“Am I joining The Syndicate?”

“No.” His answer came with quiet amusement. “You’re doing something considerably more dangerous.”

“Oh?”

“Loving one of its men.”

I was intrigued by this fiery-mouthed woman wrapped in freckles and flame. She stirred something within me, a hunger for redemption—mine and perhaps even hers.

~Dr. Atticus Thorin, Night Shift

In that split second when I locked eyes with this devastatingly lethal masterpiece of untamed beauty—mine searching to understand, hers hardened in resolve—I knew one thing with absolute clarity: she wasn’t the kind of woman a man walked away from unscathed. She fought like a demon, looked like a damn dream, and if I had any sense, I’d focus on survival instead of how much I wanted to pin her down for entirely different reasons. Whether I made it out of this fight or not, I was already a goner. She wasn’t just dangerous—she was the kind of trouble men lost themselves in.

~Braxton Thorin, Mission Shift

Every selfish part of me wanted to tell her she was already mine.

But I refused to use the worst day of her life to decide the rest of it for her.

Eyes never lie, and hers told me she’d just bet her life on my word. Maybe it was courage. Maybe desperation. Maybe fate had finally decided to put someone worth protecting in my path. Whatever had brought a beautiful woman to her knees between mine with my freedom in her hand, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I would die before I let her regret choosing me.

He, a man who took what he wanted, had no way of knowing that he held a woman who had never been taken. He had no idea I was still a virgin, that I’d never done any of this before.

I’d kept it to myself, thinking I would know when the right time would be for my first lover.

And now, somehow, the right time looked a hell of a lot like being pinned against a wall and f***ed by a man who’d stalked me for weeks.

~Lyla Oakley, Eyes on You

A dangerous escape, bullets in the air, and Lachlan still manages to wreck Isabella with two words.

“Good girl.”

Under any other circumstances, those two words would have done terrible things to my concentration.

At the moment, I was mostly trying not to get shot.

Kol seemed intent on savoring every moment, stretching time until it became a malleable, pliant thing in his hands. His deliberate and precise way of claiming my body would leave an indelible mark on my memory. It was both exciting and a little terrifying, the thought of this confident, possessive pilot taking command of my pleasure.

~Noelle Nichols, Christmas Cancellation

“From the moment fate brought me into your emergency department, you became the best example of what a man should be. Honest, even when I couldn’t be truthful about my past. Kind, when no one else was. Giving, to a complete stranger without hesitation. Funny, when things were at their worst. You protected my heart, my soul, and my body. You understood me even when I didn’t understand myself.”

~Anastasia Volkov, Day Shift

Eyes never lie, and hers told me she’d just bet her life on my word. Maybe it was courage. Maybe desperation. Maybe fate had finally decided to put someone worth protecting in my path. Whatever had brought a beautiful woman to her knees between mine with my freedom in her hand, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I would die before I let her regret choosing me.