When he invited me to join him for a drink, I thought Alessandro was an ordinary guest at my family's hotel. I didn't know I belonged to him until he told me right there in the restaurant. I thought I had a say in the matter. But when I stood up to leave, it just earned me a sore bottom for the plane ride to New York, where our wedding was already planned for the next day. But I was soaking wet for him before he even walked me down the aisle.

The night she showed up at my bar with a fake ID, I kicked her out. On her birthday, the following week, she showed up again. Except this time, she was demanding a job and willing to do whatever it took to get it. Against my better judgment, she got her way, but I'm not going to make it easy on her. Neither are the guys at my bar. I have two choices: Pretend she's mine to protect her. Or deal with the consequences when her five older, overprotective brothers find out what their little sister is up to.

When my best friend Kinsley's animal shelter holds a charity fundraiser, I'm only happy to help. When she puts me up on the auction block? The bidding ends in a three-way tie. Enter Christian, the strapping Hollywood lawyer, as well as Shane and Darius, two ex-Army brothers in arms. All three of them are willing to share me for the night, and what a night it is! The places they take me and the things they do leave me breathless and fantasizing about them...all the way back to New York.

Kieran Murphy is an Irish mob boss and one of the most powerful men in Boston. When he walks me home, people step aside out of respect for him. He could have any woman he wants. So why does he have eyes only for me? Is it how he has to lift my chin with his fingers to keep my eyes level with his when he scolds me and how I cover my bottom instinctively when he tells me that I've earned a spanking? Or is it how I quiver at the thought of everything I'm too ashamed to beg him to do to me? Maybe it's all of those, but I'm pretty sure there's something else too.

Running away from home at 17 wasn't easy. Let's face it, though, nothing before or in the ten years since has ever been easy for me. And I'm doing okay—sorta. I just need to keep scraping by, living under the radar. Staying out of people's way, off people's minds. When a man walks through my open patio door, stepping boldly into my home and my life, I should be scared, frightened, terrified. I must be more broken than I realized because I'm none of those things. I'm intrigued—and I'm wondering if the way to take control of my life is by giving in to him.