Love Me Like I Love You

by Willow Winters

  Until Catherine.

  Those Boys Are Trouble (Valetti Crime Family Collection)

  Collections of shorts and novellas

  Don’t Let Go

  A collection of stories including:

  Infatuation

  Desires in the Night and Keeping Secrets

  Bad Boy Next Door

  Kisses and Wishes

  A collection of holiday stories including:

  One Holiday Wish

  Collared for Christmas

  Stolen Mistletoe Kisses

  All I Want is a Kiss (A Holiday short)

  Olivia thought fleeting weekends would be enough and it always was, until the distance threatened to tear her and Nicholas apart for good.

  Highest Bidder Series:

  Bought

  Sold

  Owned

  Given

  From USA Today best selling authors, Willow Winters and Lauren Landish, comes a sexy and forbidden series of standalone romances.

  Bad Boy Standalones, cowritten with Lauren Landish:

  Inked

  Tempted

  Mr. CEO

  Three novels featuring sexy powerful heroes.

  Three romances that are just as swoon-worthy as they are tempting.

  Forsaken, (A Dark Romance cowritten with B. B. Hamel)

  Grace is stolen and gifted to him; Geo a dominating, brutal and a cold hearted killer.

  However, with each gentle touch and act of kindness that lures her closer to him, Grace is finding it impossible to remember why she should fight him.

  Read Willow’s sexiest and most talked about romances in the Merciless World

  This Love Hurts Trilogy

  This Love Hurts

  But I Need You

  And I Love You the Most

  An epic tale of both betrayal and all-consuming love...

  Marcus, the villain.

  Cody Walsh, the FBI agent who knows too much.

  And Delilah, the lawyer caught in between.

  A Kiss to Tell (a standalone novel)

  They lived on the same street and went to the same school, although he was a year ahead. Even so close, he was untouchable.

  Sebastian was bad news and Chloe was the sad girl who didn’t belong.

  Then one night changed everything.

  Possessive (a standalone novel)

  It was never love with Daniel Cross and she never thought it would be. It was only lust from a distance. Unrequited love maybe.

  He’s a man Addison could never have, for so many reasons.

  Merciless Saga

  Merciless

  Heartless

  Breathless

  Endless

  Ruthless, crime family leader Carter Cross should’ve known Aria would ruin him the moment he saw her. Given to Carter to start a war; he was too eager to accept. But what he didn’t know was what Aria would do to him. He didn’t know that she would change everything.

  All He’ll Ever Be (Merciless Series Collection of all 4 novels)

  Irresistible Attraction Trilogy

  A Single Glance

  A Single Kiss

  A Single Touch

  Bethany is looking for answers and to find them she needs one of the brothers of an infamous crime family, Jase Cross.

  Even a sizzling love affair won’t stop her from getting what she needs.

  But Bethany soon comes to realise Jase will be her downfall, and she’s determined to be his just the same.

  Irresistible Attraction (A Single Glance Trilogy Collection)

  Hard to Love Series

  Hard to Love

  Desperate to Touch

  Tempted to Kiss

  Easy to Fall

  Eight years ago she ran from him.

  Laura should have known he'd come for her. Men like Seth King always get what they want.

  Laura knows what Seth wants from her, and she knows it comes with a steep price.

  However it’s a risk both of them will take.

  Not My Heart to Break (Hard to Love Series Collection)

  Tease Me Once (September 2021)

  Tease me once... I'll kiss you twice.

  Declan Cross' story from the Merciless World.

  Spin off of the Merciless World

  Love the Way Duet co-written with Amelia Wilde

  Love the Way You Kiss Me (May 2021)

  Love the Way You Hold Me (June 2021)

  With everything I've been through, and the unfortunate way we met, the last thing I thought I'd be focused on is the fact that I love the way you kiss me.

  Extended epilogues to the Merciless World Novels

  A Kiss To Keep (more of Sebastian and Chloe)

  Seductive (more of Daniel and Addison)

  Effortless (more of Carter and Aria)

  Never to End (more of Seth and Laura)

  Sexy, thrilling with a touch of dark Standalone Novels

  Broken (Standalone)

  Kade is ruthless and cold hearted in the criminal world.

  They gave Olivia to him. To break. To do as he’d like.

  All because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there are secrets that change everything. And once he has her, he’s never letting her go.

  Forget Me Not (Standalone novel)

  She loved a boy a long time ago. He helped her escape and she left him behind. Regret followed her every day after.

  Jay, the boy she used to know, came back, a man. With a grip strong enough to keep her close and a look in his eyes that warned her to never dare leave him again.

  It’s dark and twisted.

  But that doesn’t make it any less of what it is.

  A love story. Our love story.

  It’s Our Secret (Standalone novel)

  It was only a little lie. That’s how stories like these get started.

  But with every lie Allison tells, Dean sees through it.

  She didn't know what would happen. But with all the secrets and lies, she never thought she’d fall for him.

