Genre: Small Town, Second Chance, Secret Baby, Estranged Family, Secret Romance
Release Date: August 16, 2022
Mending fences with my brothers as I uncover family secrets is easy compared to winning back the woman carrying my baby…
Carson
Six months ago she ghosted me.
She stopped taking my calls and didn’t even answer her damn door.
Now, with my world upside down and my arm in a cast, where do I find her, but Winter Harbor, seven months pregnant with my baby.
Despite her keeping this secret from me, I want her. I’ve always wanted her. And even though I was dead-set on never having kids, given my own garbage dad, seeing Amaya pregnant and knowing that the baby is mine changes everything. I’m ready to right my father’s wrongs and be there for my kid.
I want the family life, and I want it with Amaya.
But she’s not convinced. And for good reason. Now I just have to prove to her that taking a chance on love–and building a family with a man who’s ruined more romances than started them–is a risk worth taking.
***This is the second book of the Winter Harbor series which features a quirky small town, secrets galore, and three estranged brothers who find the key to healing comes from the women who steal their hearts.
“This book had me captivated from the very first chapter and drawn to Carson like a moth to a flame. The chemistry between Amaya and Carson is absolutely electric and radiates through every word. This second chance romance is filled with secrets, suspense, drama and just enough chaos to have you on the edge of your seat.” – Wiley Kate (Amazon Review)
“The reader will instantly fall in love with Carson and Amaya and only want them to succeed while they want the pages to go quicker to get more of them but at the same time want the pages to go slower so they can enjoy the ride. Simply a wonderful tale of family and forgiveness.” – Nicki Holt ~The Overflowing Bookcase (Amazon Review)
“I really didn’t want the book to end, and definitely looking forward to the next. Highly recommend and to me it’s worth every one of the 5* I give it.” – Sue Hancock (Goodreads Review)
“This book was one amazing read that kept me totally enthralled as I turned the pages of this must read story! The plot was so well planned and fleshed out with characters that were so well created with such great detail and depth that I remained totally captivated as the story developed between Amaya and Carson!” – Pat (Goodreads Review)
“You’re scaring me with that look, Carson,” she murmured, breaking our eye contact. “You look like you want to devour me whole.”
Because I fucking did. I wanted to eat her mouth, lick her pussy until she was hoarse from screaming, and then sink into her tight heat and make her mine all over again.
Shaking my head, I dislodged those primal, possessive thoughts … until later, and went back to the task of making her feel good and distracting her from her foul mood after running into Stinky Cheese Bree.
I waggled my finger over her clit a couple more times, loving that she met my movements with hip thrusts of her own. Our eyes locked again, but what stared back at me was a need so powerful I had to adjust my cock in my jeans for fear of getting a permanent bend in my favorite body part.
Not that Amaya wasn’t good and thoroughly soaked already, I made sure she was dripping, before I slid one, and then two fingers inside her, pressing my thumb to her swollen clit and moving it back and forth in a way I remember she loved.
“Dear God, Carson,” she said on a strangled moan, her eyes now slammed shut and the bottom lip of her fuckable mouth clenched tight between her teeth, so much so the skin was turning white. “Yes …”
“Yes, what?” I demanded, surprised at how hoarse my voice came out.
“If you make me say Daddy, I will ram my foot into your dick so fucking fast.” She bent her knee and nudged my crotch with her heel in a warning, which made a chuckle roll through me as I curled my fingers inside her and pressed on her G-spot. “Holy fuck.” She arched her back and straightened her leg again, forgetting all about her threat to kick me in the dick.
“I want you to scream for me, Vixen. Burst my fucking eardrums. We know you can. Take all of that rage, all of that tension that’s been making your shoulders kiss your ears and breathe it out into the fucking world. Let it go … Elsa.”
She popped one eye open, calling me an idiot with just a look. I grinned at her cheekily.
But she quickly closed that eye again and continued to writhe on the bench seat of my truck, bucking up into my hand, pushing her pussy further down on my fingers, and reminding me just why this woman had become the closest thing I’d ever had to an addiction.
A Canadian West Coast baby born and raised, Whitley is married to her high school sweetheart, and together they have two beautiful daughters and a fluffy dog. She spends her days making food that gets thrown on the floor, vacuuming Cheerios out from under the couch and making sure that the dog food doesn’t end up in the air conditioner. But when nap time comes, and it’s not quite wine o’clock, Whitley sits down, avoids the pile of laundry on the couch, and writes.
