Title: Broken Hearts Author: M. O’Keefe Genre: Contemporary Romance
Ronan.
His name thrums through me like a heartbeat.
I climbed out of the smoldering crater of my life only to find myself back in the middle of a slow-motion trainwreck. I’m hunted, torn between my past and present, ripped apart by two warring families. My husband is dead, and his killer is the only man who’s ever felt the deep well of emotion I keep hidden from the world.
Ronan.
Vicious and scarred—his rough touch is seared into my skin, but his soft caresses are what break down my walls bit by bit. Until there’s only me left. My soul in his bloody hands, and my broken heart beating just for him. Only him.
Ronan.
My shadowy protector, my phantom lover—kiss me or kill me, I don’t care. As long as you’re the one who does it.
“Poppy?” he asked, close enough I could feel his breath against my face. The heat of him against my hurt arm. I couldn’t step in or back. Or away. I was stuck there in that doorway with him. One more question on my lips.
“Was fucking me part of your job too?”
“I never fucked you.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, wanting the truth, even though I knew it would hurt.
The wind howled.
“Yeah,” he said. “You were part of my job.”
“There,” I said and smiled with all my teeth. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Poppy.” He reached for me, but finally, I stepped away into the room. The fire was hot, and the room swam a little around me. I stumbled, my knee suddenly buckling, and he grabbed me by my elbow, keeping me on my feet.
“You need to go back to bed,” he said quietly. I wondered, looking at him, what doorways he’d walked through in his life and what he’d left behind in the process. Everything, I imagined. Ronan just kept walking, taking nothing with him through life.
That’s not important. You need to focus on what’s important.
“You didn’t shoot me.” It wasn’t a question, but I would say nothing else to him if he didn’t answer me.
“No,” he confessed. “I didn’t shoot you. Theo Rivers made an impossible shot.”
“If I wanted to leave, would you let me?”
“You’re hurt.”
“Am I free to leave?” I looked him right in the eye with all the bravery I hadn’t felt around him before.
“No. Not until we know what’s happening. Not until we have a plan.”
“I’m a prisoner?”
“The Morellis want you dead or alive,” he said. “I’m not sure why you’d want to leave.”
“Why?” What in the world did I mean to them dead or alive? “There’s got to be a mistake.”
“The Morellis don’t make mistakes.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.” I had no idea why I was arguing like this. “Can’t we just talk to someone? Eden Morelli! I could talk to her—”
“You’re not talking to any Morellis.”
“It’s all just . . . a little intense, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Poppy. It’s intense.” He was laughing at me. Not on the outside. On the outside, he was the same Ronan, deep and unreadable. But inside, I could tell he was having a good chuckle at my expense.
I sighed, suddenly exhausted.
“Come on,” he said, putting a hand under my left elbow like I was eight years old or an invalid.
I flinched away from him. “I don’t need your help.”
He humored me all the way back into the bedroom. “Of course not.”
I had seven million more questions, but the adrenaline was gone, and I limply climbed into the bed that wasn’t mine. My mind was fuzzy from the pain meds. I could ask all of them, but they were all extensions of the only question that mattered. The only question I had the strength to ask as my eyelids drooped and my body went heavy.
“Why?” I whispered. Why did Ronan shoot the senator? Why did Theo drug me? Why did the Morelli family want me dead or alive? Why did he save me?
He tucked blankets around me. If I had the strength, I would push him away. Fuck you, Ronan, I thought, my mind drifting toward sleep. Fuck you.
“I don’t know why,” he said. “That’s what’s killing me.”
M. O’Keefe is the darker, more dangerous pen name of bestselling author Molly O’Keefe. She is the USA Today Bestselling author of the Everything I Left Unsaid series and the upcoming Stolen Hearts. To find out more visit www.molly-okeefe.com
Arman joined me. “Let’s head to the private cove so we can be alone.”
Our first kiss. My lips burned like it had just happened. We’d gone there so my parents wouldn’t find me, and I’d been tempted to know him intimately.
The years hadn’t been kind to me. I hoped that wouldn’t get in the way of our practical future. I lifted my shoulder. “I’m being invited to your private beach?”
He pressed his hand on my back as we walked onto the beach. “You always had a pass.”
That sounded nice. I needed to keep my head straight, though. I took my sneakers off and let my toes curl into the sand. He left his light sweater and T-shirt on a rock. Those muscles of his were defined. My nipples under my well-padded bra hardened at the sight. He was even sexier now, but he’d always starred in my what-if dreams.
I glanced away and pretended this wasn’t heaven. “So, are all your brothers visiting this summer?”
Drat, I already asked that. He’d told me the night before. I jerked and half expected Bob to tell me I was an idiot.
However, Arman didn’t even blink. “No, just the weekend, to celebrate Mom’s birthday and Joel’s new marriage surprise. Now, Mâmân has ammo to convince the rest of us to get married and give her grandchildren.”
Once again, he was different and not like my father or Bob. As we stepped inside the fairy-tale cove of my dreams, I only said, “At least it’s not your dad. It’s harder to say no that way. He was the one who ordered me to break up with you that summer.”
