Лучшие книги Слоан Кеннеди

He promised to never leave me. But when I needed him the most, that was exactly what he did…

From Bestselling Authors Sloane Kennedy & Lucy Lennox comes an exciting new series about how a twist of fate can change everything...

Серия "Поворот судьбы" #2 Я тонул в течении долгого времени. Никогда не думал, что найду того, кто знает, каково это… Самопровозглашенный плейбой Эйден Вейл имеет все – красивую внешность, успешную карьеру, много наличных денег в банке и бесконечный запас мужчин, которым известно… одна ночь – это все, на что можно рассчитывать. Так что последнее, чего он хочет, или в чем нуждается, это наладить связь, которая может означать впустить кого-то в свою душу, больше, чем он пока к этому готов. Но когда вмешивается судьба, и Эйден оказывается на пути того, кто угрожает снести все его тщательно выстроенные стены, он быстро понимает, что молодой человек, в которого он влюбился, скрывает болезненную тайну. У меня наконец-то есть шанс на свободу. Я больше никому и никогда не позволю забрать ее у меня… Эш Валентайн просто ищет выход, и последнее, чего он хочет, или в чем нуждается, это другой человек, контролирующий каждый аспект его жизни. Отчаянно нуждаясь в деньгах, которые помогут ему сбежать от жестокого бойфренда, Эш соглашается на то, что изначально должно было стать временной работой в местной кофейне. Но он не был готов к встрече с роскошным и загадочным Эйденом Вейлом, к небольшим проявлениям доброты, которые постоянно получает, работая в очаровательной кофейне и к новым друзьям, которых он начинает постепенно заводить. Испугавшись, что снова станет слишком зависим от кого-то другого, того, кто станет о нем заботиться, Эш отказывается от неоднократных предложений Эйдена о помощи в любом виде. Но когда становится ясно, что за потребностью Эйдена спасти его кроется нечто большее, Эш начинает задумываться, неужели он встретил того, кто так же сильно нуждается в спасении, как и он сам. Я знаю, что он хочет спасти меня, но что, если он сам нуждается в спасении… По мере того, как их робкая дружба превращается в нечто большее, начинают всплывать давно похороненные секреты. Когда потребность Эйдена защищать Эша сталкивается с желанием молодого парня быть независимым, воспоминания о том, кого он не смог спасти, начинают рваться на хрупких нитях души Эйдена, и он вынужден посмотреть в глаза правде, от которой скрывался в течении длительного времени. Рискуя потерять то, что они только обрели, найдут ли Эйден и Эш способ принять свое прошлое или позволят боли утащить их на самое дно навсегда? Предупреждение: Включает упоминания о домашнем насилии.

Oz: Escaping the international modeling scene to design my own fashion collection is the first step to shucking my bobble-headed supermodel reputation and proving to the world I’m more than just a pretty face. But the minute I have to accept roadside help from the sexy man next door, I feel like the airhead people think I am. And what’s worse, the man clearly doesn’t think I’m worth the time of day.

But despite trying to ignore my attraction to the mysterious doctor, I can’t help but be drawn to him. With every moment spent together, I begin to realize he’s hiding more than just some details of his past. He has one foot out the door.

As soon as I start to feel like everything might be coming together for me, I realize the man I’m falling in love with isn’t who I thought he was.

Jake: After three years on the run for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’ve finally found a seemingly safe place to settle in Haven, Colorado. With friends, a job, and a cabin in the woods, I have everything I need to live a simple life without drawing attention to myself. Everything’s fine. Fine.

Until I meet my new neighbor. The gorgeous man is anything but subtle and brings color to my life that I didn’t know was missing. But I learned years ago that falling in love with someone wasn’t an option anymore when simply being seen with me could have dire consequences. It’s time for me to run again, but I wonder if it’s safe to stick around just long enough for a taste…

Just when I begin to realize Oz is the missing piece to bring me back to life after years of hiding, my past catches up to me and throws everyone around me into danger. I know I should run, but what if it’s time to finally stop running and make a stand, once and for all?

