Only You: Erotic Romance for Couples

Bussel (Anything for You: Erotica for Kinky Couples) has assembled a solid collection of 20 sexy, romantic tales featuring male/female couples at different stages of their relationships, all taking different, intriguing routes to their happy endings. Issue-driven stories are some of the hottest and most thought-provoking. A woman’s waning physical desire is renewed when her husband unexpectedly spanks her in Giselle Renarde’s “Forgotten Bodies.” A couple embrace the anger inextricable from their sex life in Kristina Wright’s “The Love We Make.” A woman who thinks her vulva is ugly meets a man who finds it incredibly sexy in K D Grace’s “Unfolding.” Thirtyish Ruthie falls for Sol, who’s 75, in Anna Watson’s “September Song.” Other standouts introduce sexy politicians (Kate Dominic’s “Republicans Don’t Like”), the parents of triplets (Lolita Lopez’s “Mom’s Night Out”), and a middle-aged woman who deflowers her younger lover (Bussel’s own “For the Very First Time”). The couples are not terribly diverse in race, class, or culture, but their stories are otherwise wide-ranging enough to have fairly broad appeal. (Feb.)