In Bed With My Hockey Stepbrother
He wants to save her. She wants to hide.
She's damaged. He's determined.
Fate brought them together. Love binds them.
Johnny Kavanagh is the definition of popular. He is an all-star rugby player with loads of friends, which means he should be enjoying the many perks of his life. But what people don't know is that he has been dealing with a painful injury that could halt the magnificent trajectory of his career. This means he has no time for distractions or mistakes. Especially not a girlfriend.
Shannon Lynch has been bullied all her life. She is shy and would rather hide herself away to make it through school. But when she arrives at Tommen College for a fresh start, she meets the notorious Johnny Kavanagh on her first day in a not-so-romantic way. What follows is a complicated friendship that turns into undeniable chemistry. It seems that Shannon won't be able to hold onto the anonymous status she once hoped for. But maybe that's alright?
Johnny won't give up on Shannon. No matter what it might cost them both.
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Chapter 5
When I asked Dad about taking me to school last night, he had told me that if I'd get off my high horse and go back to Ballylaggin Community School like Joey and every other kid on our street, I wouldn't need a lift to school.
"I'm so fucking proud of you, Shan," Joey said in a voice that was thick with emotion. "You don't even realize how brave you are." Clearing his throat a couple of times, he added, "Hang on-I've got something for you." With that, he padded across the narrow landing and into his bedroom, returning less than a minute later. "Here," he muttered, fisting a couple of five-euro notes into my hand.
"Joey, no!" I immediately rebuffed the notion of taking his hard-earned money. He didn't make much at the petrol station to begin with, and money was hard to come by in our family, so taking ten euro from my brother was unimaginable. "I can't-"
"Take the money, Shannon. It's only a tenner," he instructed, giving me a no-nonsense expression. "I know Nanny gave you the bus money, but just have something in your pocket. I don't know how shit works in that place, but I don't want you going in there without a few quid."
I swallowed the lump of emotion fighting its way up my throat and squeezed out, "Are you sure?"
Joey nodded, then pulled me in for a hug. "You are going to be grand," he whispered in my ear, hugging me so tight I wasn't sure who he was trying to convince or console. "If someone gives you even the hint of shit, then you text me and I will come over there and burn that fucking school to the ground and every posh little rugby-head fucker in it."
That was a sobering thought.
"It's going to be fine," I said, this time putting some force into my voice, needing to believe the words. "But I'll be late if I don't get going, and that's so not what I need on my first day."
Giving my brother one last hug, I shrugged on my coat and grabbed my schoolbag, shouldering it onto my back before heading for the staircase.
"You text me," Joey called out when I was halfway down the steps. "I'm serious. One sniff of crap from anyone and I'll come sort it out for you."
"I can do this, Joey," I whispered, casting a quick glance at where he was leaning against the banister, watching me with concerned eyes. "I can."
"I know you can." His voice was low and pained. "I just... I'm here for you, okay?" he finished with a heavy exhale. "Always here for you."
This was hard for my brother, I realized, as I watched him wave me off to school like an anxious parent would their firstborn. He was always fighting my battles, always jumping in to defend me and pull me to safety.
I wanted him to be proud of me, to see me as more than a little girl that needed his constant protection.
I needed that for myself.
With renewed determination, I gave him a bright smile and then hurried out of the house to catch my bus.
2
Everything Has Changed
SHANNON
When I climbed off my bus, I was relieved to discover that the doors of Tommen College were opened to the students at seven in the morning, obviously to accommodate the different schedules of the boarders and day-walkers.
I hurried into the building to get out of the weather.
It was pouring rain outside, and in any other circumstance, I might consider it a bad omen, but this was Ireland where it rained an average of 150 to 225 days out of the year.
It was also early January, typical rain season.
I discovered that I wasn't the only early bird to arrive before school hours, noting several students already wandering through the halls and lounging in the lunch hall and common areas.
Yes, common areas.
Tommen College had what I could only describe as spacious living rooms for each year.
To my immense surprise, I discovered that I wasn't the immediate target for bullies like I had been in every other school I had attended.
Students whizzed past me, uninterested in my presence, clearly caught up in their own lives.
I waited, with my heart in my mouth, for a cruel comment or shove to come.
It didn't. Transferring halfway through the year from the neighboring public school, I had been expecting a tirade of fresh taunts and new enemies. But nothing happened. Aside from a couple of curious glances, nobody approached me. The students at Tommen either didn't know who I was-or didn't care. Either way, I was clearly off the radar in this school and I loved it.
Comforted by the sudden cloak of invisibility surrounding me, and feeling more positive than I had in months, I took the time to look around the third-year common area.
It was a large bright room with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side that looked onto a courtyard of buildings. Plaques and photographs of previous students adorned the lemon-painted walls. Plush couches and comfy chairs filled the large space, along with a few round tables and matching oak chairs. There was a small kitchenette area in the corner with a kettle, toaster, and microwave.
Holy crap. So, this was what the other side lived like. It was like a different world in Tommen College.
I could bring a few slices of bread and have tea and toast at school.
Feeling intimidated, I slipped out and wandered through every hall and corridor, trying to get my bearings.
Studying my timetable, I memorized where every building and wing that I would have a class in was.
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7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
7.5
WARNING: This book contains mature content, explicit scenes, and dark themes. Reader discretion is advised.