“He wasn’t my biggest fan.”
Being understated but classy was another of Arman’s great qualities. The slight waterfall on the hard rock continued like no time had passed, and the waves of the beach lulled me into memories. We headed out of the sea cave to the private beach surrounded by the rocks. The cave let in natural light from the open ceiling. When I needed to calm down, this was a place I still visited in my mind.
The smell of the salty air hit me again as he asked, “Is that why you married years ago?”
The question played out in my mind like the wrong chord on a guitar. I hugged my waist. “Doesn’t matter.” I’d tried to love Bob once I said yes, and being open had shattered me.
Arman walked onto the beach, wearing his gray cotton pants that had to cost more than everything I owned. I put my phone on a rock, edged closer to the water, and called out, “What matters is that you’re not wearing a bathing suit.”
He came back and picked me up like I was still a girl. “I’ll just buy more shorts and you an outfit before I take you home.”
The water lapped closer to me. I crawled onto Arman to stay dry, but then he let me go. Water rushed around me, and as I emerged, wet, I shook my hair. “I can’t believe you just dropped me in.”
He laughed. “The water’s warm, and you’re a good swimmer.”
Once upon a time, I’d been a good swimmer. This was my first return to the blue waters, and somehow, the moment was freeing. With Arman, maybe I could be carefree again.
USA TODAY bestselling author Victoria Pinder moved cross country and now lives in Denver though her books always take her right back to Miami, where she lived for years. She’s currently expecting another baby and raising the first one, both of whom inspire her writing. Somewhere in between using drama to make her humdrum days seem more interesting and falling in love with happily-ever-afters to offer hope to her readers, she takes to her fictional world where all her characters in Miami might mention or meet each other in one huge world and discovers what her bold heroine and her brainy, sexy hero might need to really find true love. You can follow her on twitter @VictoriaPinder
Ghosts, corpses and four hot men—what’s a girl to do?
Abandoned at three—whose parents want a kid who sees ghosts?—I learned the world is quick to punish misfits. I try my best to be a normal, boring human, but the call of the supernatural just won’t be ignored.
When a stranger shows up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, it’s no sexy tryst. Instead, I’m off to the graveyard, digging up the corpse of a murder victim at the demand of the local vampire coven—and that small felony is just the start.
The spirit of the woman has gone missing—something that shouldn’t be possible—and everyone is looking to me for answers. There’s Kase, a vampire who’s both terrifying and secretive. Grant, a mage with a bad attitude and a lot of power. Troy, the possessive werewolf-detective next door and Hunter, a mysterious bad boy who isn’t even close to human.
It’s a race not just against time but against everything to figure out where the spirits are going, who’s behind it and if I can trust the men who now share my bed.
Hunter didn’t remove his hand from my mouth. It made me realize he was also entirely pressed against me, and despite it not being possible, he felt better than he’d looked. His skin was warm, even through my robe.
He took his hand off my mouth but didn’t move away. “Stay still,” he whispered against my ear.
“Why? Is it coming back?”
“No. I just really like looking down your robe.”
As soon as his words sank in, when I moved past the adrenaline and the purr of his voice, I realized that yes, my robe had bagged open and he had a perfect view down the front.
I elbowed him, but he didn’t seem to even feel it. He released me, though the way he did it implied my little move hadn’t meant a thing.
“I am so tired of people breaking into my house,” I said.
“You aren’t human, and you don’t have any wards. That’s the same as a ‘come on in’ sign in our world.”
“I am human.”
“Sure, shadow-girl.” He sent me a conspiratorial wink, as if we were on the joke together.
“No, I actually am. No funky teeth, no freaky eyes. Human.” I pointed at my face as though that drove the point home.
He waved at himself. “No funky teeth, no freaky eyes. Very much not human. Sure, though, if you want to pretend, I’m not one to turn down a bit of good roleplay. You want to be innocent Little Red Riding Hood? I’ll play the wolf.”
His suggestion derailed me. How could it not? Any girl who claimed she hadn’t had entirely inappropriate dreams about the wolf in that story was a damned liar. Once I’d reached a certain age, ‘all the better to eat you with’ had taken on a very different meaning.
I pictured a dark, heavily wooded forest as I ran, something on my heels, gaining ground. His warm breath on my neck when he caught me…
Suddenly I didn’t care what he’d said, why he was there or what exactly he meant by him ‘not being human’.
Until I recalled he’d broken in, and clearly him showing up at my office wasn’t a coincidence.
He snorted. “I liked where your mind was going before.”
“What are you doing here? And what was that thing?”
“Don’t we have better things to discuss? Or we can do away with talking all together.”
“I don’t sleep with people who might kill me, but thanks.”
“If someone might not kill you, are they even worth sleeping with in the first place?”
Jayce Carter lives in Southern California with her husband and two spawns. She originally wanted to take over the world but realized that would require wearing pants. This led her to choosing writing, a completely pants-free occupation. She has a fear of heights yet rock climbs for fun and enjoys making up excuses for not going out and socializing.
