Showing results by narrator "Michael Dean" in All Categories

Sadly, there’s no What to Expect manual for navigating life after forty. Right when I’ve begun piecing together my life as a widower and single dad to four older kids, my college-age daughter announces she’s pregnant. Oh, baby. And, of course, the other grandfather-to-be is the hot, single bar owner seemingly determined to flirt his way into my locked heart. Magnus is a temptation I don’t need. When a fire leaves Magnus and his dogs without a home, I offer my carriage house as a solution.

Lane’s Tips for Licking Thicket Newcomers: If at all possible, find yourself a hot and helpful landlord like Jaybird Proud who mows the lawn shirtless… and hope your grass grows quickly. Expect the unexpected at work. If you’re a veterinarian, this might mean letter-cows, pet pigs that aren’t pets, and Butterscotch the Pomeranian, who has Strong Feelings about his glands.

Pretending to be like everyone else is exhausting, but I've mastered it. No one knows what really lurks behind the mask I wear every day. I'm not like others. I don't experience emotions like they do. I have no need for human connection, but when I see Tyshawn, that changes. One look and I know he's mine. It doesn't matter that I've never been with a man before. He makes me want, he makes me burn. When he catches me… working… my second job, he has to decide if he wants to stay with me. I have to convince him that I'm willing to do anything for him… including slaying some of his demons.

Hockey is my life. It's my only goal, my only escape, and everything was going according to plan. All I had to do was focus on the game, keep my head down, then get drafted into the NHL. Starting my senior year at FU, everything was as perfect as always. But sometimes, just because you play on the same team, doesn't mean you can play nice. And it turns out I enjoy taunting a certain teammate just as much as I enjoy being on the ice. Daemon Forbes loathes me, but I love nothing more than fanning the flames of that hatred into an inferno.

I’m a lucky man and I know it. Kids from backwoods Georgia don’t land scholarships to Yale, but I did, and striking it rich–like, billions of dollars rich–with my best friends after graduation should have used up my luck for a lifetime. But luck struck again when I followed my passion into music. My career exploded, and now I get to travel the world, performing for thousands of raving fans every night.

I don’t do emotions or romantic entanglements. My life is simple: I work hard and I play hard, with anyone willing. I’m not discriminatory. And then I go home…alone. Until my body decides to stop cooperating. Nothing is stirring anymore, and it scares me to death. While navigating this issue, support comes from an unlikely source. Ennio, my best friend’s little brother, is sweet and sassy but also stubborn in his decision to be there for me. He’s the vibrant glittery sunshine to my grumpy black heart.

If there were a prize for the most contented man in Copper County, I’d win it every time. I’ve got my business. My son. My family. My friends… and no romantic prospects, sure, but only because I don’t need any. My life’s great as it is. Seriously. Could not be better. I’m practically bleeding serenity over here. At least until Jasper Wrigley shows up in Copper County after twenty years–as my son’s temporary hockey coach, no less, though the man could barely lace up his skates back in the day–and throws my carefully ordered life into chaos.

I meet an intriguing man at Quinton’s annual Halloween Extravaganza. That wicked smile and the tawny-brown eyes behind his mask hold my gaze. Under his costume, the restless energy of his body promises to do explosive, unexpected things to me. So we indulge in a little fun, but when the clock strikes midnight, the man I know only as Rayne disappears into the crowd.

As a psychiatrist, I expect to encounter psycho- and sociopathic patients. I never have the urge to kill them. Until one patient triggers a need inside me. I expect the kill to be easy, just like the others. What I don't expect is to want to possess my patient's boyfriend, June. As soon as I lay eyes on June, I know he's mine. He'll find out soon enough.

At 19, Beck Barretti is living two lives. To his family, he’s a young man trying to find his way after years of battling a mental illness that nearly cost him everything. But to the rest of the world, he’s just another privileged kid with problems. The truth doesn’t even lie somewhere in between, because Beck’s entire life is actually about keeping secrets. Spending a summer in Dare, Montana, with family friends isn’t about starting fresh - it’s about escaping the crippling darkness that threatens to consume him. Until one encounter ends up changing everything.