Lucky
Two years ago I humiliated myself by declaring my love to an older man who clearly didn’t share my feelings. And that’s fine. One day Zach will come around. Meanwhile, I’ve built a life for myself in northern Montana, pursuing my college degree while working hard toward certification in high-risk alpine search and rescue on the side. And perhaps I’ve kept the danger part a secret from my two dads. After all, what they don’t know won’t hurt them...
Everything’s going exactly as planned until my dads send Zach to check on me just as I’m dealing with an ex who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word no. It’s bad enough Zach still thinks of me as a child; now he also thinks I’m incapable of looking out for myself. I need to get him off my back before he finds out I’m not heading to Wyoming for summer break like everyone thinks. I’m going to Glacier National Park to learn how to rappel from helicopters…

Zach
Two years ago I wanted something I couldn't have, so I threw myself back into my job as an Army Ranger and wound up scarred in more ways than one. When the army dumps my sorry self back into the real world, it’s time to start over. I accept a summer job teaching high-risk search and rescue. On the way there, all I have to do is peek in on little Lucky Reed and make sure he’s okay.
He’s not. Someone has it out for him, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him get hurt on my watch. My plan is to keep him safe until he heads south for his summer job playing trail guide to tourists. Once he’s gone, I’ll be free to head to Glacier where my biggest challenge will be keeping a handful of alpine search and rescue students safe as they learn how to dangle from helicopters high above the Rocky Mountains.
It’s all fine. Until it’s not. Danger follows us to Glacier, and by the time I finally start seeing Lucky as more than the awkward teenager he used to be, I wonder if it’s too late to convince him that this scarred soldier sees him as anything but little anymore.

After four years abroad, artist Jonas Davenport has come home to start building his dream of owning his own art studio and gallery. But just as he’s ready to put the darkness of his past behind him forever, it comes roaring back with a vengeance.

The only thing keeping ex-cop Mace Calhoun from eating his own gun after an unthinkable loss is his role in an underground syndicate that seeks to get justice for the innocent by taking the lives of the guilty. Ending the life of the young artist who committed unspeakable crimes against the most vulnerable of victims should have been the easiest thing in the world. So why can’t he bring himself to pull the trigger?

After years of fighting in an endless, soul-sucking war, Navy SEAL Cole Bridgerton has come home to fight another battle – dealing with the discovery that the younger sister who ran away from home eight years earlier is lost to him forever. He needs answers and the only person who can give them to him is a young man struggling to put his life back together. But he never expected to feel something more for the haunted artist.

Cole and Mace. One lives by the rules, the other makes his own. One seeks justice through the law while the other seeks it with his gun. Two men, one light, one dark, will find themselves and each other when they’re forced to stand side by side to protect Jonas from an unseen evil that will stop at nothing to silence the young artist forever.

But each man’s scars run deep and even the strength of three may not be enough to save them…

сборник коротких рассказов в поддержку ЛГБТ благотворительности
Том:
1. Сердцем к сердцу. Часть 1
2. Сердцем к сердцу. Часть 2
3. Сердцем к сердцу. Часть 3 - "Домик на дереве" - Люси Леннокс

Trauma surgeon Ronan Grisham lost everything the day the man he loved was stolen from him in a brutal attack. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, he turns his hatred into building an underground group that can do what he couldn’t that fateful day…take the lives of the guilty to save the lives of the innocent. But years later, he’s forced to confront the one link to his past that he can’t sever.

Seven years after the loss of his parents in a violent home invasion that left him permanently scarred both inside and out, 21-year-old Seth Nichols is trying to put his life back together so he can take over the reins of his father’s global shipping empire. But the last person he expects to come back into his life is the man he drove away with one innocent, stolen kiss.

With one brush of his lips, Seth managed to do to Ronan what no other had since the day Ronan watched the light in his fiancé’s eyes go out forever. He made him need again. But Ronan can’t need anyone, least of all his dead fiancé’s younger brother. Because even one touch from Seth could shatter Ronan’s carefully constructed world and Ronan knows there’s no coming back from that a second time.

But when a series of escalating attacks against Seth forces Ronan back into his life, Seth knows it’s his last chance to show Ronan he can be the man the broken surgeon needs. Only the Ronan who returns isn’t the Ronan Seth fell in love with so long ago…

Can Seth be Ronan’s salvation or will he end up destroying them both?

I've been drowning for a long time. I never thought I'd find someone who knows what that's like...
Self-proclaimed playboy, Aiden Vale, has it all - good looks, successful career, plenty of cash in the bank and an endless supply of men who know the score... that one night is just that. So the last thing he wants, or needs, is to forge a connection that might mean revealing more of himself than he's ready to. But when fate intervenes, putting Aiden in the path of someone who threatens to knock down his carefully constructed walls, he's quick to realize the young man he's become infatuated with is hiding a painful secret.