A lover of all things decadent; wine, cheese, chocolate and spicy erotic romance, Whitley brings the humorous side of sex, the ridiculous side of relationships and the suspense of everyday life into her stories. With single dads, firefighters, Navy SEALs, mommy wars, body issues, threesomes, bondage and role-playing, Whitley’s books have all the funny and fabulously filthy words you could hope for.
Ember Leigh has been writing erotic romance novels since she was far too young. A native of northern Ohio, she currently resides near Lake Erie with her Argentinean husband, where they run an Argentinian-American food truck and wrangle two wild boys.
I can remember the exact moment I thought up the idea ofQuick & Dirty.
I was walking my dog up Rainbow Road on the south facing slope of Christmas Hill in Victoria and texting with some friends asking for heroine name suggestions.
One of them suggested Parker Ryan and I absolutely loved it.
I also knew that I wanted the tagline to be The best way to get over a millionaire is to get over a billionaire.
I’d already “created” Tate McAllister, mysterious billionaire philanthropist and introduced him to the “world” in Hot & Filthy, but I hadn’t really planned to give him his own love story, let alone turn it all into a series.
I joined a boxed set and needed a story to contribute, so I “whipped up” Quick & Dirty as my contribution. However, I never felt like I had truly “finished” the story arc of how Tate got his seed money to buy the resort. Too much was left unanswered about Tate’s dead, estranged father.
The world needed more answers. I needed more answers.
Quick & Easywas written more on a dare than anything else. Two of my very close friends, who also happen to be incredibly talented authors (Jeanne St. James and Erica Lynn) used to tease me over the fact that all my books were long, and just kept getting longer. Meanwhile, they had no problem whipping up 20-45K word novellas. But I just couldn’t do anything under 50K.
So to prove them that I in fact COULD write a novella, I set aside two weeks to write Quick & Easy. I wanted to outdo my own challenge and said I would keep Quick & Easy at 20K words. Well, of course, you know I did it!
But that just fed the flames of this series even more and I needed to add more brothers. More billionaires. The mystery behind the rich deadbeat dad still burned inside of me.
Quick & Reckless came about because I wanted to challenge myself once again. I wanted to write two tropes I’d never attempted before: secret baby and step-sibling.
I get a little squirmy at the idea of hooking up with a step-sibling, to be honest. I don’t have any step-siblings, but if its someone you’ve grown up with and in any way shape or form have called “a brother” or “a sister” it just feels too taboo for me to write. No judgement if you write or love to read step romance. I don’t judge. I just didn’t want to write too far out of my comfort zone, otherwise you as the reader would have known and felt that lack of sincerity and the characters and story would have been wooden.
So I put a twist on the step romance. A twist that didn’t have me stepping too far out of my comfort zone, but enough so that my toes got wet and I’d like to think I can now add that trope to my list of “I’ve gone there” tropes.
But of course, three books wasn’t enough. I still hadn’t answered the mystery of the dad.
We needed a sister.
Cue, Skyler and her story, Quick & Dangerous. We met Roberto “Rob” Cahill in Lust Abroad, and a lot of readers asked me if he was going to get his own story, since they loved him in Lust Abroad. So I figured, why not give him his HEA and pair him up with the fiery Skyler who is running from the mafia? A match made in romantic suspense heaven.
I honestly can’t tell you WHY I decided to make mention of a fifth sibling at the very end of Quick & Dangerous, but I did. It was my subconscious telling me that I wasn’t done with this series. That I needed to delve deeper into the mystery of Randall McAllister–
…deadbeat dad extraordinaire–and introduce one more McAllister sibling into the mix.
But, of course, I also wanted to bring us back to Canada and give the family a big, noisy, snowy Christmas.
I’m loving the direction that Quick & Snowy is going. It’s a slower burn than the rest of the books, and the heroine (Brier), although strong and brilliant, also suffers from crippling social anxiety and is terrified to meet her intimidating, billionaire siblings. Barnes is a former SEAL and an amputee, and he’s been tasked with finding Brier. Only when he finds her in sunny, beachy and beautiful Albufeira, Portugal she’s not exactly hopping on the next plane to go and meet her family.
He has a bit of a challenge on his hands, convincing her to leave with him. Because if there is anything this former SEAL does is finish the job he started.
I can’t wait for you to read this book and let me know what you think. I plan to wrap up all loose ends and any unsolved mystery pieces. This will be the FINAL Quick Billionaires book. I have way too many other things planned and on the TBW (to be written) pile to think about working another Quick Billionaire book into the mix.