From the moment Richard and his rhinestone cowboy hat show up at the Silver Fork Ranch, nothing is as expected. Not the beautiful vistas, not the terrifying horses, not the friendly people, not the epic quantities of cow manure, and definitely not Boone Hammond, the rugged rancher whose eyes are a little too intense, whose expectations are a little too high, and whose kisses are...a lot too tempting.

Though Raven Mathis and Miguel Huerta have recently opened their new recovery business, doing things they used to do on their own, things haven’t been going so well. But some things have gone right. They’ve settled down in Nana’s house and are deeply in love. And they’re getting accustomed to working as partners, but business is slow. But when they get a call asking if they can help recover a valuable pigeon’s blood ruby, they jump at the chance, even though they’re advised to carry guns.

Webb Sunday is the straight single dad next door. He’s lumberjack-gorgeous, strong and steady as the trees in his family orchard, a grumpy fairy-tale prince...and entirely off-limits. Or so I thought. Until the drunken night the two of us walked into a bar...and landed ourselves in the middle of small-town history. Who knew hand-fasting was still a thing? The town of Little Pippin Hollow did. And once this bunch of meddling Vermonters gets wind of our accidental betrothal, they are determined to see us seal the deal.

Out and proud NFL star tight end Tad Roarke has success, money, and fame. Just about everything. Except a good reputation. After being outed by the media as a promiscuous cheat, sponsors are dropping him left and right. To make matters worse, he's been targeted as the next victim of an anti-gay celebrity serial killer. The FBI works with his team to protect him, assigning agent Bryce Finnegan as his undercover bodyguard. But Tad doesn't like Bryce from the get-go. The fed thinks he's a spoiled brat. Maybe he's right.

The first time I saw Zeke on the ice, I knew he was mine. My brother said I was stalking Zeke, but I like to think of it as showing my appreciation. I pretended it was just a game, something to keep me occupied since my family didn't really need me. The way Zeke searched the stands for me when he thought I wasn’t watching let me know he wanted me too, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. One day he'd give in. That was inevitable.

The whole red suit and beard should’ve been a turn-off, not to mention the reindeer and sleigh. Oh, and his age. The guy’s easily twenty years older than me. But when I spot the super sexy Santa someone hired for my dad’s bachelor party—don’t ask—I want to sit on his lap and tell him all I want for Christmas is him. The good news is that Santa—whose real name is Ellery—is into men and, more specifically, me. And he’s not opposed to me sitting on his lap at all. Or taking a ride on…I mean with him. We’re having our own wonderful Christmas time.

Syren sacrificed the man he loved to spare humanity from the wrath of the fae. For three hundred years, he’s been stuck on the mortal plane, floating alone in his pool while his powers slipped away. The last fae in the realm, his only companion is a mysterious bird until Audric, King of Aranthe, comes to claim his sword—the instrument that caused the rift between Faerie and the human realm.re for three centuries of touch-starvation.

I let Vinnie seduce me. I was an easy mark. I would have granted him anything, but I didn't know who he was. I didn't know I was setting a man up for death. But even now I still want him, and he has no intention of letting me go.

From the first moment they met, Tanner McCreary and Fitz Walker have always had a love-hate relationship. One that bordered more on the latter, much to the chagrin of Tanner—who knew from first glance that Fitz was his alpha. For some reason, Fitz acted like he wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Even with the scent masking drug, Scentex, keeping them free, an omega’s alphas always seemed to sense something in the air when close.

It was supposed to be a straightforward protection job. Remove the target from Vermont, get him to the safehouse, keep him there until his mafia uncle testifies, get back in my employer’s good graces. But it turns out things get complicated real fast when your target is an adorkable, accident-prone cutie with a shockingly low sense of self-preservation, zero clue that he’s related to the Fromadgio crime boss, and 100% too much inclination to chat happily with strangers.