Their lives shattered, beyond repair, with jagged edges and pieces askew.
Now, Everly has a chance to make things right. To bring healing to the place where everything fell apart. But it means facing the family her father almost destroyed, and the boy with the dark eyes—now grown—who still haunts her dreams.
Just one breath away from having your life ripped out from under you.
The last thing Hayes wants is another reminder of all the ways he failed sixteen years ago. When Everly drives back into Wolf Gap, his only mission is to get her to leave. For his family’s sake, and for his own, those demons need to stay buried for good.
But everything about this woman is a surprise, from her spine of steel to the sanctuary she hopes to create with the land her mother left behind. And Hayes is powerless to stay away. As a careful friendship sparks into something more, someone watches. And they’ll do anything to tear it all apart…
I pressed on the accelerator to make it past the final rise, and as I did, the property came into view. My heart seemed to take up acrobatics in my chest, flipping and tumbling, expanding and contracting. My hands gripped the wheel harder as my foot eased off the gas.
The house itself was in worse shape than I’d expected. One of the walls had a gaping hole in it. But the small guest cabin didn’t look too worse for wear. The cottage had been in my mom’s family for generations, but the house had been my father’s construction after they married. She hadn’t stayed long after he went to prison, choosing to move us down to the flats to live on some land my uncle owned.
While the generations-old construction of the cabin had held steady, the barn and paddocks hadn’t fared nearly as well. The entire structure seemed to lean to one side, and a storm had taken down more than half of the fencing. My back hurt just looking at all the work that needed to be done.
I sighed and pulled to a stop in front of the cabin, releasing my hold on the wheel. My phone dinged, and I sent up a mental thank you to the gods of technology that it seemed I had service up here.
Shay: Are you there yet? Text me the second you arrive.
I smiled down at my phone, feeling a little less alone, knowing that I had someone who would drop anything to have my back.
Me: Just pulled up outside. Cabin looks okay. The house and barn are a disaster.
Shay: Are you sure you don’t want Brody and me to come help you get settled? We can be there in two days.
God, I was lucky to have her as a friend, but I wasn’t ready to open all the doors I’d need to if they came to stay. There were too many skeletons I didn’t want to let out into the light.
Me: Thank you, but I’ve got this. Let me get settled, and then you can come for a visit.
Shay: I don’t like that you’re there all alone.
Me: I won’t be alone for long.
Soon, I would have this place crawling with animals. It had always been my dream to build a home for neglected or abused animals of any kind. A sanctuary. It was simply coming more quickly than expected.
I turned off my SUV, rolled down the windows, and the pine air swept in. It was different than any other type, the Ponderosa pines. And as it filled me, tears sprang to my eyes. I’d missed this, more than I’d realized.
I leaned back in my seat and pulled out my letter.
Dearest Everly,
I know much of this will come a day late and more than a dollar short, but better that than not at all. Even once the doctors told me the cancer had a hold, I couldn’t bring myself to call you, to tell you these things face-to-face as I should’ve. So, I’ll take the coward’s way out. That won’t be anything new. There were so many times I should’ve stood up but didn’t.
But that’s not you. You’ve always been the bravest person I’ve ever known. Even before that night. I should’ve told you, but I didn’t—I’m so proud of you, beautiful girl. You made yourself into this amazing warrior all on your own, without any help from your dad or me.
I wish I had a chance to truly see you shine now. That’s the price for my sins. To miss all of your beauty and light shining on this world.
This should’ve come so long ago, but I’m sorry. For not being there for you. For not getting your father the help he needed. For not taking you and your siblings away when things went sideways. I’m so very sorry that I wasn’t stronger. That I wasn’t more like you.
I don’t have much I can give you, but the land’s still mine. I know a lot of pain’s been poured into the dirt there, but there was good once, too. When I spent summers there with your grandparents. As your father and I made it our home. The babies that grew there. The animals we raised.
Maybe you can find your good there, too.
I understand if you can’t. Or don’t want to. But I know if one person is strong enough to do it…it’s you.
I love you forever and always, my little warrior.
Mom
A single tear splashed onto the page. She’d been gone before I even knew she was sick. Buried before I even knew she was gone. My family hadn’t wanted me there. Not my brother—who I was sure still blamed me for everything—my uncle, or any other vast network of relatives still rooted in the area.
To them, I was the enemy, the outsider. And now, I’d returned. The only one who might be happy to see me was my cousin, Addie, but I wasn’t even sure about that. We hadn’t spoken since I’d left. All of my letters came back, marked as Return to Sender in her father’s handwriting. My mother thought I was a warrior, and I hoped she was right. I would need all my armor if I was going to face them again. Because no one would be happy that I was here. And they’d be downright livid when they learned I was staying.
Writer of words. Drinker of Diet Cokes. Lover of all things cute and furry, especially her dog. Catherine has had her nose in a book since the time she could read and finally decided to write down some of her own stories. When she’s not writing she can be found exploring her home state of Oregon, listening to true crime podcasts, or searching for her next book boyfriend.