I finally have a shot at freedom. I'll never let anyone take that from me ever again...
Ash Valentine is just looking for a way out, and the last thing he wants or needs is another man controlling every aspect of his life. Desperate for the cash that will help him flee his abusive boyfriend, Ash accepts what is supposed to be a temporary job at a local coffee shop. But nothing prepares him for the gorgeous and enigmatic Aiden Vale, and the small acts of kindness the charming coffee shop regular bestows on him or the new friends he begins to make along the way.
Terrified of once again becoming too reliant on someone else to take care of him, Ash refuses Aiden's repeated offers of help in any form. But when it becomes clear that there's something more behind Aiden's need to save him, Ash begins to wonder if he's found someone who needs saving just as badly.

I know he wants to save me, but what if he's the one who needs saving...
As their tentative friendship turns into something more, long buried secrets begin to surface. When Aiden's need to protect Ash clashes with the younger man's desire for independence, memories of the one he couldn't save begin to tear at the fragile cords of Aiden's soul, and he's forced to face a truth he's been hiding from for a long time.
Threatened with losing what they've only just found, will Aiden and Ash find a way to accept their pasts or will they let the pain drag them below the surface for good?

No cliffhangers and can be read as a stand-alone.

*** TRIGGER WARNING - includes on-page scenes of domestic abuse, including rape and intense violence. ***

Surrounded by a group of devoted four-footed and two-winged family members, Zak and Killian have built what should have been a dream life in their countryside farmhouse. But a cruel twist of fate and the re-emergence of old demons has frayed the edges of the men’s seven-year relationship until just one wrong move could end up severing their bond for good. Seemingly content to walk on eggshells around one another, things come to a head when ER nurse Zak brings his work home with him… literally. After being forced to leave their posh Southern California lives, homeless stepbrothers Liam and Noah are slowly losing themselves to the streets they can’t seem to escape. When twenty-one-year-old Liam is beaten up while protecting his younger “brother,” the pair find themselves being welcomed into a home where being a stray is considered a good thing. But Liam and nineteen-year-old Noah have learned the hard way that nothing is given for free and there’s no such thing as the kindness of strangers. Survival means only counting on and trusting in each other. Will Zak and Killian’s offer of a no-strings-attached place to heal end up being more than any of the four men bargained for? Especially when feelings between Liam and Noah begin to crawl to the surface and the truth of what Zak and Killian’s relationship has turned into becomes harder to deny? And what happens when lines begin to blur and needs start to change? Will Zak, Killian, Liam, and Noah end up going their separate ways? Or will they learn that love doesn’t always come in twos? *This is a novel about a foursome relationship, not just a story of two separate couples in physical relationships with one another. Thus, there is no “cheating” in this story. This is a standalone novel. Trigger Warning: The trigger warnings in this book may be considered "spoilerish" so they can be found by using the "Look Inside" feature or by downloading the sample and going to the section entitled "Trigger Warning."

He wants revenge against the brothers who betrayed him but first he has to get past the one man he can’t resist… At the tender age of eight, Rafe Barretti lost everything. His parents, his childhood, his innocence. And the brothers who were supposed to protect him let him go instead. Twenty years later and he’s finally ready to exact his revenge by taking away everything they hold dear – their company, their reputations, their futures. But even that isn’t enough - their loved ones will have to pay too and all their precious secrets are fair game. Former mercenary Cade Gamble’s only job is to take down the hacker stealing sensitive, private information from Barretti Security Group and Cade is damn good at his job. But there’s more at stake because the co-founders of BSG, Dom and Vin Barretti, are like family and no one touches Cade’s family. The fact that the vengeful young man turns out to be the youngest of the Barretti clan doesn’t matter. But when their tumultuous encounters turn into something more, Cade will have to decide between protecting the only family he has and giving in to his need to save Rafe from himself. Can Cade help Rafe find redemption so he can forgive the sins of the past or will Rafe’s quest for vengeance destroy them both?

