After being a soldier, working as a bodyguard should have been simple: Keep the owner of DC’s ultra-secret club safe, don’t think about his midnight eyes or his devil’s smile, don’t surrender my body to his wicked desires. But I underestimated Mark Trevena and the power of his dark, seductive world. I underestimated the hold he’d have on me, the way I would do anything for him at all. And so when he asks me to escort his soon-to-be bride home, I can only—miserably, broken-heartedly–say yes.

They call me a slut. Maybe I am. Sometimes I do things I despise. Sometimes men take without asking. But I have a musical gift, only a year left of high school, and a plan. With one obstacle. Emeric Marceaux doesn’t just take. He seizes my will power and bangs it like a dark note. When he commands me to play, I want to give him everything. I kneel for his punishments, tremble for his touch, and risk it all for our stolen moments.

When you've been told your whole life that something is sinful, you have two options. Avoid it like the plague, like it has the power to destroy all that is good and pure. Or become as fixated upon it as Eve was upon that apple. I'm sick of the push-pull of terror and temptation. It's tearing me apart. I just want a bite of the apple. More than a bite. I want to devour it. Have its juices spill from my lips. And by apple, I, of course, mean sex.

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wisecracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were 18? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Three years ago, Jacob Price walked away. After a whirlwind steamy affair, my father's best friend broke my heart. He told me things were too complicated. Messy. Wrong. That we could never be together. I knew he loved me, but the fear of ruining our family was too great. With too much at stake, he sacrificed our hearts and ended it. Now, he's back, and he still wants me. He still loves me. But now, I'm engaged to another man.