Title: Group Therapy Author: BB Easton Genre: Romantic Comedy
I am thiiiiis close to finally becoming a full-fledged psychologist. PhD? Check. Prestigious postdoc position, providing therapy to entitled millionaires and C-list celebrities whose pumpkin spice lattes cost more than my Converse and make excellent projectiles during their reality TV–worthy tantrums? Check. Letter of recommendation from my velociraptor-like supervisor?
That’s going to take a miracle. Not only because my boss said I have to cure our most-prized client’s writer’s block in time for him to meet his insane deadline, but also because that client just so happens to be …
Thomas F*@%ing O’Reardon.
Yeah, that Thomas O’Reardon. The wickedly brilliant, achingly beautiful, devastatingly British best-selling author whose psychological thrillers line my bookshelf at home and whose face I might or might not picture while I … you get the point. Sitting in a confined space with him; inhaling the crisp, clean scent of his cologne; gazing into his broody blue eyes while trying to remember to nod and listen and come up with suggestions that don’t involve taking our clothes off … it’s torture.
So, when Thomas casually asks me out at the end of a therapy session, I’m forced to make an impossible choice: say yes and risk losing my dream job, or say no and risk losing my dream guy. In a panic, I blurt out a third option—the only solution I can think of that will allow me to see this man after hours without it being considered a career-ending ethics violation:
Group therapy.
The only problem? I’ve never actually done group therapy. And side problem: my other clients are heathens. But what’s the worst that could happen? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to lose all control of the group and let it devolve into a chaotic, bloodthirsty, topless fight club. Right?
He wraps his warm, ocean-scented, oxford cloth shirt around my shoulders, and for some strange reason, my eyes begin to burn. I blink the stinging sensation away and focus on my breathing as my fingers instinctively curl around the open material and cinch it tighter around my body.
It feels like a hug.
A hug that I didn’t realize I’d needed so badly.
“Thanks,” I whisper, swallowing the emotion lodged in my throat.
Thomas folds his arms across his chest and shrugs, his shoulders already tense from the cold.
Say something!
“So, you weren’t freaked out by what happened in there?” I ask, tilting my head toward the building where the group therapy session from hell just occurred.
Please say no. Please say you’ll come back next week.
“Actually”—Thomas gives me a crooked smile—“it was kind of fun.” The corners of his mouth drop along with his gaze as it drifts slowly to the ground. “I wonder what it’s like to feel that free.”
“You only say that because you weren’t the one whose client had you in a headlock.”
He laughs silently, and it’s the perfect example of the self-control he wishes he could let go of.
“Maybe that’s why you write about psychopaths,” I add, missing the weight of his eyes on me. “So you can experience what it’s like to be that … uninhibited.”
A crease forms between his eyebrows. “Wrote,” he says, his eyes darkening as they travel to a place even farther away from me. “Past tense.”
With that, Thomas turns to open his car door, and I panic. I panic, and I do the dumbest thing I’ve done yet, which is saying a lot.
I reach out and grab his hand.
Thomas goes completely still.
I go completely still.
Even the wind, which had been swirling brittle orange leaves around our feet, goes completely still as the words, “Will write,” leave me on a shaky breath.
I try to let go of Thomas’s hand, but he laces his fingers through mine, holding me captive. Then, he turns and captures me with his eyes as well.
“Future tense,” I add, unable to look away from the restraint and madness I see warring in his eyes.
Thomas’s gaze drops to my lips, and when I run my tongue along the seam instead of screaming or slapping him or prying my fingers loose, he begins to lean forward. No. He is being pulled forward. By me. By my actions. By my confusing mixed signals. I invited this. And I have to stop it.
But I can’t. My brain is barking commands that my body is no longer listening to. I watch helplessly from inside my traitorous body as Thomas lifts his other hand, slides it beneath my curtain of hair, which is still tucked inside his shirt, and cups the side of my neck.
His thumb caresses the ridge of my jaw, and like the strike of a match, my neglected husk of a body goes up in flames. The heat engulfs me, spreading like a forest fire as it burns away the fingerprints of every man who’s ever touched me before. It ignites something deep inside of me—an inextinguishable need. An excruciating singular desire.
I close my eyes and lean into his touch. And I hate myself for it.
I can’t do this. I can’t kill my career. I can’t sabotage his treatment. But as I stand here, rooted to the spot, with Thomas’s fingers laced in mine and his hand splayed across my skin, I can’t even make myself exhale, let alone walk away.
Just as Thomas’s breath, warm and sweet, dances over my parted lips, as my body tenses and braces for the impact of this wrecking ball of a man, it is the voice of another man that breaks the spell. “Dr. Sterling?”
Wall Street Journal bestselling author BB Easton lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with her long-suffering husband, Ken, and two adorable children. She recently quit her job as a school psychologist to write books about her punk rock past and deviant sexual history full-time. Ken is suuuper excited about that.
