The Secret 04 The Ever After of Ella and Micha (24 page)

Quinton once got a second chance at life—but he doesn’t want it. The tattoos on his chest are a constant reminder of what he’s done, what he’s lost. He’s sworn to never allow happiness into his life… but then beautiful, sweet Nova makes him smile. He knows he’s too damaged to get close to her, yet she’s the only one who can make him feel alive again. Quinton will have to decide: Does he deserve to start over? Or should he pay for his past forever?

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In the bestselling tradition of J.A. Redmerski, Jessica Sorensen, S.C. Stephens, and Jamie McGuire…

IF YOU STAY

Twenty-four-year-old Pax Tate is an asshole. Seriously. He’s a tattooed, rock-hard bad boy with a tough attitude to match. His mother died when Pax was seven, leaving a hole in his heart filled with an intense guilt that he doesn’t understand. What he does know is that he and his dad were left alone, and they have never been close. Now, he uses drugs and women to cope with the black void in his soul. He pretends that the emptiness isn’t there and this has always worked… until he meets Mila.

Sweet, beautiful Mila Hill is the fresh air that Pax has never known in his life. He doesn’t know how to not hurt her, but he quickly realizes that he’d better figure it out because he needs her to breathe. When the memories of his mother’s death resurface to haunt Pax, Mila is there to save him from his overwhelming guilt. Mila restores his broken heart, even as she evokes his powerful, sexual desires. Now for Pax to keep Mila, he needs to work on his issues and stop being an asshole. But is that enough to make her stay?

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IF YOU LEAVE

Twenty-six-year-old Gabriel Vincent is a badass hero. Or he used to be, anyway. As an ex-Army Ranger, Gabe never thought he needed anyone. But after one horrible night in Afghanistan scars him in a way that he can’t get past, he needs someone who can help him heal… even if he doesn’t realize it.

Twenty-five-year-old Madison Hill doesn’t need anybody… or so she thinks. She grew up watching her parents’ messed-up, abusive relationship and she knows there’s no way in hell that she’s ever letting that happen to her.

They don’t know it in the beginning, but Gabriel and Madison will soon develop a weakness: each other.

But Gabriel’s got a secret, a hidden monster that he’s afraid Maddy could never overcome… and Maddy’s got issues that she’s afraid Gabe will never understand. They quickly realize that they need each other to be whole, but at the same time they know that they’ve got demons to fight.

And the problem with demons is that they never die quietly.

* * *

Sometimes before we fall… we fly.

One dark moment was all it took to turn twenty-four-year-old Dominic Kinkaide’s world black. On the night of his high school graduation, a single incident changed him forever, and he became a hardened man—famous in the eyes of the world, but tortured inside. Now all he cares about is losing himself in the roles that he plays.

At twenty-three years old, Jacey Vincent doesn’t realize how much her father’s indifference has affected her. She is proof that sometimes it isn’t one specific moment that wrecks a person but an absence of moments. She tries to find acceptance in the arms of men to fill the void—a plan that has worked just fine for her until she meets Dominic.

When jaded Dominic and strong-willed Jacey are thrown together, the combination of his secrets and her issues turns their attraction into the perfect storm. It could change their lives for good—if it doesn’t tear them both apart…

* * *

No one knows who twenty-one year-old Adrian Westfall is behind his façade. After what he’s done, he deserves to live alone with his pain, even if he’d do anything to forget. Anything for a moment of quiet without his past haunting him.

Eighteen-year-old Delaney Cross wants nothing more than to absolve her family from her father’s sins. To keep her suicidal mom off that ledge, and help her brother Maddox get the light back in his eyes. She thinks their road to freedom is through Adrian.

Adrian and Delaney are bound together by tragedy… only Adrian doesn’t know it.

As their lives intertwine, they find a solace in each other they never knew existed. Laney knows she needs to tell him—to come out from behind her smoke screen, but to say the words could mean losing him.

Two people. Two disguises. True love.

Will it be enough to save them when all secrets are bared?

* * *

After his father is put in prison for murder, leaving his mother suicidal, Maddox Cross has always put his sister, Laney, first. Now living in Brenton, Virginia, Maddox has no idea what to do with his life, especially since Laney no longer needs him. One thing he does know is for the first time since losing football, he’s found something else that’s just for him—tattooing. When he meets a feisty young woman in the club where he works security, he has no idea that she has the ability to change his life forever.

Bee Malone has just moved to Brenton to open up her first tattoo parlor, Masquerade. Despite her young success, nothing is ever as it seems. After being kidnapped at a young age, Bee has difficulty being the daughter her parents lost and letting go of the “parents” she was raised with. When she meets Maddox, she’s immediately attracted to him and what starts out as a one-night stand leaves Bee wanting to connect with him in more ways than one.

Once Maddox finds out about Masquerade, he wants nothing more than to join Bee. But letting him in means trying to figure out who she is, and she’s not ready for that. And yet, as the two get closer, they find themselves leaning on each other more than they are comfortable with. Will their stubborn nature tear them apart? Or push them closer together?

* * *

Sometimes life takes you off course…

THE EDGE OF NEVER

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett thought she knew exactly where her life was going. But after a wild night at the hottest club in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, she shocks everyone—including herself—when she decides to leave the only life she’s ever known and set out on her own. Grabbing her purse and her cell phone, Camryn boards a Greyhound bus ready to find herself. Instead, she finds Andrew Parrish.

Sexy and exciting, Andrew lives life like there is no tomorrow. He persuades Camryn to do things she never thought she would and shows her how to give in to her deepest, most forbidden desires. Soon he becomes the center of her daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But there is more to Andrew than Camryn realizes. Will his secret push them inseparably together—or destroy them forever?

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