"When are you going to do the very thing you always say that you want?" Atlas continued. Calix released his held breath, willing the tightness in his chest to relax, but found, instead, his teeth grinding together. "Which is what?" Atlas spoke evenly. "Cast off your mother's influence and make up your own mind. Do you like Flynn or not?" Calix snapped out his answer. "Yes." ----- Billionaire, Calix Steele has forever lived in the shadow his father cast when he died and the scarcity and neglect at the hands of his mother. Until he meets Flynn Burckhardt. She's all the things he's never looked...

In association with THE EDGE BOOKS. www.TheEdge-Books.com I'm pregnant." All the air left his chest in a whoosh. Opening and closing his mouth, he sought for breath that wouldn't come. Then his legs gave way, and he sank onto the tile in the hallway. Pregnant. Mari was pregnant. ----- A fall from grace. A miracle of life. A gift of forgiveness. Mari Tatum has a secret. Forced to be Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the church play, she finds herself working alongside Shay McNab, the very boy she's keeping a secret from. Yet in the story of Christ's birth, she finds that in God's hands her fall...

His breath blew loudly in his ears, much like the huff and puff of the bronc as it tried to pitch its rider, and it came to him again, him and her both trying last until eight seconds, only time and distance and the spinning of their hearts were against it. ----- Halston Kane, the second of three brothers, considers himself stuck in the middle, a feeling which magnifies after his mother's death. Never on top and not able to get ahead, he's constantly losing out. Saddle bronc riding is something he's good at, yet lately, even there he falls short. Others who shouldn't ride well are passing him...

"Here's what Noah wants to do. He wants to prove to you how very wonderful you are." He lowered his face to hers. "He wants to give in and spend the night in here, not on the couch. But ..." He lifted his gaze again. "But that's not what Sloane deserves. Life is not a soap opera. It isn't written and edited in a script for the Great Director in the sky to give us our cue. Instead, we stumble along, speaking out of turn, and He has to correct us again and again. Life is full of mistakes, and I can't say if taking this part as Trace on the soap was one of those or not. It could be I compromised...

"I cannot find my way alone," Serefina said softly. His arms came around her, his hands landing in the middle of her back, and he pulled her to him. She leaned there, her cheek on his shoulder, his strength solid beneath her hands. Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed, the corners dampening, and deep within her heart a tiny speck of hope glowed. For once, she didn't toss it aside, but fearful, clung with all her might. ----- Penniless and alone, Serefina Aguilar has nowhere to go but south to an unknown uncle her recently deceased aunt only ever spoke unkindly about. It seems the...

She looked up and paused in her stirring, the same disbelief surfacing on her face. "What? I've grown horns?" He shook his head. Curves. She'd grown curves and soft skin and a rosy tint to her cheeks. ----- Nelson Trader's after-school tutoring with fellow senior, Brigitte Pink, is a mutual secret. No one can know he's spending time with her or the reason why. He has to protect his reputation. Something she says she's willing to go along with at first. Yet so much time together changes everything. Her adoration and his growing feelings require him to surrender the one thing he can't seem to...

For a moment, she thought she'd dreamed of their lovemaking, but, the minutes passing, knew she hadn't and wept for the craving that now captured her soul. The truth clarified in her, all their actions lying exposed. She'd needed him before for all the wrong reasons. She needed him now for only one - she loved him. ----- Billionaire bachelor, Paxton Wolfe, has everything money can buy and an aristocratic ancestry people respect. Good friends and business partners with Atlas Bellamy and Calix Steele, he's set to become the face behind their newest, successful venture, a cruise line. However,...

"Let me ask you something," he said.
I waited, my insides twirling around. I'd do about anything for him not to be mad.
"What if next time you let me kiss you?"
The next time. That there'd be a next time meant he wasn't all that mad.
"Would that be okay?" he asked.
I swallowed hard. "That would be ... fine."
"Just fine?" he asked.
Better than fine. It'd be heavenly. Amazing. Perfect. I ran out of adjectives.
"No, more than fine."
He smiled and took hold of the ends of my hair, rolling it between his fingers. "Okay then. 'Til next time."
-----...

"(This story has been revised with minor context changes to make it more relevant.* (February 2016)"
"Taylor Lawton, you will work with Timothy Cooper ..."
My head shot up from my desk into the eyes of the very boy I spent all my days thinking of, and my gut twisted. Me and Timothy Cooper? Work together? The twist in my gut became a stone.
Then he smiled, and the room became brighter than the noonday sun. "Guess you're stuck with me," he said.
Heaven help me, being stuck with Timothy Cooper wasn't such a bad thing. Yet I sat there my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth,...