But I think the reason why I did keep adding more books to the series is because just like the Hart family (The Harty Boys Series) I just love this family and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
“You’re welcome to tickle my nuts and sniff my ass crack, but I know damn well I don’t have to remove my leg. Try again …” Barnes Wark leaned forward over the rolling belt in airport security and squinted at the nametag on the baby-faced TSA agent.
Oden.
He resisted the urge to sneer at the name since he, too, had an unusual name that often garnered some quirked eyebrows. Instead, he felt half an ounce of sympathy for the kid.
But it wasn’t enough o save him from Barnes’s impatience. Oh no.
The barely-legal kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed hard in his throat and his brown eyes shifted from Barnes’s to his supervisor who was standing in the corner.
“Don’t look at her, look at me,” Barnes continued. “I’m the person you’re dealing with right now. You saw my prosthetic after I took off my shoes and thought, hey, let’s make the cripple take off his leg. I’ve never seen that before.”
The kid’s face was turning the shade of an over ripe tomato. He shook his head as if Barnes hadn’t just dived into his sick subconscious and read his mind.
Barnes ignored the man’s silent, but colorful denial. “And you’re not going to see it today. But I am going to give you a second chance to speak to me like human being with the same rights as every other person in here. So tell me again exactly what I need to remove.”
The kid’s eyes found Barnes’s once more, he swallowed again and nodded. “Belt, shoes, all electronics, all liquids and anything metal. But I don’t need you to remove your prosthetic, sir. A pat-down will be necessary, though.”
Barnes nodded and chucked his wallet, watch, belt and carryon into the bin, then walked to wait for another TSA agent to wave him through the metal-detector. Of course, it beeped.
He always forgot his dog tags. They were an extension of who he was—just like his leg—so it skipped his mind that they would need to be removed before proceeding through the detector.
Stepping back through, he lifted his tags out from under his black T-shirt and tossed them in with his belt and wallet.
The moment they were off, he felt exposed. Vulnerable.
A piece of himself was missing.
He needed them back.
Calmly, with a hard swallow, he stepped back through the detector.
It beeped again.
He rolled his eyes. It would beep until the day he died.
He’d been through this scenario hundreds possibly thousands of times. But once in a while he encountered a wet-behind the ears greenhorn who had either skipped the page on amputees in the TSA training handbook, or had some secret fetish or overwhelming curiosity that made them break protocol.
He NEVER indulged them.
Sure, he didn’t give two shits that one of his legs was made of titanium. He’d come to terms with that part long ago. But he did give two shits, probably more than just two about being made a spectacle or having his rights violated.
He was waved over to the side where two male TSA agents approached him.
He didn’t say a word. Just spread his legs and let them do their thing.
They wouldn’t find anything.
He was one of the good guys.
Or at least he tried to be.
The TSA agent who was sliding his hands up Barnes’s thigh was busy explaining what he was doing and why. Barnes tuned him out. The other agent had Barnes’s passport. He glanced into the bin of Barnes’s stuff and his brows lifted.
Barnes waited.
Five …
Four …
Three …
Two …
One …
“Thank you for your service, sir.”
As predictable as the tides.
“My father served as well. We appreciate everything you’ve done to keep our country safe.”
Barnes nodded at the man and accepted his passport back. If only this thirty-something guy with the wedding band and baby spit up on his collar knew the kinds of things Barnes had done to keep this man and his family safe.
It would give the average person nightmares.
Fuck, it gave Barnes nightmares.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the other man said, standing back up.
Barnes grunted, then continued on to gather his stuff.
He was almost home.
One more flight, Houston to Portland and then he could hunker down until the new year.
With his dog tags securely back in place, he released the breath that had been burning his lungs. He finished putting on his belt and shoes, slung his rucksack over his back and headed toward his gate.
His sister had offered for him to come and spend Christmas with her family in Maine. His nieces and nephew were dying to see their uncle Barney, but he just didn’t have it in him to do the big family Christmas thing.
Mending fences with my brothers as I uncover family secrets is easy compared to winning back the woman carrying my baby…
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contribution. However, I never felt like I had truly “finished” the story arc of how Tate got his seed money to buy the resort. Too much was left unanswered about Tate’s dead, estranged father.
So to prove them that I in fact COULD write a novella, I set aside two weeks to write Quick & Easy. I wanted to outdo my own challenge and said I would keep Quick & Easy at 20K words. Well, of course, you know I did it!
Cue, Skyler and her story,