Anti-Stepbrother

New year. New place. New me. Right? Wrong. And all because of Shay Coleman. Football captain and quarterback, he was the big guy on campus. The cocky guy in my political science class with a smirk. I hated him on sight...and he was about to break all my rules.

I shouldn't have remembered him. He was just a guy who walked through a restaurant. I didn't know his name. We never made eye contact. There was no connection between us at all. But I could feel him. The tingle down my spine. The command in his presence. The snap of tension in the air around him. That was the first time I saw him, and I was captivated.

I crawled into Ryan Jensen’s bed that first night by accident. I barely knew him. I thought it was his sister’s bed - her room. It took seconds to realize my error, and I should've left... I didn’t. I didn’t jump out. I didn’t get embarrassed. I relaxed. And that night, in that moment, it was the only thing I craved. I asked to stay. He let me, and I slept. The truth? I never wanted to leave his bed. If I could've stayed forever, I would have. He became my sanctuary. Because - four hours earlier - my twin sister killed herself. 

Emma decided to skip the gym and went home early. It was the last easy decision she made because she found her roommate being raped by her boyfriend. She had two choices: Call the cops and be killed by his family's mafia connections or kill him first and hope to survive. There was no choice to her. She killed the bastard first and went to the one person who could protect her: Carter Reed. He's a weapon

You know that group of people in school that everyone fears? Popular. Beautiful. The in-crowd? That was my family. Kind of. We were above that group. We held court over everyone else. We were the best looking. We were the mysterious and elusive ones. Most of the girls wanted to (and did) date the guys, but they didn't want to be one of us. They couldn't be. They were our prey. We were the feared. But like every family, nothing is as it seems. That was my truth. Kellan was in his own league.

Mason and Logan Kade are two brothers who did their own thing. They were rich and expected to attend Samantha's school, Fallen Crest Academy. They chose public school, and now Samantha has to live with them. The problem is that she doesn't care at all - about them, about her friends, about her cheating boyfriend, or even about her parents' divorce. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe change is a good thing.

Dan's survived a lot. Her mother died. Her two sisters loathed her. One aunt hated her. The other was strangely distant, but the worst storm was being dumped by her childhood best friend/high school boyfriend/first love for her younger sister. There went the one person who was hers and with that, the main reason she stuck around. So, she left for 10 years. But now she's back, and nothing's the same.

One punch took him from Hollywood’s Golden Boy to Bad Boy Brody. The media didn’t care he was grieving his brother’s death. They descended on him, but to change his reputation, his manager got him a deal. Act in an indie film, one that already had Oscar buzz, and he’d get the movie roles he needed to secure his future. He took the deal. Yet he wasn’t prepared for the real-life people behind the script. He wasn’t prepared for the murder the movie was based on. And he really wasn’t prepared for her, the biggest secret of all. She was wild. She was beautiful. She defied gravity.

Jake McKallister might have been a rock star, but he was no ordinary one. Surviving an unspeakable crime as a young teen had shaped him into a guarded workaholic, and he now lived his life trying to forget. If it hadn't been for music and the redemption he found through it, he might not have survived. Career success came easily for him. Personal connections did not.

As the heir to a billion-dollar empire, Kian Maston's future was promising - until the day he saved my life. Everything changed for both of us, and there was one more word that could be used to describe him: dangerous. The nation fell in love with Kian while falling in hate with me. He was sent to prison, and as far as they were concerned, it was my fault. I was forced to go into hiding until today. Kian's being released from prison, and he should go back to being the golden boy he always was supposed to be.

They say love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances, and it's true. The man who comes to me in my dreams also haunts me in my nightmares. He is a brilliant lawyer. A skilled criminal. A beautiful liar. A bully and a savior, a monster and a lover. Ten years ago, he made me run away from the small town where we lived. Now, he came for me in New York, and he isn't leaving until he takes me with him.

He’s my best friend’s older brother, off limits and incredibly tempting. I shouldn’t peak into Brendon’s sketchbook, even if the tattoo artist is as brooding and stoic as the day is long. I can’t help myself. I peel it open, run my fingers along the paper, soak up every ounce of him. His drawings are as beautiful and bold as his dark eyes and his cocky smile. Only, there, on the third page - that’s no tattoo mockup. That’s me. Naked. Ready. Waiting in his bed.

Ruby Scott is months behind on rent and can't seem to land a steady job. She has one chance to turn things around with a big audition. But instead of getting her big break, she gets sick as a dog and completely bombs it in the most humiliating fashion. All thanks to a mysterious, gorgeous guy who kissed - and then coughed on - her at a party the night before.

At age 20, Molly Shakespeare knows a lot. She knows Descartes and Kant. She knows academia and Oxford. She knows that the people who love you leave you. She knows how to be alone. But when Molly leaves England's gray skies behind to start a new life at the University of Alabama, she finds that she has a lot to learn - she didn't know a summer could be so hot, she didn't know students could be so intimidating, and she certainly didn't know just how much the folks of Alabama love their football.

The first time I met Caine West was in a bar. He noticed me looking his way and mistakenly read my scowling as checking him out. When he attempted to talk to me, I set him straight -- telling him what I thought of his lying, cheating, egomaniacal ass. You see, the gorgeous jerk had wined and dined my best friend-smooth talking her into his bed, all along failing to mention that he was married. He deserved every bit of my tongue-lashing and more for what he'd done.