BB’s debut memoir, 44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN, is the inspiration for the #4 Most-Watched Netflix Original Series of all time, SEX/LIFE. Because she had so much fun writing it, BB went on to publish four more wickedly funny, shockingly steamy, and heartwarmingly honest books, one for each man in her memoir: SKIN, SPEED, STAR, and SUIT.
THE RAIN TRILOGY, an epic, immersive, end-of-the-world romance, is BB’s first work of fiction. Or at least, that’s what she thought when she wrote it in 2019. Then 2020 hit and all of her dystopian plot points started coming true. Hopefully, her feel-good romantic comedy GROUP THERAPY will fix everything.
Title: Samson Author: Marteeka Karland Series: Black Reign MC #6 Genre: Contemporary MC Romance
Charlotte: When I get into trouble, I go big. There was so much pain and fear, I turned my thoughts inward. To Samson. He’s my knight in shining armor. The one man I’ve ever felt a real connection to. Then he was there, killing those who hurt me and sweeping me up in his embrace of warmth and safety. But now he sees me as a victim. Not a woman. It’s up to me to prove I’m made of sterner stuff.
Samson: I had no intention of having sex with the little spitfire, but one look at Charlotte and I knew she was trouble. Our night was the kind of explosive a man can’t walk away from, but I tried. Right up until her daddy showed up telling me she was missing and the last person she was seen with was one of the prospects from Black Reign. Wrangler, the little asshole, had her squirreled away somewhere and I knew if I didn’t find her soon, I might never see her again.
Saving Charlotte from Wrangler will be a piece of cake — after this his days are numbered. Which leaves me with time. Too much time. Time Charlotte’s dad will have to convince her to leave me and come back home. So, how do I fight off another man determined to take my woman from me when that man is her daddy?
I adjusted the water while she sat there. Charlotte made no attempt to move or to take over her own care. She was probably overwhelmed and still in shock.
“Come on, baby,” I said. “You’ll feel better once you’re clean.”
“Not sure I’ll ever be clean again,” she whispered. Then her head snapped up. “But I didn’t let ‘em rape me.” She looked fierce as any warrior when she said this, shaking her head. “I didn’t. I fought ‘em.”
“I know you did,” I said. This was a delicate situation. I knew whatever happened in the next few minutes, the way I handled this situation, would set the tone of our relationship from here on out. “You were brave to do so. They could have killed you, Lottie.”
She nodded her head. “They wanted to. When I fought, I hurt more than one of them, but they weren’t as big as you.”
“Ain’t many people who are.”
“When I saw you. Coming down those steps. When you got close to me…” She shuddered, pulling the blanket tighter around her. “I didn’t give up. Exactly. But I knew there was no way I could fight you off.”
“But you still would have.” I made the statement firmly. Almost an order. “You did. With the pipe.”
She nodded at me. “Yes. I would have fought until I died. If they’d managed to tie me up — and they tried — I’d have still fought.” She looked up at me again, tears in her eyes. They weren’t tears of sorrow or shame. They were of a fierce pride. “I’m not weak!”
“No, Charlotte. You’re anything but weak.” I took one slow step toward her. Her tears were killing me, but I knew I couldn’t touch her unless she made the first move. “You’re a strong, capable, fierce, brave woman. You’d never stop fighting.”
“No. Not for myself. Not for my children.”
“Not for your family.”
“No. I’d never stop fighting for my family. Or my friends.” I nodded. “You know what that makes you, Charlotte?” When she shook her head and shrugged, I answered my own question. “That makes you the woman I want for my own.”
Romance author by night, emergency room tech/clerk by day, Marteeka Karland works really hard to drive everyone in her life completely and totally nuts. She has been creating stories from her warped imagination since she was in the third grade. Her love of writing blossomed throughout her teenage years until it developed into the totally unorthodox and irreverent style her English teachers tried so hard to rid her of. Now, she breathes life into faeries, space hunters, werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, and a few just plane ole ordinary people. She loves to see the awkward, self-conscious band geek get the captain of the football team and make him beg for it.
He finally finds a woman he can love but she plans to be the President of the United States…
Annalise Masters Manwaring, one of the twin president’s daughters, knows what she wants and how to get it. But when she meets cranky, arrogant Luke Branson, she’s derailed in a big way. She has to choose between him and her political career. Luke, wounded by his brutal past, knows he’ll never fit into her life. Both have impossible decisions to make.
President James Manwaring sat across from Annalise in her swank Foggy Bottom condo, looking youthful at sixty-seven. His face sported only laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. “I like your place, but I wish you’d listened and chosen a big building so you could be on an upper floor.”
She kissed his cheek. “I know, Dad. I wanted a deck. A backyard.” She handed him coffee. “Let’s sit.”
“So, sweetheart, how are you doing?”
She took one of the other white leather couches across from him. “I’m good. You? How’s the foundation?”
