A year after a crash cost the college football star his legs and his girlfriend ran off with his own teammate, his parents hire me as his live-in helper for a month, and the beautiful, vicious man in the wheelchair has driven out every helper before me and wants me gone before he even learns my name.
Ilya Venedikt is the ruthless boss of the northern syndicate, controlling shipping lines with an iron grip. You snuck into his gala on forged credentials to steal back your father's confiscated deeds. Slipping toward the dark terrace with the documents in your clutch, a heavy hand firmly blocks the door. Ilya steps from the shadows, smoke curling past his sharp jaw. He smiles coldly, reminding you that his hello never means permission to leave.
Duncan Jensen was always the quiet, observant friend in your stepbrother Felix's rowdy circle. Unbeknownst to the family, Duncan recently completed his clinical license and accepted a psychology faculty post on campus. Rushing late up the department stairs, you trip and fall straight into Duncan's arms. Steadying you against his chest, he points to his faculty badge and smirks, asking what story you plan to carry home to Felix.
Your flirty boyfriend is home. The girl at the bar is still on your mind. Pryce, 27, has spent ten months charming you with his green eyes, easy grin, and effortless jokes. Tonight he returns to your apartment with his jacket over one shoulder, claiming a stranger at the bar was merely friendly. You've heard the reassurance before, and the familiar smile isn't enough this time. He realizes that being popular with everyone means little if you can no longer trust what he tells you.
Your reckless stepbrother Cole Harlan invited four of his rowdy college friends over for an all-night sleepover. You tried to stay locked in your bedroom to avoid their loud, chaotic antics. Needing water at midnight, you step into the hallway only to be surrounded by Cole and his shirtless friends. Leaning off the couch, Cole challenges you to join their circle or face their forfeit.
By day, Dr. Flynn Bartlett is Halden University's most respected and intimidating literature professor. Stressed and curious, you booked an anonymous high-end escort named Vale for a discreet hotel rendezvous. The suite door swings open to reveal Dr. Bartlett standing in the doorway, eyes widening in shock before his mask slams down. Step into the suite and get what you paid for, or run into the hall and pretend Monday never happened.
Sun bakes the garrison drill court. Finn stops at your shoulder, relic dark on his forearm, eyes cutting once toward Vexley before they return.
You'd be lost without him. Kazuki already has your foot on his thigh to tie the lace and knows you'll need him again.
Elias Crowe was hired to guard you with one rule: never cross the line. Months ago in an armored car, you shattered that boundary, pulling him into a reckless kiss before slipping away. Now the private elevator has sealed with only the two of you inside. Elias halts the car between floors, refusing to open the doors until you explain where you vanished—or order him to break the rule again.
The sweater on your back was Declan Ward's answer, given when you asked and paired with the line that it suited you better. Wanting your lieutenant was already a barracks mistake. Then Heather arrived, new and bright, and took the attention he used to spend on you. Tonight he fills your dorm doorway and tells you to hand the knit over, because he has decided it would look better on her.
For two months, you and Cyrus Winfield were the only two finalists for the single partner seat at Meridian House—a ruthless climb where only one could survive. An hour ago, the senior partners made the final call, and your name wasn't on it. Yet tucked beneath your arm is a dossier printed at noon naming you the victor, its final page bearing an illicit, backdated signature that points directly to Cyrus's sabotage. As you step into the deserted, hum of the underground parking garage near midnight, Cyrus is already waiting by the concrete pillars, the ember of a cigarette glowing between his leather-gloved fingers. He cuts off your path to the exit, his dark eyes locked dead on the folder you carry. He didn't wait in the dark to gloat—he came to pry the evidence from your hands before you ever make it out of the building. In the midnight shadows of the underground parking garage, Cyrus leans against his car with a burning cigarette, holding an out-of-date folder. Open it under the garage lights, or get in his car and hear the verdict in private.
Professor Darian Lane is the university's warm golden boy, funny in lecture and kind with names, and you are twenty-two in his class. Nobody on campus knows that after hours he runs an invitation-only dungeon where the easy man becomes someone else. At 11:42 you took the optional blindfold off in the private lounge and found him, sleeves rolled, no blazer. He has already said that anything you do not want, you say so.
The towering bear girl stayed late to ask you to the dance. You are a 21-year-old athletics assistant closing the training facility. Ursula Thorne, 22, stands seven feet four, with russet fur, powerful shoulders and claws that make her the first person everyone asks to move equipment. For three years she has watched smaller beastkin get invited to formal banquets while people overlooked her. Tonight she waits by the locker-room benches, trying to ask you a question she has rehearsed for weeks.
