reading the book as often as I could, now I was having a hard time getting myself interested in reading. It made a definite 4-star book drop down to a 3 for me. Overall, while there were elements to the story I liked, in the end, I was rather underwhelmed by the book as a whole. I may look into the next book when it comes out, but I would definitely have to be in the right mood for it if I were to do so.Notable Scene:After a shower in a large marble enclosure stocked with high-end toiletries, I’d padded back to the suite’s bed and stared down at my abused robe. The back had looked like modern art, in a pallet of greens, yellows, and blacks. And it had reeked of corn, a treacly sweet smell. No way I could wear it again.I’d surveyed the suite, lighting on an expensive piece of luggage. Sevastyan’s. He’d helped himself to kidnapping me, so I’d felt justified borrowing a shirt. Slipping on the starched button-down, I’d shivered, enveloped by his crisp scent, covered from my neck to almost my knees.With nothing between my skin and the material, I hadn’t even been surprised when arousal swept over me again; in the shower my skin had been hypersensitive…Now Sevastyan raked his gaze over me, head to toe, giving me an are-you-fucking-kidding-me? look.I frowned in turn. Everything was covered. “I’m just borrowing it until I get my promised new clothes, okay?” When I sat at the opposite end of the sofa, he pinched the bridge of his nose.“Tension headache?”Without looking at me, he answered, “You could say that.”“I can’t imagine the pressure you must be feeling,” I said in all truthfulness. “Do you do this kidnapping stuff a lot?”Scowl from the Russian.“It’s a fair question, considering that you and my father are involved in organized crime.”Without missing a beat, he asked, “Why do you persist in thinking that?”“Your tattoos. The pilot’s. I’ve researched your country enough to know about the Russkeys Mafiya and their love of ink. Plus, that would be the absolute worst outcome in my years-long quest.”I tapped my chin, musing, “And yet totally in keeping with my fortunes over the last few weeks-”“A worse outcome than never knowing Kovalev?” Sevastyan asked, irritation scoring his tone. “You speak about things you don’t yet understand, little girl. But you will…”FTC Advisory: Simon & Schuster provided me with a copy of The Professional. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 4/5
      Natalie search to find her biological parents suddenly turns her being pursued by them. She soon finds herself being whisked away to her biological father by Sevastyan, whose been sent to bring her home to Russia. Natalie finds herself drawn to Sevastyan but he to her but he denies himself. As much as he can... Soon she finds herself in a whole new world, trying to find true motives behind her new found family. Lots going on here. Does he want her? Is this guy a good guy or bad guy? Should she stay or go? Ahhhh! What a read! Mystery, romance, STEAM, it's got it all. Ready for book two...I received this book in exchange for an honest receivew for Netgalley.
    • 5/5
      When Natalie sets things in motion, trying to find her biological parents, she finds herself in limbo as she tries to reach her private detective. Little does she know, she's been found by her biological father and he's sent Sevastyan to bring her "home" to Russia. Natalie finds herself entranced by Sevastyan and his sensually secretive attitude. Sevastyan is supposed to protect Natalie, but at the same time, he must keep his hands to himself. Sevastyan can only take so much when he's completely aware of her and wanting her with all of his dark sensuality. The Professional is as hot as it gets, with so much going on you won't be able to stop reading until it's over…and you'll still be anxious for more! It will constantly keep you on the edge of arousal, wishing you could put yourself in the heroine's place. Or at least bring the hero home with you (lol)! This book is uber erotic and the sex scenes as explicit as they come. I wasn't prepared to enjoy this book so much and I can hardly wait for more. I am so happy though that I did wait to read the complete book all at once. I would have gone NUTS if I had to wait for each part of the book to release and be left hanging in limbo. I will keep this book, enjoy thinking about it, talking about it, and reading it again. I'm thrilled I got to read The Professional and I will be anxiously awaiting more from Ms. Cole!