Her parents had set up a foundation to eradicate human slavery. They worked parttime on an awareness campaign and fundraising.
He watched her with those searing green eyes that she’d inherited. “We’re well. Our work is satisfying. Tell me about your new job.”
“I love it so far. I’ve always been interested in The Justice Project.” A national political action organization that supported candidates for their party’s elections. “And I’ve donated to it for years.”
“But?”
He could always tell when something was wrong.
“One of the founding members, Luke Branson, voted against me. The women on the project told me to be careful around him. He’s not a founder, but started there seven years ago, and is technically my superior.”
“Why would he do that? Your qualifications are impeccable.”
She shifted in her seat. “People tend to think I’m unqualified to do anything but cut ribbons and be pretty.”
“That’s not fair. After you got your law degree from Georgetown, you clerked for two years with Tom Anderson.”
“Who is a judge you appointed.”
“I’m sorry then, honey. I regret my part in his veto.”
“Don’t be. I’ll never apologize for being the president’s daughter.”
The former president chuckled. “I like your pride in our family.”
Sighing, she sat back. “As for the job, I signed on for four days so I can still take pro bono cases on Fridays at my old firm.”
“That’s a boon.”
She stood. “I think the banana bread you love is cooled by now.”
As she passed him, he grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to pretend everything’s going well with your life, honey.”
“I’m not pretending. I want to follow in your footsteps and this is the path. I’ll be right back.”
Annalise went to the kitchen and cut the bread. The sweet scent of sugar and bananas was heavenly. When she returned, her father was staring out at the D.C skyline. He sat again when she did. “Now, give me a slice.”
She bit into one, too. Contrary to Hannah, her younger sister, who ate organic foods, Annalise wasn’t that rigid, though she did use all-natural ingredients for baking. She envied her sister, who’d chosen a different path than she.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Hannah.”
A smile spread across his tanned face. “I heard from her yesterday.”
“Yeah, she’s called me twice and both times, I couldn’t get back to her. How is she?”
“She was fixing her furnace.”
Annalise grinned at that. Hannah had said no to college, a scandal for the president’s child. Instead, she went to trade schools—got an electrician certification, one in plumbing, another in carpentry and one in construction, for which she was required to work on a building site. Annalise remembered seeing a picture of the Secret Service standing by in their suits and hard hats. “She’s something, isn’t she?”
“Always was. She’s busy but sees Sasha frequently.”
Both of those sisters had moved to upstate New York. Hannah used her trust funds from her mother’s parents to buy the farm and Sasha used the money to buy a dance studio in downtown Rockford. Annalise had purchased an estate in Maryland where she planned to move sometime in the future. Andraya had saved hers.
“Well, that’s why Sasha opened her dance studio in Rockford. I wish my twin hadn’t gone halfway across the world to work.”
“Andraya loves Casarina and teaching. She got close to the Gentileschis when she spent her senior year at the Marcello schools.”
“I know. I’m going over to Italy to see her when I get some time off.”
“I adore the fact that you’re all so different.” Her father was the only person she knew who used the word adore naturally.
She checked her watch. “I’m afraid I have a meeting in a half-hour.”
“On Saturday?”
“Said the man who sat in the Situation Room on a number of weekends.”
An expression which had charmed America when he first ran for state office, then the House of Representatives, then the Senate and finally the presidency spread across his face. “I know. So, I won’t harp. But your mom and I will be more available to you now.”
“Give her my love.” Annalise and Karen Masters were very close.
She stood with her father and walked him to the door. Hugged him fiercely. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Ah, Daddy,” he said as he drew back. “I love you too, Annie.”
She opened the front door to find his two Secret Service agents standing at attention. Eddie Cramer and Milt Smith had been and still were her father’s guards, as her dad was entitled to protection for life. And now that he wasn’t president, all three of them had loosened up somewhat, were friendlier and wore casual clothes.
“Hi, guys.”
“Ms. Manwaring.”
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t call me that when one of the boys I dated took me out on his motorcycle, Eddie.”
He smirked. “Okay, Shining Star.” The code name she’d been given by her protectors.
“Goodbye, everyone.” She went back inside and her cell rang. She clicked on. “Hello.”
“Annalise. Where are you?” Luke Branson’s tone was annoyed.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re late for the meeting.”
“It isn’t for another half-hour.”
“The meeting started at nine!”
Hell. “I’ll be right there.” She didn’t live far from the Lincoln building. “I’m sorry, Luke.”
“Just get here.”
“I said I would.” She disconnected abruptly. That guy got under her skin. He did it intentionally, but to be fair, she was late, and she might have been as impatient as he. Grabbing her briefcase, she headed out.
Fifteen minutes later, Annalise walked into a large conference room of the building where The Justice Project was housed. Housed on two floors, it spread out in offices to hold fifty employees and several large and small conferences rooms.
“Annalise, hi.” Harold Franklin, a founding member and elected as chair, said the words kindly.
