Showing results by narrator "Shirl Rae" in All Categories

It should have been simple. Easy come, easy go, and in between, atonement. She was not who I would have chosen. Gwen was delicate and lovely: a former model with a ruined life, living loudly in the quiet of the Smoky Mountains, healing injured bears. When she laid her hands on me, she healed me too. That's how it began. That's where it went wrong. I knew she could never be mine. But I sinned. I sinned.

Nate: It's nearly impossible to be surrounded by love but not understand it. My parents, my sister, and just about everyone around us has no trouble accepting that love. To give your trust to someone else and believe they would die before hurting you. I've witnessed it - I've seen the power of it - but I've also seen the pain. Because for me, I've only loved someone I could never have, and my biggest fear is that by giving her my love, all I would do is ruin her.

I have three cardinal rules: Never mix business with pleasure. Never let a woman spend the night. Never date a woman with kids. Kids freak me out. God only knows how many this baby daddy has. Man, what was I thinking when I was in college? Me, Drake Hanson. Aka Donor 5262. It was a piece of cake and $1,500 a month for my deposits (in sperm bank speak) came in handy. I just didn't think about the consequences. One day, some kid is going to call me Daddy, and I'm going to get hit up for child support.

Engaged and happily in love, Allison Scott and Damien Wales are looking forward to joining their lives together as one. Coming from a mournful year after losing her parents, Allison is ready to heal and move on to the next chapter with the love of her life. But Damien's past continues to threaten their future. A man once obsessed with Damien's sister is now after his one and only love, Allison. The woman who came before Allison is determined to captivate Damien's heart.

Army combat veteran and registered nurse Erin Olszewski's most deeply held values were put to the test when she arrived as a travel nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. After serving in Iraq, she was back on the front lines - and this time, she found, the situation was even worse. Rooms were filthy, nurses were lax with sanitation measures, and hospital-acquired cases of COVID-19 were spreading like wildfire.

There is a love so fierce it cannot be measured. A heart so strong it will never slow. There is a promise so sure it can never lie. He promised me that love forever. Even when it wasn't enough. Forever. Everlasting. Eternal. There is no measure of time. No sounds of the ticking of a clock. Just the rising and falling of the sun and our own sense of forever. But our forever isn't always.

As far as Declan Waterford is concerned, women are off limits—at least until he can earn enough money for his brother's surgery. The dueling piano gig at Vegas's Masquerade hotel barely pays enough . . . but if Declan can convince his boss to promote him, he'll be set. Between drowning in mistakes at her editorial internship and fighting off her father's demands that she relocate to Vegas and join his hotel empire, Melody Sumner doesn't have time for love—or one-night stands with sexy Irish piano players—no matter how appetizing Declan is. 

Navy SEAL Maverick Hart has everything. Women want him. Grown men idolize him. The job, the glory - it's all his. Not because it's handed to him but because he works hard for it. The second his sights lock on something, he owns it-or destroys it. Windsor Forbes only takes calculated risks in her profession and in her personal life. After being left at the altar by the only person she's ever loved, the very last thing she's looking for is a relationship - especially the insane brand an arrogant Navy SEAL is offering.

It's at a cocktail party in her honour that she first meets him - and the attraction is immediate for graduate student Francesca Arno. It's also bewildering. She's not used to such a wholesale sexual response to a stranger. Enigmatic, darkly intense, with a commanding presence, billionaire Ian Noble completely unnerves her. And she likes it. For Ian, Francesca is the kind of woman he can't resist - one that comes all too rarely: a true innocent. But he can sense in her a desire to open up, to experiment, to give herself to the fantasies of a man in control.

Ryder Diamond - the town's golden boy - doesn't have time for taking chances, let alone love. Against his better judgment, he lets his buddies set him up on a blind date with a girl who's only passing through town. But temporary or not, Whitney James sets fire to desires he can't control.