“I trusted once. I won’t make that mistake again…”
An ugly childhood and devastating betrayal have left 25-year-old Cain Jensen scarred inside and out. Protecting himself means keeping everyone at arm’s length and protecting others means never getting emotionally involved. In the three years since he’s joined an underground vigilante group, every life he saves helps ease the guilt of the ones that were lost to him so long ago. So when he’s sent to a remote cabin in the Cascade Mountains just north of Seattle to follow up on the disappearance of his boss’s co-worker, his only thought is to see that justice is served, no matter what the circumstances.

But nothing he’s ever experienced has prepared the cold-hearted and very straight Cain for who he finds on that mountain…or the intense need to suddenly offer more than just protection.

“I’ve finally managed to break free, but I’ve never felt more trapped in my entire life…”
Ethan Rhodes has been running for six months, but it’s never fast enough, it’s never far enough. At 30 years old, the talented ER Doctor should be spending his days saving other people’s lives, not worrying about his own. But he knows that the four years of physical and emotional abuse he’s suffered at the hands of his volatile ex are nothing compared to what will happen when Ethan runs out of places to hide, especially after taking something from the man he once was sure would be the love of his life.

A violent episode that has Ethan narrowly escaping death leads to a quiet cabin in the mountains where his battered body will have time to heal before he and the young girl relying on him need to run again. But everything changes with the arrival of a mysterious stranger who threatens to give Ethan something he’d finally accepted was gone forever…hope.

“I didn’t see this coming. I don’t think he did either…”
To get to the truth, Cain must first get through Ethan’s defenses, but watching the other man’s walls start to come down forces Cain to face his own past. And as the tremulous connection between the two men grows and gives way to something more, both will need to decide if they’re willing to risk giving each other the one thing that has cost them so much in the past…trust.

Will two men who’ve vowed never to let someone close again let down their guard long enough to find each other, or will they let their pasts determine their future?

Ex Special Forces soldier Michael “Hawke” Hawkins has spent every day of the last ten years waiting for the moment he would get to watch the life fade from the eyes of the men who brutally murdered his wife, but when he finally gets the break he’s been waiting for, the trail leads him to someone he wasn’t expecting.

After nearly two years of running, 24-year-old Tate Travers has become an expert at hiding…until the day a dangerous stranger shows up looking for vengeance and threatens to destroy the fragile life Tate has managed to build for himself and his five-year-old son. Except the life Tate has been struggling to hold on to started unraveling long before Hawke showed up looking for the same men Tate has been running from…his own father and older brother.

Retribution – it’s all Hawke has wanted since the day he held his wife’s hand as she took her last breath. And he won’t give that up for anything or anyone…not even the tormented young man trying to give his little boy a better life. Because Tate is the only one who can lead Hawke to the men he’s been searching for. And if it means forcing the young man to confront the past that nearly destroyed him, then so be it.

Only the last thing Hawke expects to feel is something besides the hatred that has driven him. And he definitely never expected to feel it for a man.

But when it comes down to choosing between the unwanted feelings Tate stirs in him and the revenge he’s finally close enough to taste, will Hawke be able to give up the one thing that has kept him going for a second chance at a future he gave up on ever having?

Memphis
At thirty-four years old, ex-DEA agent Memphis Wheland has lived, loved and lost…everything. The ultimate betrayal by the man he gave everything to has left Memphis with no family, no career and a bone deep bitterness that refuses to release him from its icy grip. His work with an underground vigilante organization is the only light in his otherwise bleak existence. That and the occasional no-strings hookup with men whose only focus in that moment, and for as long as Memphis wants them, is him and only him. No clingy exes, no unrequited love, no relationship drama. Period.

Because Memphis has one rule that he won’t break for anyone or anything. He doesn’t share.

Ever.

Now if only someone had told that to the young man who would come into his life in the most unexpected way…

Brennan
With his entire life ahead of him, graduate student Brennan Devereaux wasn’t expecting it to change in the blink of an eye. But when a case of mistaken identity nearly costs Brennan his life, it isn’t just his future that’s about to change, but his past too. Because for years he’s been in love with a young man who only sees him as a friend and nothing more. And while he was content to love Tristan Barretti from afar, he hadn’t expected to be drawn to the mysterious stranger who saved his life and changed it with a simple promise.

I’m not letting you go.