“I’m sorry, Harold. No excuses.” Except that she was with the former president.
“Not to worry. It happens. We’re divvying up some projects. You and Luke are taking candidate assessment for the 204th district in Pennsylvania.”
Damn, she was going to have to work with the man after all.
#
Luke Branson watched Annalise Manwaring walk into his office with all the confidence in the world. She’d handled her lateness with aplomb. Once inside, she glanced around at the two desks adjacent to each other and a small table and chairs by the window on the streets of D.C. Recessed lighting made the area ideal for working. “Where’s everybody else?”
“It’s you and me. Harold assigned us.”
“Why didn’t you object?”
“Because I’m a team player.” He held his temper. “You heard I was reluctant to hiring you.”
“I did.”
“It’s important that The Justice Project remain impartial. I didn’t want your appointment to seem like nepotism. But I was outvoted, so here we are.”
“I assure you,” she said, coldly. “I’m fully qualified.”
“That’s true.” He motioned to the small conference table. “Would you like coffee?”
“No thanks.”
She sat, pulled down the skirt of the sage-green suit she wore and took her slim laptop out of her briefcase.
She was a beauty, all right and, unfortunately, he’d been mesmerized by it for years. He’d envied her when they were both at Georgetown. She’d sailed into law school, while he had to delay a law degree to save up for tuition. In the end, he got a masters in marketing and finance which he excelled in. He was embarrassed by still, at thirty-six, having remnants of negative feelings about her.
“Do I have banana bread on my face?”
“Excuse me? Banana bread?”
“I baked some this morning.”
Ah, he got it. Rumor had it President James Manwaring loved his daughter’s banana bread, a story leaked to the press to underscore his happy family life. That didn’t sit with Luke at all, since his family was never much a part of his life.
“You were late because you were baking bread for your father?”
“No, I was late because I got the time wrong.” She held his gaze. “Can we get to work?”
“If you’re finally ready.” He grabbed his tablet. “I’ll send you the candidates we have to choose from.”
Quickly, her tablet pinged. Four candidates were in the running for congress in the November primary in Pittsburg. She read the notes on all of them.
“Hmm, they certainly have different agendas. From a quick scan, I think it’s going to be between Meredith Long and Mark Dawson.”
Meredith was running on LGBT rights, social security and Medicare. She also favored environmental issues and education. Those were the issues Annalise would have chosen, too. Mark Dawson was for steelworkers, ran on his experience in science and technology, highways and transit and the economy. She looked up. “At first glance, I gravitate toward Long’s agenda.”
“Let’s take our time, consider the others and if we chose Long and Dawson, we’ll vet both of them. Then we’ll present them to the rest of the members.”
A NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author, Kathryn Shay has been a lifelong writer and teacher. She has written dozens of self-published original romance titles, print books with the Berkley Publishing Group and Harlequin Enterprises and mainstream women’s fiction. One of her firefighter books hit #20 on the NEW YORK TIMES list. Her novels have been serialized in COSMOPOLITAN magazine and featured in USA TODAY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and PEOPLE magazine. There are over ten million copies of her books in print and downloaded online. Readers call her work heartwarming.
And when he came to collect, the money was gone. I used it to try and save someone I loved, but it still wasn’t enough.
Now Nico Morrelli is blackmailing me for the money I took. He’s ruthless and unyielding.
The Wolf in an Armani suit.
The man makes my body crave submission. Yet he can cost me and my girls everything. When he forced me into the underworld, he destroyed the sacrifices my family made to keep me safe.
I can’t become a tool for his revenge. Because my stakes are much higher. As my secrets unfold, I’m no longer sure who to trust. If only my heart didn’t want him so much.
Eva Winners released her first novel Second Chance At Love in 2020 and has been writing vigorously ever since. She writes about everlasting romance for every century focusing on characters emotional development and always guarantees an HEA.
She loves yoga, wine and her kiddos. In her spare time, she seeks adventures either hiking through trails or exploring the beaches.
Writing books has always been her passion and she brings real life to the forefront in everything she writes about.
Deeply passionate characters and stories will draw you in and you’ll never want to leave.
Follow her on social media to stay up to date with all her new releases!
Dakota — Having a half-brother who’s an infamous assassin isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At twenty-five, he’s still micromanaging my life. The moment Specter tells me about an arranged marriage to one of his associates I do what any sane woman would… I run. Never counted on meeting a biker I can’t seem to forget, nor did I plan on our two days together to have lasting consequences. When bad men find me, there’s only one person I want. Charming. I’m just not certain I’ll get a warm reception.
Charming — Dakota is different from anyone I’ve ever known, and it’s not because of who her brother is. It’s simply her. Some sixth sense keeps telling me she’s in trouble. When she calls and asks for help, I know I’ll do anything for her. The men after her have no idea she’s mine, or that she’s carrying my kid, but they will soon enough. I won’t rest until they’re six feet under.
