Showing results by author "Lani Lynn Vale" in All Categories

Taos was tired. Tired of everything that came with living. Not to the point where he was suicidal or anything, but tired enough that he just didn’t give a crap anymore. He’d seen all the ugliness this world had to offer due to his job as a police officer for way too many damn years of his less than stellar life.

Flaws? He has them. Laws? He breaks them. Dues? He’s paid them. Scars? He bares them proudly. Lessons? He’s learned them. Problems? He has one. Her name is Iris, and she’s the one thing in his life that he can’t control.

Toxic: very harmful or unpleasant in an invasive or sinister way. One word. Two consonants. Five letters. Two people. Quinn James Carter met Solei Shayne Rodriguez his senior year of high school. At first, he tried to stay away from her. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and if there were two people in this world who were meant to be together, it was Shayne and him. Sadly, life doesn’t work out like you plan.

Coke Solomon has lived a full life. He’s a retired army drill sergeant, so he is more than used to getting his way. And if he can’t have it his way? Well, let’s just say that’s never happened before... At least not until Cora Maldonado walks into his life, demanding he fall in line, or she’ll find a way to make his life hell. It doesn’t matter that she’s younger than him, and has a father that would rather see him dead than have his baby girl anywhere near him. Nor does it matter that his ex-wife is highly offended that she’s been replaced with a much younger woman.

Bad boy. Screw-up. Good for nothing. Hero. Angel. These were all words Grayson 'Torren' Trammel had heard whispered behind his back over his lifetime. What he hadn't heard was 'quitter,' and he'd be damned if some little rehab chick, with her beautiful brown hair, and hot, sassy little mouth was going to label him as such. Tru knows Grayson's not for her. He's too bad. Too hot. Too demanding. Too taken. She tells herself that almost daily as she helps Grayson get back into fighting shape after a horrific accident nearly ripped his life away from him.

Baylor Hail knew two things. One, he hated crying females. Two, it was even worse when he was the one to make that female cry. He never meant to do anything but his job, but when one thing leads to another, suddenly all he can think about is the broken woman whose car he towed.

Going from a professional baseball player to a SWAT officer should’ve been seamless. Should have been. But it wasn’t. All it took was one single calendar shoot for word to spread that Nathan Cox was not only no longer playing professional baseball, but he was also the man behind saving the life of Reggie Morton, the city of Kilgore’s princess. Reggie didn’t know that by agreeing to provide the expertise and the know-how for the Police Officer’s Ball that she would be required to actually attend the function.

His Wranglers fit him like a glove. A really tight, leaving nothing to the imagination, glove. Codie wants nothing more than to shove that Wrangler-covered butt straight into the mud. Ace Valentine has a smart mouth, a devil-may-care attitude, and those wicked eyes aimed directly at her. She doesn't know what to do with that kind of attention. Especially not from the sweet-talking man that has no problem charming every woman that enters his orbit - everyone but her, at least.

There’s a crush, and then, there are the type of feelings that Croft Cruisie evokes from a person. He’s everything that any straight woman would want: tall, handsome, charismatic, muscular, and sweet. At least, Carmichael thought he was sweet, until he brings another woman to the gym she owns with her brother, on the night that’s to be their first date, and lets her know in a quick and painful, nonverbal way that her feelings are not reciprocated. Fast forward six months, and she’s still trying to move on from the rejection.

Well, technically speaking, maybe not. But the ones that haunt a man's soul? Those are very real. So real, in fact, that there are times when Castiel would rather silence them forever in the worst way possible than to go on living with them haunting his every step. All it took was one single second in time for his attention to drift, and everything changed. Life as he once knew it, is over. Now he's struggling to make sense of the pieces that are left, and he's fairly sure at least half of them are missing.

A porn video changed his life. One second, he has an ex with an ax to grind, and the next, he’s internet famous - and definitely not in a good way. In an, it’ll ruin your career, kind of way. Only, Laric didn’t know that he was internet famous. Not until a black-haired beauty walks into his life, and stumbles over every word that she says because all she can picture is him doing the unthinkable for the world to see. Sadly, that’s not the only thing wrong in his life. His world is messed up, and he likes it that way. There’s no room for a woman that wants to fix him.

Nash Wilder Christopherson was the world’s golden boy. For fifteen years, she watched Nash race from the safety of her phone. Every single race, PR event, ESPN interview—she was there for it. He was the one thing that kept her sane while having to live the life her father forced her to. That was all he’d ever be to her, though. A face on the other side of the screen.

Nastya Semyonov first met Haze at a bar, but for Haze Hopkins, duty calls before either can act on their desires. He’s gone without a glance back, leaving her thinking that maybe all the hot looks were only one-sided. Fast forward to the next day, Nastya hitches a ride to her car that she left behind the night before, only to run into the same man from last night. Neither one truly thinks before they act, and they spend a hot fifteen minutes in a fast-food restaurant bathroom before parting ways again.

Crockett Archer, better known as a doormat extraordinaire, didn’t walk away from the people she knew needed her. She’d never been able to do it with a father that didn’t love her, and she wouldn’t be able to do it with a man that didn’t think he deserved a chance at love. One look is all it takes for Zach Caruso to know that Crockett could be his. All he would have to do is snap his fingers, and she’d fall right into the palm of his hand. Which is why Zach turns around and walks far, far away.

After a horrible marriage, Haggard has zero plans of ever finding a woman again. One-night stands not counting, he adores his life as a single man. There are no expectations. No "where are yous" and "are you coming homes". The life he chooses to live is a simple one. Until he makes a huge mistake, and he steps over that line between "daughter’s best friend" and "a woman he desperately wants". Before long, he can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop wanting her. Can’t stop feeling things for her that a man 20 years her senior should never feel for a girl he watched grow up.

Nico met the love of his life when he was 17. Immediately, he realizes that the gap in their ages is too significant to make a move on her until she's legal in the eyes of the law. So he joins the United States Navy, killing time until he can come home to her again. But a tragedy strikes while Georgia is alone and vulnerable, and with no other recourse, Georgia leaves, disappearing without a trace. He finds her, but quickly realizes that she needs the time to herself to work out her problems. He leaves her be, knowing that if she ever felt anything for him, she'd come back home to him.

Wolf knows that this is not a good idea. There are a million reasons—all of them bad—telling him exactly why he should stay away. But when Raven's nightmares burst out of her dreams and into her reality, he doesn't have a choice anymore. He has to protect her, while somehow protecting his battered heart.

Foster made a promise in his hospital bed when his leg was taken from him that he'd get back to 100 percent. Leg or no leg, he'd get back on the SWAT team if it killed him. And he does get back. But he has a problem: He can't let go of the past. The anger burns deep, making his emotions volatile at the best of times. Then he meets Blake with her haughty attitude and inability to distinguish the difference between a pocket knife and a sword. Little by little, she makes him whole again, one bad joke at a time.

Piper Mackenzie first sees him shirtless, standing in front of the military plane she was about to board, with one rather large wrench in his hand. The fact that he has the plane - the one that she’s about to be flying on for hours - in pieces only minutes before she’s set to take off on it doesn’t faze her. At least, not until a flippant joke about dying in midair leaves his lips.

Ford Spurlock has known Ashe Trammel since they were babies. He’s also done his level best to stay away from her because every time he gets to within five feet of her, they’re fighting like cats and dogs. Ashe is the apple of her father’s eye. The motorcycle club princess that was never to be harmed in any way - or touched for that matter. Fast forward to adulthood, and Ashe is still off limits. Still driving him insane. Still...beautiful. She never misses an opportunity to give him hell, either.