Big Badd Wolf — Jasinda Wilder

Lucian Badd saved my life. He jumped into the freezing water of the Ketchikan harbor after I fell in. He took me to his room, stripped my wet clothes off, and wrapped me in a warm blanket.

That should have been it. I should have hit the road as soon as I could, because I'm a vagabond, a drifter. A homeless orphan with no family and no future except what I create for myself. Which is why getting tangled up with a guy -- no matter how tall, dark, quiet, and sexy he may be -- is a really terrible idea.

Yet…I kissed him anyway. And that one kiss? It set my world on fire, turned everything upside down.

I know I shouldn't get involved with him. I tell myself I won't. Yet, I still get pulled in by him and his seven brothers and their wives and girlfriends -- by the concept of family, something I haven't had in a very, very long time. Something I never thought I'd have again.

Every moment I spend with Lucian turns my present into perfect, and puts my future at risk.


* * *

As the second youngest Badd brother, I've lived my entire life in the long, broad shadows cast by my older brothers -- the burly, bad boy bartender, the Navy SEAL, the trick pilot, the athlete, and the rock star twins. Even my younger brother, Xavier, finds a way to outshine everyone in the room with his unassuming charisma and dizzying intellect. More and more lately, I've been asking myself where I fit in.

And then Joss Mackenzie fell into the Inside Passage in the middle of a freak snowstorm, and in so doing, fell into my life. I saved her from the icy water, but can I can I save myself from falling for a girl I know is only going to end up doing the one thing she does best -- leave?

It's evident from the first kiss what the answer is -- there's no saving myself, not from the magnetic appeal of her wild, untamable spirit, or the exotic allure of her caramel skin and long dreadlocks and golden-brown eyes and perfect body. I'm helpless against this attraction.

But as I seek to find myself and my place among my larger-than-life brothers, will I lose my heart to the exotic beauty with walls a mile high and a tragic past?