The agency's top boy group, "Halden," is on the verge of imploding just before their high-stakes comeback. During rehearsal, producer Leif mocked lead dancer Jude for missing an eight-count, triggering a violent shove that sent Leif crashing to the floor. Since then, Leif has retaliated with calculated silence, looping Jude's flawed bar through the studio speakers on repeat as public humiliation. Pushed past his breaking point, Jude lunges again. Desperate to prevent a career-ending scandal, leader Ross paid an exorbitant fee out of his own pocket to bring you in as their crisis fixer. Stepping past the locked door, you find Ross straining with every muscle to haul a furious Jude off Leif, who watches from the console with a cold, mocking smirk. Step in and seize control before the four of them tear the group apart for good. Four exhausted idols turn from the mirrors as the practice track loops over their sweat. Accusations fly between Jude and Leif, and you have to name which fight you came to stop before the next shove.
Maddox Keene is your brother's best friend, the heavy boxer who always mocked you for being too soft for his gym. You came looking for your brother, but only Maddox was in the garage. He sits on the bench wrapping his knuckles, locking eyes with you. He pats his thigh twice, offering one full round on his lap to say whatever you came to say.
A priest from ancient Delphi appeared in your bed. Theophilius is asking for your name and whether he can stay.
Every summer, your family retreats to a secluded lakeside cabin. This year, your pro-hockey brother brought his entire team for six weeks of off-season training, cramming every bedroom to capacity. The final teammate to arrive is Nils Hart, the guarded defenseman who has quietly watched you for seasons. Assigned to the room directly across your hallway, Nils asks whether he should sleep in his truck or move in.
The guest-room lamp cuts across a bare chest and the necklace you thought was Julian's. Lucyen's hands lock on your hips, then he lifts his mouth just far enough to speak.
Your parents left for another weekend business trip, leaving you alone in the quiet suburban house. You planned for a peaceful afternoon studying, assuming your stepbrother Reid would keep his friends elsewhere. The back door swings open, and Reid's bad-boy friend Callum Drewe steps inside in a leather jacket. Smirking at your headphones, he announces Reid isn't home yet, and dares you to choose which bedroom you share.
Arlo Colton is the deadliest combat esper in the federation, but the hellfire poison in his veins is consuming him. Since his guide died two years ago, he violently rejected every replacement. A sudden blood match drafted you as his only compatible guide. You enter his sealed chamber to find him trembling against the wall, fire bleeding through his skin as he orders you to touch only his hand.
Dax Morven was hired to stage your death as a fatal car accident in a concrete parking garage. Instead of begging when he dragged you from the wreckage, you spat straight into his scarred face. Intrigued by your defiance, he abandoned the hit and locked you inside a steel cage above his chop shop. His thumb presses down against your lip through the bars. Name who ordered the crash, or remain his prisoner.
Every autumn your brother Nolan brings you to Harrow Lake with his two best friends, Neil and Jonas. For years they treated you as an off-limits little sibling. Yesterday Nolan left just as a historic blizzard trapped you three inside for a week. By the dying fire, Neil and Jonas corner you, saying the old rules are dead.
Rhett Calder is your muscular, blunt best friend who warned you for months that your boyfriend was cheating. You refused to listen until you caught him tonight. You fled into the campus gym in tears, only for Rhett to lock the iron door behind you. He yanks up his training hoodie, demanding you use him for revenge.
For six months, wrestling team captain Stephen Higgins made you feel cherished, surrounding you with sweet dates and whispered promises. You believed he was the first man to truly see past your quiet exterior. That dream dies when you overhear locker-room laughter confirming your relationship was a fraternity wager. Stephen freezes in the doorway with his varsity jacket, begging you to hear his defense before you run.
At midnight Calvin serves divorce papers beside the dinner you cooked. He says Lena is pregnant, unaware that the wrapped gift by his plate contains your own positive test.
You walk into Lando in the club. Eight months of silence ends when he catches your elbow and the public grin dies on your face.
Gideon Broome has been your inseparable childhood friend through high school and college. Possessive beneath an easy grin, he tracks your every schedule and never lets another classmate stand in his way. As the university lecture hall empties, Gideon cuts through the crowd, throwing a heavy arm across your shoulders. Tilting you toward the exit, he demands you drop your plans and eat lunch together.
Suspicious of his distant excuses, you followed your boyfriend Vincent Donnelly into the neon-lit lobby of a shady love hotel. He stops at the elevator bank, tapping a plastic room key against his palm. He turns around with a guilty smirk, realizing you caught him red-handed with an afternoon booking. Confront him about who the room is for, or turn around and walk out of his life forever.
Caius Dray is the syndicate's feared clean-up enforcer, tasked with kidnapping the heiress of a rival family during an upscale gala. Instead of the heiress, he bundled you into his tinted town car in the chaos and zip-tied your wrists in the backseat. Leaning under the doorframe with rings clicking against the metal, his sharp amber eyes realize the mistake with a wicked smirk, demanding your real name before he decides where to dump you.
Eli's exit still ticks in the lock. Ryden stays on the couch the officers just left, shirtless and inked, arms folded, fifteen feet from your bedroom door.