    • 3/5
      Paperback, 400 pagesExpected publication: May 6th 2014 by Gallery BooksISBN 1476762317 (ISBN13: 9781476762319)The Professional (Book #1 of the Game Maker Series) by Kresley Cole features much of the same style for which Cole is known. Add a few vampires, a werewolf or Valkyrie and you’d have the next installment of her Immortials After Dark series. The new twist is the Fifty Shades of Gray plot line it follows. Just take FSG and put it in Russia, exchange out a helicopter for a plane and a yacht. What you have left is the young inexperienced woman that finds herself thrust into the world of money, power and kink. While the older experienced man with a dark side becomes obsessed with young inexperienced woman and shows her all the joys of being in a relationship with someone who is emotionally damaged. My major issue with book didn’t occur until near the end when it became clear the relationship had some big issues. Every time she drew a line in the sand, she allowed him to run right over it. It went beyond the whole dominance realm to being bullied. What kills me is at it’s core the story was a good one. Take away the obvious FSG influence and the plot still works. I am torn on my rating. It fits with the genre and was well written, so I give it a C for originality and a B- overall.ARC was provided by the publisher.
    • 5/5
      Kresley Cole, the talented and popular paranormal writer of the Immortals After Dark Series, makes a scorching hot, 5-Star transition to erotica suspense in The Professional. What a debut! Be prepared for some of the most titillating, lascivious writing around, including some really steamy BDSM scenes, and an introduction to one of the most seductive, intriguing, alpha heroes ever! You will also get a thrilling, adventure-filled, behind the scenes look at the world of the Russian Mafiya and their vors (warlords) and enforcers. No doubt, the Professional will leave you wanting more of this exciting Game Maker Series ASAP!!!Natalie Porter, a grad student living in Nebraska, has led a fairly uneventful life. She's never traveled beyond the Midwest or even had sex before (not for lack of wanting, she's just never found anyone worth it). That all changes when she begins a quest to find her birth parents. Shortly after her investigator disappears, Aleksei "The Siberian" Sevastyan shows up claiming that he works for her father who insists on her immediately coming to see him in Russia (lack of passport notwithstanding). Possessing a highly keen sense that allows her to quickly analyze men, which she refers to as her "manalyzer", Natalie quickly assesses that Sevastyan, and quite possibly her father, must be criminals who are involved in the Russian Mafiya. Not wanting to get involved in that world, she tries to run away, but quickly learns that Sevastyan is a man who always gets what he wants; and instead just manages to commence a wickedly alluring but possibly nefarious seduction game.Sevastyan knows from the first minute that he sees Natalie that he wants her, causing him much angst, not only because she is the long-lost daughter of Pavel "Clockmaker" Kovalev, the head of the Bratva (a Rushian criminal aristocracy brotherhood) with a ten-figure net worth, and his boss and mentor--in fact the only man who has been a father to him--but also because of his "particular interests" in bed. He warns her numerous times, and even tells her that she is "taboo" to him, but like a moth to a flame, Natalie's desires have also been inexplainably piqued by Sevastyan and she continues her quest to find out why.Thus begins their journey, where Natalie discovers both the pleasures of unimaginable wealth and Sevastyan's darkest and most forbidden desires. But what will happen when her father finds out? Moreover, Sevastyan is used to total control, and is a deeply private man, will Natalie be content to play the game by all of his rules or will she demand the impossible, that this master game maker alter some of his rules?Kresley Cole is a master of prose. In addition, to the highly erotic passages, she also manages to weave in a whole other dynamic through Natalie's interactions with her best friend Jess. Adding an interesting humorous chick-lit vibe to the parts of the book where Natalie and Jess analyze men and coining some memorable terms in the process, like "manalyzer" and "ABC" (Always Be Crazier--a method that they use for "badly behaving males"). The Professional will leave you both aroused and smiling.A totally enjoyable, intoxicating read, I highly recommend The Professional to lovers of erotica suspense novels. I, for one, am definitely hoping that Kresley Cole focuses her attention on writing more Game Maker Series and similar style novels in the near future!ARC Copy provided by the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.