They were words spoken in the heat of the moment as the darkness of death had threatened to claim him, but even as Brennan’s love for Tristan refuses to wane, his need for the intriguing Memphis Wheland continues to grow.
But any relationship with Memphis means he has to let go of the one thing in his life he’s always valued above everything else…

Tristan
At nineteen, Tristan Barretti should have had the world at his feet. His musical gifts have garnered him prestige as well as admission to the famed Julliard School in New York and he has a family that most people would kill for. But the protective bubble his fathers have kept him in has burst and he’s discovered that life outside his unconditionally loving family isn’t as accepting of a kid born with HIV. A poor decision to find answers to questions better left unasked, along with the complications of living with his disease, have Tristan returning to Seattle and the solace of his family.

And to the young man he’s wanted from the time he was barely old enough to even understand what that meant.
But with an uncertain future that leaves him nothing to offer the gorgeous and successful Brennan Devereaux, Tristan knows the best he can hope for is to keep building on the friendship they’ve shared for years and not get his hopes up that Brennan will be the one man who sees him and not his disease.

Except all bets are off when danger follows him home…

Choices
Even though a physical relationship with Brennan was supposed to be just that, Memphis finds himself unable to refuse his young lover’s request to help put a stop to the threat against Tristan. Even knowing full well that Brennan’s heart lies with the man he claims is nothing more than a friend, Memphis accepts the challenge of ensuring Tristan’s safety.

But when the quiet music student stops being a “job” and starts being something much more, Memphis is torn between his growing feelings for both young men and the fear that he’ll be facing an even greater betrayal that he’ll never be able to come back from.
Except none of that matters when the threat that Memphis never saw coming puts Brennan and Tristan in the crosshairs.

And the cost of the vengeance he once craved suddenly comes at too high a price…

“Once a fuck up, always a fuck up.”

Words twenty-six-year-old Dante Thorne has had to live with for more years than he can count and a title he finally earned at the tender age of sixteen when one careless decision led to tragedy. And since he can’t deny the truth of the words, why not live by them instead? Fucking up, fucking, it doesn’t matter; as long as it feels good and makes him forget the day he failed the one person he’d always sworn to protect. A good philosophy to live by until Dante meets the one man who might actually having him wishing he was something more…

At forty-one and with a distinguished career as a Texas Ranger under his belt, Magnus DuCane should have been in the prime of his life. Instead, he’s mourning the loss of the daughter he couldn’t save and contemplating a future that looks nothing like the one he had planned. The only bright spot in his life is the young grandson whose suddenly been returned to him after going missing two years earlier and the new family of men that he’s been welcomed in to with open arms. But with his iron will, unfailing self-control and unflappable discipline, Magnus knows he can start a new chapter and get his life back on track…if he can just get past the disturbing, unexpected feelings one young man stirs in him.

Because everything about Dante Thorne is wrong for Magnus. His arrogance, his cocky attitude, every single unfiltered word that falls unchecked out of his mouth and, of course, the fact that he’s a man.

But when his well-meaning friends send Dante with him as a bodyguard when he returns to Texas to testify in a high-profile case, Magnus begins to see beyond the brash words and endless sexual innuendo. And when he starts to discover that what he sees isn’t all that bad, suddenly the fact that that Dante is a man instead of a woman no longer seems like such a big sticking point…

My job is to save lives. But what if the one that needs saving is the one I was sent to take?
At 33 years old, Phoenix Jones once had a stellar military career ahead of him. But when tragedy struck his family, he walked away from the path he’d chosen to be there for the one who needed him most. Except fate is a bitch and when she once again takes Phoenix’s future in the cruelest of ways, he must find a new path.

When a former army buddy introduces him to Ronan Grisham, the leader of an underground vigilante group, Phoenix knows he’s found a new family and nothing and no one is going to take that from him again. So when Ronan asks him to shadow a young man who participated in a brutal crime against Ronan’s husband, Seth, when he was a child and appears to be targeting him again, Phoenix doesn’t even hesitate for a second.

Even knowing what he must do if the young man proves to have gone back to his old ways.

Because family is everything…

I can’t come back from what I did. I’m not sure I even want to…
An ugly childhood left Levi Deming with little to do but dream of a day when he’d be free of his tormenters so he could carve out a simple life for himself, preferably somewhere far away from the family who never let him forget he was less than human. But one terrible choice at the tender age of 16 changed everything…

Wracked with guilt for the role he played during a home invasion gone horribly wrong, a now 24-year-old Levi is trying to piece together a life where he can maybe do a little bit of good, even knowing it won’t make up for the lives he helped take and it definitely won’t give back the future he stole from the young man whose agonized screams still haunt him night after night. If it were only about him, he’d walk into the nearest police station and happily tell them to lock him up and throw away the key.