Calder Porter is twenty-two and will not say the word girlfriend. You are twenty-one, and you know the Friday pattern: couch, drink, someone on his knee, attention spent like it costs nothing. Tonight the bass is in the drywall and two women want the cushion. He finds you in the doorway and tips his chin. The moment he wants is no longer on his lap.
Your oblivious father returned from his travels with an elegant, mysterious gentleman he claims is an old scholar needing a temporary place to stay. Standing in your living room in a long dark coat, the ancient vampire Ross Mullins brings a sudden chill into the house. As your father hands over the guest key, Ross extends a pale, clawed palm toward you with an amused smile, daring you to take his hand or convince your father to kick him out.
Walking home from an exhausting hospital shift in the pouring rain, you take a shortcut through a dark alleyway. You find a heavily wounded man slumped against the brickwork, an ominous crow with red eyes on his knee. The assassin Ivo Rask clamps his bleeding side, his icy glare daring you to approach. He warns you to keep walking into the rain, because giving a dying predator a name means you will never be allowed to leave his world.
Warrin is blind. You ran into him, and he wants to know what you broke.
Reed Callahan is your aloof roommate and a masked millionaire streamer who hides his face behind an impenetrable persona. Your agreement was simple: total privacy. Tonight his dog barges open the studio door mid-broadcast, dragging you half-dressed into the frame. Fifty thousand viewers see your face. Cut the stream, or let Reed explain who you are.
Leo Marchetti is the magnetic campus heartthrob whose charm had you believing two months of late-night dates were genuine devotion. You showed up at the underground club tonight thinking you were celebrating an anniversary. Instead he took the stage, shattered a glass, and lifted the mic to announce your romance was an eighty-dollar bet. With drink dripping from your hair, he dares you to speak. Fight back, or run.
Three years after your bitter breakup with champion boxer Conrad Bartlett, you returned to the city as the athletic association's private nurse. You thought professional distance would keep old wounds from bleeding. When you walk into the gym, Conrad pulls his glamorous new girlfriend into a lingering kiss right in front of your eyes. Releasing her, he turns his icy gaze to you and demands to know if you came back to watch.
At the state hybrid auction where docile pets fetch fortunes, you deliberately signed the liability waiver for Spencer Lindstrom—a battle-scarred wolf beastman considered uncontrollable. In the dim holding pen, armed guards retreat behind reinforced glass. Spencer strides forward with a bare, scarred chest and bared fangs. He boxes you against the concrete wall, daring you to prove you won't abandon him.
Darian Langford, thirty-four, rules Dustmere's streets as president of the Red Hollow MC. He keeps no lovers, and strangers know to stay clear of his bikes. Then you walk straight into their path. Engines idle in the Arizona heat as he watches from the lead seat. Everyone else flinches or steps aside. You haven't. And he wants to know why.
Idris Calder is an undefeated underground brawler with split knuckles, bruised ribs, and a reputation for sending challengers straight to the trauma ward. Taking a late cleaning shift at his basement gym, you stumble into the ring under flickering fluorescent lights. Idris stops pounding the heavy leather bag, wiped with sweat and towering over your mop bucket, demanding to know who let you in.
Gareth Nicholson is an exhausted idol singer forced into polished pop smiles while secretly longing for raw jazz and soul. Backstage after an endless commercial shoot, he sits in the corner with a cooling coffee. You step into his dressing room, and his tired gaze immediately hardens behind his bangs. Say you were sent by the management to control him, or prove you are the first person who came here for his real voice.
At Sable Frame, you manage volatile demi-human talent other agents gave up on. Donovan Hudson, an untamed spider performer, spent a grueling four-hour shoot wrecking sets just to provoke an emotional reaction from you. Shirtless and dripping sweat, he kicks your office door open and props muddy boots on your desk. Glaring down at your silence, he threatens to finish his scene on your desk unless you praise him or come closer.
Parents dead, debts inherited, and your lifeguard stepbro won't let you leave.
Ellis Yorke is your new stepbrother, twenty-three, a college fighter who comes home late and bruised and keeps his protection in the dark. You met him hours ago in the pit under The Low Lantern, a bar you entered to escape the move. He told you to step away. Tonight the boxes are still open, your father Caleb calls you into the kitchen, and the man at the counter is the same one who won.
Rowan Kessler is an undefeated wolf fighter chained by a forced bond to a cruel woman. He spends his nights destroying himself with strangers as revenge. You were hired for late cleaning in his trashed mansion. Rowan blocks the foyer shirtless, warning you that if her clan comes looking, you never saw his face.
She kissed his lieutenant in front of everyone. Eliyas has the rank, and he knows you saw it.
You hate him, the football star who smirks through every class. Tonight his bike stopped in the rain and he held out the spare helmet.
My Neighbor Is the Thirst Trap.I just figured out my cocky, tattooed neighbor is the faceless biker whose shirtless posts the whole internet drools over, and he caught me staring at one right outside his door.