"Maybe... maybe I don't ever want to be anyone's wife again."
Betrayed. Banished. Broken.
For eight years, Selena was the devoted Luna of the Knightstorm Pack, until her alpha husband branded her a whore, stripped her of their children, and cast her out.
Years later, she's risen from the ashes as a renowned artist, fiercely independent and done with men forever. But when her ex-husband discovers the devastating truth, that a cruel scheme made him punish the wrong woman, he will stop at nothing to win her back.
His reckless, alcoholic brother has always wanted her too.
And then there's the powerful alpha trapped in a loveless open marriage, willing to burn down his twenty-year union the moment he scents his second-chance mate in Selena.
Three alphas.
One woman who swore she would never belong to anyone again.
As old wounds resurface and new desires ignite, Selena must fight not only for her stolen children, but for the heart she thought was dead.
Who will claim the broken Luna... and will she ever let any of them in?
8.0
After fifteen years of marriage and a brutal battle with infertility, I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test. This baby was my victory, the heir that would finally secure my place as the wife of mob capo Marco Vitiello. I planned to announce it at his mother's party, a triumph over the matriarch who saw me as nothing but a barren field.
But before I could celebrate, my friend sent me a video. The headline read: "MOB CAPO MARCO VITIELLO'S PASSIONATE NIGHTCLUB KISS!" It was him, my husband, devouring a woman who looked like a younger, fresher version of me.
Hours later, Marco stumbled home, drunk and reeking of another woman's perfume. He complained about his mother begging him for an heir, completely unaware of the secret I held. Then my phone lit up with a text from an unknown number.
"Your husband slept with my girl. We need to talk."
It was signed by Dante Moretti, the ruthless Don of our rival family.
The meeting with Dante was a nightmare. He showed me another video. This time, I heard my husband's voice, telling the other woman, "I love you. Elara... that's just business." My fifteen years of loyalty, of building his empire, of taking a bullet for him-all dismissed as "just business."
Dante didn't just reveal the affair; he showed me proof that Marco was already stealing our shared assets to build a new life with his mistress. Then, he made me an offer.
"Divorce him," he said, his eyes cold and calculating. "Join me. We'll build an empire together and destroy him."
9.8
When Dawn Collins agrees to marry a stranger, love is the last thing on her mind.
All she wants is to protect her siblings and give them a better life. But fate leads her into the arms of Adam Manchester-a man whose heart belongs to a wife lying in a coma.
As Dawn slowly melts the ice around Adam's heart, she begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, love can bloom from sacrifice.
But on the night she's ready to claim her happiness, Adam's wife wakes up.
Now, caught between guilt, love, and heartbreak, Dawn must decide whether to fight for the man she's grown to love... or walk away from the life she risked everything to build.
Because some hearts never let go-and some love stories were never meant to have an easy ending.
8.6
For years, Elvera lived as the despised charity case in the cramped Wright household.
When she caught her foster sister Donita straddling her fiancé, they didn't even panic. Instead, they loudly framed Elvera for stealing a diamond necklace to justify kicking her out.
Her foster parents immediately sided with the cheaters, screaming at her to pack her trash and starve in the gutters. Only her dying foster brother tried to sneak her his medical savings, but the family violently shoved him away, mocking him as a walking corpse.
Standing in the freezing Brooklyn wind, Donita and Crockett followed her outside just to laugh. They waved a crisp twenty-dollar bill in her face, mocking her biological family as a bunch of unemployed street thugs.
They really thought she was going to freeze to death on the pavement with nothing but a faded backpack.
But then a roaring, matte-black supercar pulled up.
The man who stepped out wasn't a street thug; he was her real brother, an FBI task force commander.
He effortlessly snapped Crockett's shoulder out of its socket, put Elvera in the passenger seat, and drove her straight to a sprawling billionaire estate in the Hamptons.
Sitting by the fire in her biological parents' palace, watching them casually display an eight-million-dollar sculpture she had secretly designed, the head butler suddenly walked in.
"Sir, the fake heiress has returned from Europe."
Elvera took a slow sip of her coffee. The real game was finally about to begin.
8.1
I skipped my final lab review in Geneva and endured a fourteen-hour flight to surprise my husband for our fourth wedding anniversary.
Instead, looking through the window of our beachfront estate, I saw him playing the perfect, loving father to a "tragic widow's" daughter, kissing the widow with practiced, casual intimacy.
Fleeing in pure panic, I got into a horrific car crash.
Waking up in the VIP hospital room, I kept my eyes shut and heard my husband talking to his best friend right beside my bed.
"She's just a party girl who knows how to swipe a black card. I only play the part because I need her father's proxy vote for the IPO."
"Every time I have to touch her in bed, it feels like a corporate obligation. It makes me sick."
Later, even my own father demanded I step down from my company role and publicly welcome the mistress, just to protect the family's investment in the upcoming ten-billion-dollar IPO.
Four years of marriage and quiet humiliations, all reduced to a calculated lie. They all thought I was just a brainless, hysterical socialite who could be easily manipulated and discarded.
They didn't know that the core anti-aging algorithm his entire empire relied on was secretly built by me.
I calmly pulled out my phone and texted my divorce lawyer.
"I want him bankrupt. On the day his company rings the bell, I am going to burn his entire life to the ground."