A Trace of Hope (a Keri Locke Mystery--Book #5)

“Was she the one who sent you?” he growled “Did she pay you to whore yourself to me?”
“Please… Nick, wait.” He pulled out, thrusted back in. “How much? Twenty thousand? Fifty? Hundred?” With every question, he thrust harder and harder. My neurons are frying with the confusing feeling in my brain. Torn between pleasure, fear, and panic. I couldn't utter a single sentence to save my life.

His cold eyes pinned me in place while he plundered my body with deep thrusts, which only added to my confusion. My dumb body mistook the mixed signals, my pussy becoming even wetter than before.

“I hope she'd paid you well, because I'm going to fuck you all night long, hard,” he growled. “Sleep, then do it all over again. I want to feel you come for me, Andrea, want to feel you squeeze my cock, milking me.

Begging for me to give you the high only I can, I'm going to fucked you until I fuck all my wife's money's worth, I want you to remember how hard I took you while you're meeting her.” I sobbed, moaned, and tried to scramble out under him.

“No, please…Nick, let….let me explain.” Nick abruptly pulled out. His eyes were cold but hooded.


Andrea was sent to take down billionaire magnate Nicklaus Montgomery.
Her mission was simple: get close, seduce him, find the proof, and disappear. Instead Andrea finds herself exposed—cornered into signing a contract that binds her to Nicklaus's side as his lover. Now she’s living in his world of wealth, danger, and secrets… and the deeper she falls into his bed, the harder it becomes to remember what side she's on.

Amie's wolf hasn't shown herself. But who cares? She has a good pack, best friends and a family who loves her. Everyone, including the Alpha, is telling her she is perfect just the way she is. That is until she finds her mate and he rejects her. Heartbroken Amie flees from everything and start over. No more werewolves, no more packs.

When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.

Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.

When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?

A strange traffic jam hurls Chloe twenty-three years into the future.
 
The world she knew is gone.
Her husband, Nathan, is no longer the young man she left behind—he’s successful, respected, and living with a new family.
 
But when the woman who disappeared twenty-three years ago suddenly returns…
 
Can love survive the years that were lost?

I found my angel. Then I broke her wings.

Alexis should’ve never set foot in my world.
Men like me stain girls like her. We take their innocence and tear it to shreds.
She thinks she’s tough. She thinks she can handle me.
But she doesn’t know just how deep my darkness goes.

It was for the best that I claimed her for a night and left her behind.
Anything more than that would have been cruel.

I thought I’d seen the last of Alexis Wright.
So imagine my surprise two years later when the door to my office opens…
And she walks in.
The girl I ravaged. The girl I devoured.

Now that’s she’s in front of me again, I have just two questions for her:
First—what is she doing here?
And second…
What does she mean, “our baby”?

“I thought we discussed this earlier, Weakness? I warned you. His death is on your hands.”
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.


Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.

Bodhi Singh wanted the quiet dorm.
The safe dorm.

The boring dorm.

What he got instead was Maverick Hale campus menace, underground street fighter, walking bruise factory, and the last person he ever wanted anywhere near his neat piles of textbooks.
Maverick doesn't care that he's broke.

or in arrears with his fees.

Or one wrong move away from getting kicked out.
He’ll graduate out of sheer spite—he refuses to give his estranged, homophobic father the satisfaction of calling him a failure.
He definitely doesn’t care about the determined, overachieving half-Indian nursing major he’s stuck sharing a room with…
Until Bodhi becomes the only thing keeping him in school.

His tutor.

His healer.
His undoing.

And when Maverick stumbles into their dorm one night with a knife wound and Bodhi stitches him up with shaking hands and a breaking heart…

no longer can that be denied.

Opposites weren’t supposed to collide this way.

But they did.

Hard.

Isabella believes that her boyfriend can change is way again and be the man she fell in love with. But when she get kidnapped because of him, and he is to busy with another lady instead of saving her. She understands she is better off without him. She gets saved by her boyfriend cousin who has loved Isabella for years. Just stayed in the shadows. Will Alexander help her heal from the broken heart his ignorant cousin leaves her with, and then win her heart?