  View Willow’s entire collection and full reading order at willowwinterswrites.com/reading-order

  Happy reading and best wishes,

  Willow Winters xx

  About Willow Winters

  Thank you so much for reading my romances. I’m just a stay at home mom and avid reader turned author and I couldn’t be happier.

  I hope you love my books as much as I do!

  More by W Winters

  www.willowwinterswrites.com/books/

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  If you prefer text alerts so you don’t miss any of my new releases, text "Willow" to 797979

  Contact W Winters

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  Strong & Steady

  By Vanessa Vale

  Chapter 1

  EMORY

  “You know what they say about an oyster’s aphrodisiac properties.”

  Really? He was going to use that line? If the guy wanted to think Rocky Mountain Oysters were actually oysters from the sea, then I wasn’t going to tell him otherwise. I smiled vaguely at… Bob. No, Bill. Something with a B. He was in his thirties, well dressed in a suit and gray tie, as if he came directly from work at a bank. He had all his hair, was well groomed, yet seemed perfectly… average. Average wasn't bad, but he was an idiot. He was shoveling in fried bull testicles as if the free food might run out.

  My friend Christy had decided to forgo a sit-down dinner for her engagement party, instead having an open bar and finger foods. I guessed she’d put the Colorado specialty on the menu to mess with the out-of-town guests. The invited group had taken over a private room that connected to the bar area of a popular restaurant in town to drink and socialize. Clearly, the socializing part wasn’t going well because I had to watch Bob/Bill chow down on one bull ball
after another.

  I’d nibbled on some chicken satay and bruschetta and a few other options the wait staff had passed around and tried not to wince as he used a cocktail napkin to wipe crumbs from his chin.

  “You should only eat oysters in the months that don’t have an R.” He nodded as if to confirm his statement.

  “Yeah, you can eat these guys probably anytime,” I replied.

  He stuck a toothpick in one on the small plate he held, stared at it. “Yeah, being fried helps.”

  Yeah, that was it.

  Christy had met an amazing man in her fiancé, Paul, but his cousin, who was attempting to work his lackluster charm on me, was a complete dud. He actually thought he was eating real oysters. We were in landlocked Colorado not a coastal town.

  I averted my gaze toward the wall of windows. The restaurant was on the third floor of a historic boutique hotel with amazing western views of the mountains.

  I really wanted to give him the brush-off, to tell him he needed a breath mint and some dental floss, but he was related to Paul, and I owed it to Christy to keep from alienating one of her future relatives. Besides, I’d probably have to see him at the wedding in a few months, and God forbid he was one of the groomsmen. As a bridesmaid—the oldest bridesmaid in history—I'd probably have to walk down the aisle on his arm. I tried to smile and nod as diplomatically as possible. Smile and nod, but he had the personality of a sea slug or an oyster. We’d talked about Paul and Christy for a minute or two, but after that… he showed himself to be a player. He stood a little too close, his gaze surreptitiously dropping to my chest, and he had an odd leer. It had to be a leer, or he had some kind of tick in the corner of his lip.

  Why the guy was lingering with me where there was zero hope of… anything, I had no idea. I’d been burned by a man, okay, scorched to a charcoal briquette, and I wasn’t looking for another one. I’d survived the divorce, survived because Chris needed a mother, needed me to be the strong one. But he was away at college now, and I wasn’t shielded behind the role of parent any longer. I could chat about off-sides rules in soccer or PTA fundraisers, but talking to a guy, a real guy and not another parent from high school, was unbelievably hard. I doubted Bob/Bill knew about any of that, and probably once he discovered I had a child—even an eighteen-year-old—he'd take his bull balls elsewhere.

  God, I was such an introvert! I hated big crowds, new people, loud noises. I wasn't a party person. Because of this, it was hard meeting new people. I was terrible at it, unlike Christy, who never knew a stranger. The whole introvert-extrovert dynamic had helped when she’d been able to pull me out of my shell my first day of work, thankfully introducing me around my new department, which had made us instant friends. It wasn’t as if I was shy or weird or anything, but I was definitely set in my ways. That was what I called it, at least.

  Christy called it lonely, and I couldn’t think of anything more depressing than that. She considered me lonely.

  Lonely!

  She wasn't being mean, just honest. But, I'd been cautious for so long, and it had been even longer since I dated. Like almost twenty years. Two decades. That was why I showed up at the engagement party without a plus-one and why I wasn’t interested in Bob/Bill and his ridiculous pick-up tactics. Sure, a guy would be great, but I wanted a few brain cells between the ears. While my vibrator didn't talk and got the job done, it wasn't like a real man. The weight of him pressing me into the bed. The hard feel of him between my thighs. In me. But an orgasm with a real man wasn't worth playing games, and I didn't want to even learn the rules of dating in the twenty-first century. Watching Bob/Bill wipe his mouth again, there was no doubt my vibrator was going to win tonight.

  I sighed and took a sip of my water. “Look, I’ve got to go. Christy’s waving me over. Good luck with eating those oysters out of season,” I said.