Sighing, I thought about my brother. I’d gotten a new phone with a different number. I didn’t delude myself into thinking he couldn’t reach me. He had people who could track me down, give him my number, or do pretty much anything else he asked. And yet he hadn’t… I had to wonder why.
What are you up to, Specter?
“Stop daydreaming, Dakota,” my boss barked from farther down the bar.
I gave him a salute, grabbed the pitcher of beer and mugs, then carried them over to one of my tables. The guys were obnoxious, with way too many grabby hands. I’d already tried moving away multiple times, but it did little good. They latched onto me just the same. Glaring didn’t help either. At one inch shy of being five feet tall, I wasn’t exactly intimidating. Not even to drunk guys who looked barely twenty-one. In fact, I’d wondered if their IDs were fake, but the boss had let them order alcohol.
Not my circus, not my monkeys. If the big guy wanted to get in trouble for serving minors, that was all on him.
“Can I get you anything else?” I asked.
“How about your number?” one of them asked, leering at me.
“Nah, we don’t need her number. Why don’t you give us a round of blowjobs?” All of them laughed. I knew the boss wouldn’t take kindly to me dumping a pitcher of beer over their heads, but it was tempting. My hand tightened on the handle as I slowly counted to ten silently, hoping to cool my temper.
Before I could even respond, a tall man with scruff along his jaw and a leather cut over his shoulders slammed the guy’s head into the table. “Apologize.”
I hadn’t even seen him! Where the hell had he come from? I glanced around and saw several people staring in our direction. The guy pinned to the table didn’t seem so tough now. I got a closer look at the man who’d come to my rescue.
My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted to check my chin for drool. Handsome men were a dime a dozen. Even big sexy ones. But something about this one checked all the boxes for me. I’d never really dated much or had a genuine kiss before. I didn’t count the lackluster ones I’d received in the past. Some guys needed to learn to use less tongue. No woman wanted to be slobbered on like a dog was licking them.
So why did one look at this guy make me want to press my lips to his?
I started to fan myself and stopped. You’re being ridiculous! He’s a stranger.
While that was true, I knew his type. Seeing a guy like him get all protective had always been my kryptonite. Well, unless the guy was my brother. Specter just annoyed the crap out of me. But his friends trying to keep me safe? Biggest turn on ever. Not that I’d ever have told him that. And his buddies had never, not even once, tried to hit on me.
I eyed the man again, wondering if he was one of the bikers who knew my brother. He’d helped more than one club over the years. If this guy knew Specter, I shouldn’t be lusting after him. Being with him would only end in trouble. The type that left me with an overprotective brother threatening to kill the poor guy, or worse, Specter would try to marry me to the man.
Sexy or not, I didn’t want to ride off into the sunset with someone I didn’t know.
“S-sorry,” the guy stammered. “We were just giving her a hard time.”
I barely contained my snort. Sure. Let’s go with that. The asshole had been groping me and making lewd suggestions since he got here. I didn’t understand why the men always thought the servers were up for grabs. It wasn’t like you bought a beer and got a complimentary blowjob or something.
“I’ve been watching the lot of you. If so much as one more finger lands on my girl, I’ll rip your Goddamn hands off and shove them up your asses.” He growled and put more weight on the guy. “Understood?”
He got a jerky nod from the guys at the table before he backed off.
His? I arched an eyebrow as I watched the hunky man. Since he was saving my ass, I wasn’t about to call him out on his brutish behavior. Not in front of these guys, anyway. Besides, my savior was hot. More than hot. Scorching.
Marriage material? No. But… It didn’t mean I couldn’t be tempted to take him home for the night. Being the baby sister of an assassin meant my options had been limited over the years. Well, truthfully, it was worse. I’d had none.
“Come on, beautiful,” he said, holding his hand out to me.
I glanced at the patches and stitching on his cut. The one that said President gave me a slight pause. I didn’t remember my brother mentioning this club, but what if this guy figured out who I was? Could I risk it? I saw his name… Charming. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh. This guy was anything but Prince Charming. More like Captain Caveman.
Harley Wylde is the International Bestselling Author of the Dixie Reapers MC, Devil’s Boneyard MC, and Hades Abyss MC series. When Harley’s writing, her motto is the hotter the better — off the charts sex, commanding men, and the women who can’t deny them. If you want men who talk dirty, are sexy as hell, and take what they want, then you’ve come to the right place. She doesn’t shy away from the dangers and nastiness in the world, bringing those realities to the pages of her books, but always gives her characters a happily-ever-after and makes sure the bad guys get what they deserve.
The times Harley isn’t writing, she’s thinking up naughty things to do to her husband, drinking copious amounts of Starbucks, and reading. She loves to read and devours a book a day, sometimes more. She’s also fond of TV shows and movies from the 1980’s, as well as paranormal shows from the 1990’s to today, even though she’d much rather be reading or writing.
You can find out more about Harley or enter her monthly giveaway on her website. Be sure to join her newsletter while you’re there to learn more about discounts, signing events, and other goodies!