It's her best friend's wedding, and Autumn Lane is trussed up in a pink bridesmaid dress with a big "everything is great" smile plastered across her face. She's not going think about her life imploding, or spending the next two weeks housesitting in the ridiculously small town of Diamond. No, she'd rather think about the tattooed hottie in the wedding party...and how to turn the wicked way he's looking at her into a night of intense pleasure.

Once, when I was young and stupid, I had that boy. The charmer, the Adonis, the one who torched every woman's panties in our small town. He was my brother's best friend, practically part of the family. When he proposed, he promised me forever. Then the bastard disappeared without a word. It's taken five years to get over Ryan. I drowned myself crying a thousand times over. I moved on. I'm finally remembering what it's like to smile, when guess who shows up? Everything about him is different. For one, he's become a freakin' billionaire

Maddy and Reid have seen their fair share of trials and tribulations, of love and loss. Facing down the biggest challenges of their young lives, they managed to survive and endure. With the future stretching out before them, they must learn to navigate new and unfamiliar paths.

London Stallone hasn't always had the perfect life, but she did have the perfect older brother. He did everything for her. He took care of her when no one else would. He'd always been the shoulder she could lean on, but when he ends up murdered, things take a turn for the worse. London soon demands answers, and the first person she runs to is her brother's coworker and good friend, Donovan "Ace" Crow. Ace isn't an ordinary guy. He doesn't come equipped with flowers and chocolate. He's strict and only about business.

Sadie Quinn is at the romance readers' convention for one reason only: to find editor Jocelyn Dellarivier. Which she could do if she didn't keep running into the most frustrating, gorgeous man ever. To make matters worse, she just won a contest and a date with him is the prize. Jake Blaine could kill his boss for rigging the contest, but now he's face to face with the one woman who could expose his alter ego. He's not about to leave, but he can't tell Sadie he's the editor she's looking for. 

Romance novelist Kelsey Spencer doesn't believe in love, and she's tired of faking her way through happily ever afters. Determined to change things up, she heads to the Las Vegas Romance Lovers Convention. But somewhere between half-naked cover models and hot Navy SEALs, Kelsey's plans derail . . . Especially once she meets über-fan Jasmine Grant . . . and Jasmine's über-hot alphahole brother, Aaron.

Kelsey Kyle will do whatever it takes to get a promotion at the casino where she works. If she can set-up a one-on-one fan experience with tall-dark-and-intense Micah Holmes, she's in. The only problem? Micah wants her. And when he discovers her secret agenda, all bets are off. Anything beyond a "strictly professional" relationship will get Kelsey fired, but she needs to get close to Micah to get the super fan experience her client wants. Hot sex in her apartment pool begins a game of "undercover lover" that quickly escalates to something more. 

Romance author Kamaria Wilson came to Las Vegas with nothing to lose. A one-night stand with a delicious man is just the distraction she needs . . . until one night with him doesn't feel like enough. Panicked, she skips out on the morning-after encore and hides out at the poker tables. After his hot one-night stand goes MIA, security specialist Jack Aldirisi is sure he'll never see her again. But when he's called in to the casino for an unexpected special assignment, Lady Luck smiles down on Jack. For the rest of the weekend, he'll be by his missing woman's side.

After losing out on a plum assignment, a romance book conference is the last place journalist Sheridan Farlow wants to be. Love is a myth—like flattering changing room mirrors—and she has the past relationships to prove it. Her editor wants a story? Fine. She'll write an entire expose...only it doesn't go according to plan. Bernard "Mac" Mackenzie is something of an anomaly in the romance-writing world—a man who writes romance and believes in it. And until he met Sheridan, Mac's never felt anything close to the love he writes about. He needs more of her. In his arms. In his bed.

Author Jessie Jameson is the Bad Girl of romance, making a huge name for herself writing love stories with sizzling hot sex scenes. No one needs to know that her real-life inspiration is sexy publishing exec Grayson Reynolds. Or that after the hottest sex of her life, Grayson walked out on her. Grayson's finally taken the reins of his family's publishing business, and he's determined to sell off the romance division. But Jessie Jameson's contract is complicating things. It's like she's been trying to ruin him ever since the mind-blowing night they shared.