  I took a step away, but he put his hand on my bare arm. He grinned, and I noticed a slight overlap of his front two teeth. “I like to live dangerously.” His thumb stroked over my arm, and I stepped back out of the hold.

  Right. I inwardly rolled my eyes.

  Clearly, he didn’t take any chances since he was talking to me and not some of the other women in the bar area who were more provocatively dressed and a sure thing. Younger, too. At thirty-eight, I wasn't really old, but most women my age didn't have a son in college. Some, I knew, were herding their kindergartener to peewee soccer.

  I wasn’t giving off any indicator to Bob/Bill that said take me home with you. The way I had my arms crossed over my chest, even while holding my glass, was a classic indication of not interested. He had no clue. Zero. A woman wanted a guy who pushed her up against the wall and kissed the ever-loving daylights out of her. Well, I did. Wild monkey sex would be good, too. This guy? Not a chance. If I had to guess, I’d say… accountant.

  I took a sip of my ice water with lime and glanced up at him through my dark lashes. “What do you do?”

  He put an empty half shell on his plate. “I’m an auditor with Social Security.”

  Close enough. I nodded vaguely, trying to keep my eyes from glazing over. He was looking for a woman who wanted the white-picket-fence life with two kids and a dog—and oysters. Been there, done that. I even got the T-shirt and now used it to clean my toilet.

  Glancing at Christy from across the crowded room, I saw her laughing at something the woman next to her said. She looked amazing in her red silk halter dress, her tanned shoulders and back exposed. Her hair was sleek and long and her makeup was definitely night-on-the-town heavy. It was a different look than her business attire for her job at the hospital and even fancier yet than my everyday ER scrubs. Surprising Paul with her daring outfit had been her plan when we’d gone shopping for her dress, and the way his hand rested just north of appropriate on the small of her back as they chatted and mingled with their friends, I’d say it worked. They were blatantly in love, and it was a little hard to watch sometimes. The tug of longing was strong, like an ache, for I’d never seen the look Paul was giving her ever from Jack, my ex. What hurt wasn't that I'd missed out but that I might never have it.

  My own dress wasn’t remotely in the same caliber as Christy’s. I wasn’t trying to please my future husband, and I wasn’t looking for one either. Not at a bar and not with Bob/Bill. I had no clue how to pick someone up, and I wasn’t twenty-one anymore. My dating skills weren’t just rusty, they were stored in a time capsule from the late-nineties. I observed other women around the bar area. Some wore less clothes than I did when I was in my pajamas, leaving not much to the imagination. They smiled coyly, touched, crossed and uncrossed their legs, batted their eyelashes.

  “What about you?” he asked, distracting me from my study. “What do you do?”

  I glanced once again toward Paul and Christy and caught sight of a man who stood with them, a man who definitely had not been there before. If he had, I wouldn't have taken my eyes from him.

  “Oh, um… nurse practitioner,” I responded absently as I noticed the man’s arm, corded muscles shifting beneath the white sleeve. A tattoo peeked out from beneath the rolled-up cuff and his hands were big, the fingers blunt. I couldn’t see the rest of him with Paul blocking the full view, and a visceral need took hold to do so. That was a man.

  Bob/Bill placed his plate on an empty high top and picked up his beer. Doing so, he inched even closer, irritating me. “Is that one of those aides who helps wheel patients to x-ray? I like those cute uniforms they wear.”

  Stepping back, I ignored his words, frustrated I couldn’t get a glimpse of the man. Fortunately, Paul shifted, creating an opening where he was clearly visible. Heat flooded my veins at the sight, and I felt weird butterflies in my stomach. This wasn’t silly, school girl crush feelings. This was something else entirely. This was intense, raw lust. Holy hell, I swore my nipples tightened beneath my dress with one glimpse of him.

  He. Was. A. Cowboy. A COWBOY!

  Living in Colorado, there were a bunch of them out and
about, but I hadn’t seen one this close, and I hadn’t seen one who made me want to pull out a rope and lasso his ass.

  Taller than Paul’s six-foot frame, he had broader shoulders and closely cropped dark hair. He wore a crisp white shirt, but it had snaps. A woman must have invented the concept of snaps on a man’s shirt because with this guy, I wanted to grab both sides of it and rip it open, see the defined chest beneath. Lick it.

  Snap. Snap. SNAP!

  My mouth watered at the idea. It wasn’t just the shirt that said Hello Cowboy! but the pressed jeans that molded oh-so-well to powerful legs. And butt. I’d never had a thing for big, shiny belt buckles, but mmm mmm. He even wore sturdy leather boots as if he’d just come from his ranch. He was all ripped, lean muscle, and my fingers itched to feel every one of them. From across the room, I could see his eyes were dark, a deep and equally dark brow that shadowed them. If my panties got damp from just a glance, what would happen if he turned that gaze on me? I swallowed at the very idea. Look at me. Look at me!