SHE’s a good girl, or at least she tries to be. People think Samantha Hunter lives a fairytale life. Only this young, wealthy American in Paris has a secret. If she lets it free, there’s no telling what she’ll do. Being the wild child is one thing. Letting her dark fantasies run wild is quite another. How could she? The better question is…how could she not?
HE wears a suit, but he is not entirely civilized. Oleg Balashov is often hungry for something he’ll probably never find. His closest friends have similar appetites and the private club they own is the perfect place to feed their desires. Oleg is ready to pay an old debt with an arranged marriage, mafia style. Then Samantha appears on a bar stool with just enough curiosity to get her into trouble. She’s in way over her pretty head. Or is it the other way around? The Masters of Club Duval have a new pet and she isn’t so easy to tame. Samantha Hunter is about to rewrite all the rules for these Doms and nothing will ever be the same.
Trigger warning: Oleg owns a whip, and he knows how to use it. After the happily ever after ending, the epilogue of this book will be an introduction to the prologue of book 2, Unleashed.
Finally, he spoke. His voice was a raspy and feral version of itself. “Your safeword… Scream it loud. Scream it at the top of your fucking lungs, because I need your screams today for all the wrong fucking reasons.”
He cracked the whip again, and it snapped her shoulder blade with the thinnest of cuts, sounding like a gunshot, feeling like a hornet’s kiss.
“If I hurt you…” he said.
She turned around, and her gaze locked first on his trembling hand and then his tortured eyes. “I will survive you.”
“If you survive me, then you can have me, because truly I belong to no one else.” The whip cracked above her head.
“Turn the fuck around!”
When she did, he snapped a sideways strike across her ass. Her flesh lit with fiery agony. She balled her fists and inhaled deeply, trusting his control over the nine-foot length of braided leather.
Then a loud thud sounded, and a crash followed. She turned around to see Oleg stalking toward her, his whip strewn across the floor next to a broken vase.
Heavy, billowing breaths blew past his lips. He scratched his chin and then rubbed the back of his head. One last swallow, and he steadied himself. The worst of the storm had passed and she’d survived. In fact, she’d more than survived. Samantha had stood in the eye of the storm and remained on her feet.
“Where the hell did you come from?” he demanded, grabbing both of her shoulders, shaking her once, though she was certain he wasn’t concerned with the name of her hometown.
She didn’t flinch. His hold on her was nothing to fear. Then his thumbs swiped at the teardrops on her cheeks before he decided to sip on them instead. She melted right there. “How did you find me?” she asked the same unseen knower of all things.
God, how badly she wanted this man inside of her. She pawed at the chastity belt, angry at it so suddenly. Danger wafted off him in invisible waves, unspoken, ultrasonic, undeniably magnetic. The beautiful, broken monster had revealed himself, raw, untethered, and she devoured his anger, his pain. It had given her peace even as she hungered to know the limits of his pain, to be at the sharp edge of his despair with him. But why? What could be found in dark, bottomless pools that made her want to jump in? She’d been asking herself that question all her life and still didn’t have an answer.
Alyssa believes that when characters speak to you, you’ve got to listen. She’s been all ears and writing stories in all lengths since childhood. She only wonders where those notebooks of handwritten dramas ended up.
Almost everyone tags her romances as habanero hot, and with her proclivity for the ménage genre, Alyssa is often recognized for weaving complexity and emotional depth into her characters. She has so much fun writing, she can never be relied upon to put the wash into the dryer any time after 10 PM. Luckily, she is married to the most understanding husband in the world.
The Love Has No Regrets collection of novels by Alyssa Turner includes several series with familiar characters threaded into each story. Her LHNR world is ever growing, spanning from Manhattan to Paris, with Polyamorous love that answers only to the heart. Read more about Alyssa Turner and preview her published works on her blog.
Title: The Casandra Curse Author: Hope Bolinger Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
STRANGER THINGS X CURSED PRINCESS CLUB
Charity’s acts of kindness always end in disaster, but when one clown costume too many lands her in the Vice Principal’s office, she receives a mysterious note from a group called “The Cassandra Coalition,” asking her if she wants to be rid of the curse that seems to follow her.
The teens of the coalition claim to be cursed by a mirror world connected with their hometown known as Delphos. To make things worse, Delphos appears to be invading their world and turning people into zombies—either that, or someone switched all the coffee to decaf.
When one of their members goes missing, they’ll try to track her down, close the portal to their world, and find a way to end their curse, before the curse ends them.
Can I adopt this feisty unicorn of a grandma, please?
“That’s awful,” Io agreed as her grandmother placed the triangle on a half-done quilt and scooted back her chair. “It’s not even snowing that hard.”
Grandma grunted as she rose and reached for her cardigan draped on the chair. She threw it over her shoulders. Paused. “Io, dear, do you know what the opposite of love is?”
Io rubbed her bare fingertips on a navy triangle of fabric. She froze. No doubt, she’d had a hard time adjusting to the ‘no touching rule’. Charity thought back to their kitchen hug.
