Showing results by narrator "Avery Caris" in All Categories

I didn’t expect to see Rylee Creed after her brother’s funeral. That’s the initial reason my jaw hangs slack when she walks into Bent Pedal a month later. The loss of my friend hit me hard, but that’s nothing compared to the crash she’s endured. Grief and misery still shadow her every move. But she’s not alone.

I’ve been in love with Jacob Blake since he the day he picked me up in his strong arms, holding me close. I was five years old. I spent my life chasing after him—trying to make him see I'm more than just his sister’s little friend. I never dreamed getting his attention would also destroy him. One night....

Carine Bennett has become so pragmatic about dating that she’ll settle for anyone who can make her feel something beyond mere sufferance. She may be bleakly self-deprecating in her half-serious request for her longtime fetish club peer to have her way with her, but Heidi Dowd doesn’t think there’s anything funny about the suggestion. Although Heidi had vowed to never again be intimate with women who made her their “exception,” she’s willing to put Carine through her paces.

Finley Dunkley hates flying. And more than that, she hates flying in the window seat. When she asks the stranger beside her to switch, she doesn’t expect a blunt dismissal of her request. She also doesn’t expect to fall asleep on his shoulder. It’s embarrassing, but at least she won’t ever see the man again…or so she thinks.

I swore to myself that I’d never cross that line with her. But when Savannah Monroe, my chief operations officer, shows up on my doorstep with a proposition that starts with her in my lap and a promise of just this once…breaking the rules suddenly seems so enticing.

I used to believe love was easy to find. My whirlwind romance would begin once I was ready to take the plunge. Spoiler alert—every failed first date on record suggests otherwise. Just when I’m beginning to fault my lofty standards, Garrett Foster saunters onto the scene. The football star turned bar owner is quick to volunteer his services. He vows to deliver the best version of Mr. Right—just to prove first impressions deserve a second glance.

Stef blamed the dating app. She saw his picture—his smile, the rugged line of his jaw, the way the man could fill out a suit, and like an idiot, she fell a bit in love with him. Idiot because no one ever really looked like their profile pic. Idiot also because if the man did look like his profile pic, then he certainly wasn’t going to be into a science geek who binged old sci-fi shows on the regular. But in a night of drunken insanity, she swiped right. Then in a morning of hungover unpleasantness, she saw that he’d swiped right, too. Suddenly, she found herself on a date.

Born into a life of wealth and privilege, Veronica Vanderbilt has never wanted for anything. Aside from a man, that is… Thanks to her overprotective father, Ronnie’s lovelife is non-existent. Attending a prestigious music school in Nashville seems like the perfect solution. There, she can pursue her dreams and finally find someone to punch her V-card…

Playing football is the only thing I've ever been good at and the thought of being a dad after my own is such a deadbeat terrifies me. But my son will know who I am... And June? The girl I haven't stopped thinking about for four years? I wasn't ready for her back then, and I'm not sure that's changed. I can't afford distractions. Not with my contract ending at the end of the season. So why do I invite them to live with me after a plumbing disaster destroys her apartment? Because I'm addicted. Addicted to her smiles, her curves, those damn yoga pants she wears around the house.

Isaac Icari—the God of Hazelwood University—my stepbrother, my lover, my enemy. It was dangerous to let myself be swept up by him, but he’s a drug that I crave. I should have walked away the second I realized what he was involved with, when he revealed who his father truly was. Now it’s too late. We should have known better. Get too close to the sun and you get burned. I have no one to blame but myself. He is my downfall, and I am his.

Kate McLeod was desperate. Her younger sister was having her first baby, her younger brother was recently married, and Christmas was coming. And in the McLeod household, Christmas was everything. Every year, her parents’ house looked like an assembly of angels had puked everywhere. Well, this year she had a plan. She was going to get herself engaged. A diamond ring on her finger was the perfect way to get her family to back off. And she had just the perfect guy in mind.

Trust me when I say you do not want to make the same mistake I did. His name is Colton. Colton Hart. He's my brother's best friend. My nemesis. The man who fired me after working for him for one hour. Now he's my latest mistake.

This past weekend my fiancé (24 M) and I (23 F) were at a party at a friend’s and I’ll admit we both got pretty wasted.... Apparently sometime that night he asked me if it was okay to summon a demon for a threesome before our wedding, and according to him, I told him, “Yes.” I don’t actually remember this happening so clearly? But his friends must have heard me—because a week later, they’d all pitched in to have a Delectably Demonic ™ summoning kit delivered to our house for him.

Castor DeMatteo has been off-limits since I was a teenager. He used to be a nice jock who'd rustle my hair like I was his kid sister. Now? He's a capo of the Valentino crime family, lathered in ink and covered in gold rings… everywhere. How do I know? Because one night, at the restaurant where I work, he rented the back room and asked me to work it. There's only one problem… He's my brother's best friend.

Archer’s a corporate guy with the condo in the city, the expensive car, and the snooty friends I was never good enough for. And I’m not the girl he thought I was—polished, refined, and classy. I’ve got dirt on my boots—and in my hair, dusting my face, and covering my old truck. Our marriage was never going to work. I should just sign the papers.

Today was an epic disaster. I was supposed to be walking down the aisle in front of all my friends and family, getting married to a man I thought I was supposed to be spending the rest of my life with, not drowning my sorrows in a vodka soda. But after finding my fiancé intimately getting to know his best man, I was out of options… and a groom. So I hiked up my wedding dress and walked to the nearest bar. In my defense, I wasn't looking for a one night stand, but then he came in with his irresistible dimples, his gigantic muscles, and a smirk that knocked the tiara straight off my head.

Joey Lucrazi ratted on his entire family, and now because of it, I'm forced to live in fear of retaliation. I count down the days in witness protection until I'm caught, but it turns out reality is worse than imagination when Leandro Rigiano—the most ruthless hitman in the five families—comes knocking. Six feet of tattooed muscle stomps into our quiet house and takes his revenge, revealing that the rat I married also took the life of Leandro's wife. Now I'm his prisoner, and he's not at all what I expect.

As the rookie catcher of the Daytona Fury, I have a lot to prove. Not only do I need to be perfect on the field, but I'm doing it all while fulfilling a promise to the woman who raised me. Graduating college was never as important to me as it was to my grandma, but I gave her my word that I'd finish, even though my future in the majors was sealed. When I find out I need one more class—one I know nothing about—I decide to hire a tutor to help me through it. But as soon as we get into our lessons, I realize I want her to teach me much more than the curriculum suggests.

It began with a cock. Of the rooster variety. It ended with a groomsman toppling into the wedding cake. Heidi hadn’t meant to be a bad bridesmaid. She loved her best friend and the man Kate was marrying. Who she didn’t love? The groom’s brother. The cocky - no pun intended - jerk had made Heidi aware of exactly what he thought of her. That being, she wasn’t worth anything more than a quick romp and a disappearing act before the sun rose.

The white dress. The diamond ring. The full church. The...missing groom. Molly Miller had become a cliché when Jackson Davis left her at the altar, but she’d crawled back from the heartbreak and embarrassment and was living her dream of running a successful eatery in San Francisco.