But it isn’t just about him anymore…

I expected to find a hardened criminal. What I found was something else entirely…
With Ronan’s orders to terminate young Levi if he so much as even jaywalks, Phoenix expects an easy job with one clear outcome. But when a violent encounter forces Phoenix to interact with Levi, he quickly realizes the case might not be as black and white as he thought. Instead of finding a criminal with no conscience, Phoenix discovers a young man battling impossible odds and near crippling guilt.

When his feelings of disgust and anger begin to fade and turn into something else, the would-be hitman is forced to make a terrible decision between the family he needs and the young man more intent on seeking judgement than redemption.

"I've done everything wrong, Finn. From day one. It was the only way I knew how to be with you and still be worthy of you. But I see now that I never really was." --Callan Vengeance. It's the one thing on ex-cop Rhys Tellar's mind and he's spent every day of his two year prison sentence planning how he'll bring down the former lover and partner who sold him out and cost four people their lives. A six month parole stint working at the CB Bar Ranch in Southwestern Montana should be the easiest thing he's ever done. But the last thing he expects is to feel something for both the charismatic ranch hand who befriends him and the enigmatic foreman who's pretending to be something he's not. A future. That's what Finn Stewart wants, but to have it he must leave behind the man he wants above all others, his very straight boss and best friend, Callan Bale. As the only openly gay man in a small, homophobic community, Finn has to fight every day to be who he is and walking away is starting to seem like the easier path. Until Rhys Tellar shows up and changes everything. A Lie. Callan Bale's entire life has been about hiding the man he really is and it's about to cost him the one person who's managed to worm his way past the walls he's spent years putting up. But choosing Finn would mean giving up everything he's worked for and breaking the promises he's made. At least losing the younger man to Rhys means Finn can have the life he deserves. Three men. Three choices. One chance at finding home.

It’s the holidays for a group of very special men who’ve managed to become a family in the last year and while all the guys are coming together to celebrate Hawke and Tate’s upcoming wedding, a few of them have big plans of their own…

A change of plans…
Newlyweds Ronan and Seth are settling into married life as Ronan considers his return to medicine and Seth starts dreaming of a future that may include the pitter patter of little feet a lot sooner rather than later.

Building a future…
Knee deep in wedding preparations, Hawke and Tate are celebrating something even more important – Matty’s final round of chemotherapy treatment. As they anxiously await confirmation that their son is finally in remission, both men strive to give their little boy a normal life including a new house, playdates with Matty’s new best friend, Leo, and a new support system of men and women who are starting to seem a lot like family.

An important question to ask…
Meanwhile, Mav is looking to make things official with Eli despite the young man’s busy schedule with medical school. But before he can ask the man of his dreams that very important question, he has to get past Eli’s family first, including a posse of two overprotective fathers, several intrusive uncles and a little girl who just wants to brush Mav’s hair!

Figuring it all out…
With Memphis, Brennan and Tristan settling into their newfound relationship and our favorite threesome from New York visiting for the wedding, there are plenty of chances for old friends to connect and new bonds to be formed.

The best kind of chaos…
And of course, what wedding wouldn’t be complete without a little drama including some white hot sexual tension between a not so old grandfather and a certain cocky bodyguard? Add in some more Barrettis, a couple of precocious kids, several dogs, one spoiled cat and a gaggle of new, hot alpha men and you’ve got the perfect storm for a holiday that only the Protectors could pull off!