“That’s easy, Grandma. The opposite of love is hate.”
“No.”
Grandma raised a finger and jabbed it toward the ceiling. The white popcorn pattern had a few water stains that formed indiscernible shapes.
“The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s apathy.” She squinted at Io and then the other two. “Not caring, indifference, whatever you want to call it. It makes you tired, lethargic, unaware of the pain of others. It can take a kind old woman and keep her at home, instead of helping to make a blanket for a family without a home.”
Remnants of the Big Sad surged back into Charity. Apathy, the word had a horrible touch of the familiar.
Is that what happened to me when Dad left?
Hadn’t the Big Sad clutched her back at the park? How the gray atmosphere had forced her eyelids near-shut and calves to trudge forward.
If she remembered right, the Big Sad acted fast and without mercy. What if the same thing was happening with the curse? Let’s hope Cassandra gets us another clue, and fast.
Hope Bolinger is literary agent, freelance author and editor, YA novelist, and obsessed with anything to do with theater.
Books include The Quiet and the Storm (Taylor University Press), Blaze (IlluminateYA), Den (IlluminateYA), Dear Hero (INtense Publications), and Dear Henchman (INtense Publications). She’s also contributed to books that were published by Broadstreet Publishing and New Hope.
When she isn’t busy adding to her 600+ bylines, or showing up in her town square dressed as Red Riding Hood, she loves to connect with readers. Find her at hopebolinger.com or connect with her @hopebolinger
Will a whirlwind winter romance result in a forever love?
After a Christmas Eve catastrophe that left her heart encased in ice, Sierra Goodwin detests anything to do with winter and the holiday season. To take her mind off her troubles, her best friend talks her into a weekend spa getaway to a town she’s never heard of. Her bestie’s boyfriend tags along like a bumpy third wheel, and things go from bad to worse when they arrive in town to find a winter fest in full swing. Then Sierra runs into a handsome stranger, a man everyone calls Mr. Snowman, and discovers her heart might not be a frozen fortress after all.
Kylan Snow loves his life, his Christmas tree farm, and the town of Pinehill where he was raised. There’s nothing he enjoys more than a beautiful winter afternoon spent outside in the crisp, fresh air, or time spent with friends and family. When he unexpectedly encounters a dimple-cheeked woman in need of a little hope, he has no idea one weekend with her with completely alter his world.
Will their winter wishes for a forever sweetheart come true? Find out in this sweet romance brimming with laughter, snowmen, small-town charm, and love.
Sierra forced a smile, grabbed Jenn’s hand, and headed toward the door. “I’m starving. I think a big breakfast is in order. We’ll work it all off shopping.”
“Now you’re talking.” Jenn grinned as she grabbed her wallet and room key, and then the two of them stepped into the hall.
They both stopped at the sight of a man wearing a top hat and black tuxedo jacket with tails carrying a potted Christmas tree as he stepped off the elevator. He held a large gold gift bag decorated with white snowflakes in his other hand. When he looked at them, Sierra sucked in a gasp of surprise. The handsome guy looked exactly like the cowboy she’d met last night.
“Sierra?” he asked, his smile broadening as he walked over to them. “And Jenn. Hey! Fancy meeting you girls here.”
Jenn remained mute as she looked from Ky to Sierra, as though she struggled to make sense of their acquaintance.
Sierra wondered how Ky knew her friend’s name but couldn’t keep from grinning at him. “Good morning, Ky. What are you doing dressed like that, carrying a Christmas tree?”
“It’s a service I provide mostly during the holidays, but it extends through this weekend. I grow Christmas trees. Some hotel guests like to have a Christmas tree in their room, so I deliver them for a fee. They can choose between a live one in a custom-crafted wine barrel planter or a fresh-cut tree in one of my specialty stands. I provide lights and ornaments. They have options of elegant, whimsical, or traditional decorations.”
“That’s really neat,” Sierra said, thinking Kylan Snow looked even better in the broad light of day than he had last night. The tails and top hat sure didn’t hurt any either. He really was a handsome man, one with a warm smile and gray eyes that twinkled with mirth and life. “Might I assume you are making a delivery that veers on the elegant side?”
“Yep. For a traditional tree, I dress like a lumberjack, complete with a red and black buffalo plaid shirt. Whimsical, I put on elf shoes and a hat with pointy ears.”
“No way. That’s the one I’d choose just to see you wear that, Ky,” Jenn said, acting as though she and Ky were old friends. How was that possible when they’d only arrived in town last night?
USA Today Bestselling Author Shanna Hatfield writes sweet romances rich with relatable characters, small town settings that feel like home, humor, and hope.
Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.”
When this farm girl isn’t writing or indulging in rich, decadent chocolate, Shanna hangs out with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller. She also experiments with recipes, snaps photos of her adorable nephew, and caters to the whims of a cranky cat named Drooley.