Sonia Bliss lost her father in a car crashed leaving debts for her to settle. There was nothing Sonia could do and debtors were on her neck. In order to pay, the only solution that came in was to work as a dancer for had exotic club owned by the debtor. A twisted tale unfolded in Sonia life after she was drugged and had a one night stand with the ruthless billionaire Antonio Jackson. Antonio Jackson saw Sonia predicament as had opportunity to trap Sonia in had agreement of becoming his fuck buddy until she graduate from the university. At first, they didn't have a good partnership because all Antonio desired from Sonia was pleasure and lust but eventually, Sonia fell in love with Antonio and became pregnant. Antonio didn't reciprocate his love for Sonia until it was already too late and when the agreement ended, Sonia left Antonio because of the endless torment of his fiancee.

Allie lived in her human world, scarcely aware of the wolves that lurked in the shadows, but after her life fell apart and a fateful night out, she is now the Luna of a pack. Thrown into the middle of a turf war, Allie now has a target on her back as the human mate. Her prophetic power, a gift from the goddess to protect human mates, makes her the wrench in the plan of some domineering wolves who think humans have had it good for too long. She and her mate Green now have to unite the packs and save their way of life. She just found this wonderful world, and now she has to save it.

I never applied to the Academy for Magical Beings and Creatures.

Which is why it was more than a little confusing when a letter arrived with my name already printed on a schedule, a dorm waiting, and classes picked out as if someone knew me better than I knew myself. Everyone knows the Academy, it’s where witches sharpen their spells, shifters master their forms, and every kind of magical creature learns to control their gifts.

Everyone except me.

I don’t even know what I am. No shifting, no magic tricks, nothing. Just a girl surrounded by people who can fly, conjure fire, or heal with a touch. So I sit through classes pretending I belong, and I listen hard for any clue that might tell me what’s hidden in my blood.

The only person more curious than me is Blake Nyvas, tall, golden-eyed, and very much a Dragon. People whisper that he’s dangerous, warn me to keep my distance. But Blake seems determined to solve the mystery of me, and somehow I trust him more than anyone else.

Maybe it’s reckless. Maybe it’s dangerous.

But when everyone else looks at me like I don’t belong, Blake looks at me like I’m a riddle worth solving.

"Come here."
"What?" It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I did not wait for him to answer me, I walked toward him.
"Dance on my lap."
My head screamed at me to turn around and run. But my whole body responded to his command.
"Yes, Alpha," I pulled my dress over my body, it dropped over my head and fell to the ground behind me. I was left in nothing but my matching bra and thong. My hands covered my chest on reflex.
"Let me see."
My hands dropped to my sides.
I lowered myself into his lap, facing him. His eyes peered into mine, and I could feel his hot breath fan my face. His dick responded to all my moves, hardening against my now-moist vagina. I swallowed hard, allowing my lips to part in a ragged breath. His hands trailed up to my waist.
"No touching."


At the tender age of eleven, JoJo Wyatt was forced to grow up far sooner than she should have. Born to a cruel father and a weak mother, she quickly realized she had to become the breadwinner for herself and her sister. Nothing else mattered to her, not even the hottest men. In fact, she despised them. After one horrific night, she swore never to have any contact with the male species again. That was, until she started working for him as his stripper.
Meanwhile, Alpha Lake Rush, thirty, was the most feared Alpha in the country. Burdened by his own share of life's struggles, he had learned only to be cruel and reckless, rejecting not one but two mates. But what happens when he discovers yet another mate, and she turns out to be his stripper?

Elara, the daughter of Nikolas and Saphira, has been sheltered and protected throughout her life from dangers that came for her, but she doesn’t see it that way. Elara remembers feeling isolated and controlled, and now that she has turned 20 and is expected to begin training to succeed her parents, she feels more controlled than ever. Things worsen when she is told she will be taking a mate through the Matchmaker, who will be the face of the pack while she helps in the background. Feeling like she has no other choice, Elara decides to run away, where she meets Kaelan, the Alpha Werewolf from the forgotten pack. A bond begins to form, but Elara has not been truthful about who she is, and now she faces a difficult choice. Should she reveal her true identity and risk everything, or return home and figure out what happened to the parents she grew up hearing about?

Please note: this story contains strong language and mature scenes.

This is the second book in the series, but it can be read as a stand alone.
The first book is The Matchmaker.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy.