Billionaire Harrison Avery always gets what he wants, and as soon as he sees Siena Butler, he’s desperate to have her. Too bad Siena has sworn off all men, especially gorgeous arrogant ones. She wouldn’t date the sexy rich boy for even a million dollars, which is exactly what he offers her.
Harrison never meant to offend the beautiful beach shop cashier when he gave her a million-dollar check. He was just trying to get her attention. How could he have known that Siena was fed up with men and would use the check to try and ruin him.
When Harrison buys up the beach shop where Siena works to pay her back, her opinion of him isn’t improved. But the more time she spends with her new boss the harder it is to keep hating him.
Siena soon realizes that she can only resist the billionaire’s charm for so long. What harm could there be to let herself indulge in just one steamy night with the playboy?
“Look, because of this stupid misunderstanding between us, my entire business is on the line. My name. My legacy. My actual damn job. Not to mention that there are hundreds of employees who could lose their jobs if a merger doesn’t happen soon. If nothing else, do it for them, not me! They’re just normal people with families, trying to make ends meet.”
Damn him for trying to turn this around on me. “How dare you come in here and try to make me feel like the bad guy, you self-entitled asshole!”
“You don’t know anything about me!” he exclaims.
“I know you’re a rich, entitled jerk who always gets whatever he wants when he wants it, which is apparently why you refuse to take no for an answer from me!”
“The check wasn’t me trying to buy sex! It was supposed to be like a big tip, you know like generous celebrities sometimes leave for waitresses,” he explains.
“I’m not a waitress!”
“I know that!” he shouts indignantly. “I’m just saying that’s how it was meant. Did I think it would help you change your mind about coming over last night? Yes. But there were no strings attached. You can still cash it.”
“No, I don’t want your money!” I tell him. Reaching into my shoulder bag, I find the check, ball it up and hit him in the chest with it before it falls to the floor.
He stares at me with his jaw gaping for several silent seconds, and then he chuckles. “You’re in the process of ruining my entire fucking life, and all I can think about standing here looking at you is that maybe my demise would be worth it just to spend a few more minutes arguing with you. How stupid is that?”
“Pretty damn stupid,” I agree, lowering my eyes and running my fingertip absently over the peeling edge of the counter to avoid looking at his confusing, handsome face.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lane Hart has more than forty steamy stories currently available on Amazon. Sign up for her newsletter to receive updates on new releases and free promotions by copying and pasting this link into your web browser: http://bit.ly/LHDBWNewsletter
Lane lives in North Carolina with her husband, author D.B. West, their two daughters, a few lazy cats and a pair of rambunctious Pomeranians. She has a Masters in Criminal Justice and spent ten years working as a paralegal for a criminal defense attorney before walking away to become a full-time writer.
In October 2015, the paranormal romance anthology Wicked After Dark, including her standalone, Let Him Reign, hit #13 on the New York Times bestseller list. Since then she’s been climbing the Amazon charts with hot new releases. So whether you’re looking for MMA superstars, hot cops, arrogant football players, sweet millionaires, or romantic weddings, there’s a little bit of something for everyone.
Lane loves to hear from her readers on Facebook, Twitter, on her website, or by email!
Once upon a time there was an innocent girl…and a ruthless crime lord sworn to protect her.
Helina has spent most of her life alone, hidden away from the world for her own protection, with her stepbrother Gregori her only company. A man who consumes her every thought, filling her with dark, forbidden desires. When he comes to her with promises of forever, she’s ready to give herself to him and his darkness.
Gregori knew the moment Helina turned eighteen, she’d be his ruin. The protection he once offered her from his father is now his obsession. Gregori wants to own every part of her, leaving no chance for any other man to claim her heart.
Even with monsters lurking in the shadows, nothing will keep him from claiming Helina as his.
“I’ve seen the way you look at her. The way your eyes stare at her body as if it belongs to you.”
“I may have looked, but I never touched her.” He lifts his chin in defiance as I come to a stop in front of him and laugh.
“I considered letting you off easy, ending the pain and suffering you’ve been enduring the last few hours, if you confessed…” My voice trails off as I grab his hand tightly in mine, sliding the cigar cutter up his finger, stopping just above the knuckle. Closing it just enough for him to feel the bite of the blade against his skin. “But you continue to lie,” I say with a smile as I close the blade, his screams of pain echoing throughout the room.
I want to rip him apart piece by piece, making him pay for even thinking that he could touch her. That he was worthy of her attention, let alone affection. Helina is mine to protect in any way I see fit, and his mistake is going to cost him his life.
“Helina is not to be touched. If anyone so much as looks at her, you’ll pay with your life.” I slide the cutter up the next finger, this time going all the way to the base. “As well as the lives of every person you’ve ever known.”
“Please…” he stammers, his gaze flicking between the cutter and mine. “I never touched her. I’ve looked—she’s beautiful—but I never would have imagined crossing that line.”
“I understand now,” I say with a forced smile, pulling the cutter off his finger completely and standing to my full height. “You didn’t plan on it, but you’re only human. Eventually, your baser needs would have overtaken your reason.”
Reminders of my fight to stay away from her, protecting her innocence from the darkness lurking inside my heart. I’ve gone through every step of self-hatred as my need to own her has slowly taken over.
With each passing day, jealousy beyond anything I’d ever imagined courses through my body each time she mentions anyone but me. I want to own every part of her. To be the center of her universe, as she is mine.
But she’s my sister, not biologically but in name, and she will be for her entire life. These feelings are forbidden, and I’m a stronger man than this. I’ll continue to struggle to keep my growing feelings for her locked in the depths of my heart, never allowing them to taint her innocence with my darkness. She is the light in the world, the one thing I promised to protect from monsters like my father, not become one myself.
“Thank you for understanding,” he says, and his entire body sags in relief as I motion for Dimitri to come closer.
No one touches what’s mine and gets away with it, whether I’m ready to admit it or not. I may not have Helina the way my heart desires, but no one else will have her. “I understand more than you know, and that is why you have to die.”
Alexa Jordan is a slightly twisted dark romance author who writes dirty talking, possessive, morally gray alpha men. She’s been published for years, but has finally given into her darker side.
Alexa is an avid reader who believes that love is love, being called a good girl is the best, and everything should be put off for a good book.
In the Kingdom of Kaloma, women are forced to marry by the age of 26. It’s the law.
In the remote village of Sevens, at the northernmost point of the kingdom, there lives an impoverished family with four daughters and a son. Without the means to make love matches, the daughters are trapped by their circumstances.
When one daughter discovers a golden key deep in the Whitling Woods, it may have the power to change everything…
Auri Fareview, practical and realistic, does what she can to serve her family. When she finds a golden key that could be the answer she needs to save her sisters from the unjust Kaloma Marriage Laws, she discovers the treasure might be more than she bargained for. Enchanted, it doesn’t just come with a price attached, it’s also home to an imprisoned god, who wreaks havoc on her body, her heart, and her soul. And those aren’t practical matters. He has the power to break her.
Nixus Uraiahs has lost track of how long he’s been imprisoned by the spell on the key. There have been six key-keepers, all of whom have failed to break the spell to free him, and Nix knows he’s the reason why they haven’t. So, he will hold this 7th key-keeper accountable to the bargain of the spell: three wishes and a price for each. There’s no hope in her freeing him, however. Nix knows she’ll be like all the key-keepers who came before her. Except Auri approaches her wishes differently than any of the others, and Nix begins to see her as more than just a key-keeper. She intrigues him, proving her strength, surprising him, and enchanting him. Though he’s entrapped by the enchantment placed on the key, Nix realizes his heart is at risk of being captured by the seventh key-keeper. That is a risk he can’t afford to take knowing his villainy is just a single wish away.
Maci Aurora has been writing stories since she was a child. When she was eleven, she fell in love with reading Sunfire Historical Romances about girls who made a difference in their lives and still fell in love. In high school, a friend introduced her to Lavyrle Spencer and Judith McNaught, and from there, her writing journey was cemented in telling stories about love. Having already published many novels (all of which are threaded with romance as upper YA and New Adult titles) under the pen name, CL Walters, Maci Aurora wanted to write stories that offered the same attention to story and characters but with additional steam.
Maci writes in Hawaiʻi where she lives with her husband, their children, and their fur-babies.