Three men brought together by circumstance who found something none of them knew they needed… Ren Barretti has finally come home after a year of being held captive by the terrorists who slaughtered his entire Special Forces team. But he can’t escape the nightmares that torment him or the guilt that he was the only one to walk away. The life his older brothers have brought him home to doesn’t exist for him anymore and to keep them and their loved ones safe from the rage and pain that consume him, Ren needs to disappear. Police Detective Declan Hale has felt an undeniable pull towards the very straight Ren Barretti since the day Ren’s brother married Declan’s younger sister almost a dozen years earlier. But even though the Ren who has come home isn’t the one who left, all of Declan’s feelings come rushing back to the surface and he steps in to help the only man he’s ever truly wanted. And even though there’s no future for them, keeping Ren safe is all that matters and Declan will risk anything to make that happen. Tough as nails former soldier and mercenary Jagger Varos has returned to Seattle after years of running from his past and he’s hoping that joining Barretti Security Group will help him finally call the city he left behind home. But within weeks, his new beginning is tested after multiple run-ins with the gruff, infuriating Detective Hale. When he inadvertently discovers that Declan is hiding Ren from the very brothers offering Jagger a new start, Jagger finds himself torn between his newfound loyalty to Vin and Dom Barretti and the need to protect the young man he himself helped rescue from his captors. For Declan and Jagger, it’s hate at first sight but they soon realize that they will need each other if they have any hope of saving Ren from himself. And neither of them expects their mutual distrust in one another to grow into something else entirely or that Ren himself will find in both of them what he needs to rebuild his life and come to terms with who he really is. Can the fierce attraction between three men become something more or will the demands of the real world tear them apart?

All I ever wanted was to serve and protect my country. It ended up costing me everything…

At 49, Vincent St. James has learned to live with the choices he’s made, even if he isn’t always proud of them. After the military decided his sexuality was more important than his impeccable service record, Vincent lost everything, including the man he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with.

And a man with nothing to live for has nothing to lose.

With a bone deep hatred of all things government, Vincent found another way to serve his country, but it too came at a steep cost that he never could have foreseen. Dealing in secrets and death means there’s always someone waiting around the next corner trying to either take his place or bury their secrets along with his body. Even if he wanted out, it’s far too late for that.

When he’s given the chance to help out a friend who once had his back when others didn’t, he jumps at the chance to repay the favor. Even if it means protecting the kind of man he despises most…a power-hungry politician looking to push his own agenda on an unsuspecting public.


I made a terrible choice twelve years ago and it cost me the only person who ever really mattered to me. But maybe there’s another way I can make things right…

30-year-old Nathan Wilder can’t take back the moment he betrayed his twin brother, but he can try to make sure that the legacy of hate that drove him to turn on Brody never has a chance to rear its ugly head again. And if that means going against his powerful father’s right-wing political constituency in a down and dirty race for a seat in the U.S. Senate, then so be it. But when the threats that had been limited to harmless emails start taking an uglier turn, culminating in a violent attack that leaves no doubt as to the assailant’s intent, Nathan is thrown into the direct path of a mysterious and dangerous man who may end up forcing Nathan to confront truths he just isn’t ready to face yet.

Protecting him was supposed to be a favor for a friend and nothing more. Once he’s safe, I’ll let him go. I have to…

Protecting Nathan was supposed to be a walk in the park for a guy like Vincent. But nothing about the younger man is what he’d been expecting, especially the long-dead feelings Nathan stirs in him.

The feelings that aren’t just about protection.

Which is a problem, because while the threat against Nathan is temporary, the danger that’s become a way of life for Vincent is just waiting for the next thing it can take from him. Caring about someone means painting a target on their back and Vincent is done losing people he loves.

But letting Nathan go may not be as easy at seems…especially when Nathan decides to finally stand up and fight for what…and who he truly wants.

Protecting him was just to supposed to be another job. Until it wasn’t.

Two years after surviving a brutal attack from members of his own unit, former Special Forces soldier Cruz de la Vega has found new purpose working for an underground vigilante group that offers justice when the law can’t. When he’s assigned to figure out who attacked a local gay rights activist, Cruz expects it to be just another job.

But when it comes to protecting Elliot Wittier, he soon learns that the last thing he wants is for the intriguing young man to be just another job.

At twenty-five years old, Elliot Wittier is well on his way to having the perfect life. As the head of a hugely successful investment firm and the founder of a prominent foundation, he should be on top of the world.

But looks can be deceiving and Elliot knows how to play the game. With the fear of failing the two most important people in his life always at the forefront of his mind, Elliot keeps an iron-grip on the control that has served him so well in the past. But when a violent attack leaves him vulnerable, Elliot’s carefully constructed world starts to fracture. As he struggles to keep the threat under wraps, he’s thrown off guard when a gorgeous stranger takes an interest in him at a Halloween themed benefit. Throwing caution to the wind, Elliot decides to allow himself the freedom that being with the enigmatic Cruz de la Vega brings for just one night.

But what happens when one night isn’t enough? Or when the past catches up with the present? Can what two men found in each other in just twenty-four hours really last a lifetime?