Emotionally scarred and embittered, Nick Banner knows he's the wrong man for this job, but unless he gets a desperate friend's daughter off-planet, she's certain to be kidnapped. While it seemed simple enough, experience taught him a female onboard meant trouble.

Within the tight confines of Banner's Victorious, Tressa Loring battles a girlhood crush gone dangerous. As a sheltered teen, she secretly worshipped Banner from afar. Even his carnal reputation seemed romantic.

Intrigued, Banner misses nothing: Her beauty. Her spirit... or her rising interest. Yeah, he'd noticed, and sexual tension smolders.

EXCERPTS
       

Zeke Slater leads a double life. Outwardly he's a cargo pilot. In reality he's a privateer waging war on pirates menacing the trade routes. His ship, Solar Wind, appears harmless, yet beneath the disguise is an advanced war ship. Having once been sold into slavery, Kira Delaney has aligned herself with a band of renegades to help other escaped slaves. Now with trouble on her heels, she stows aboard Slater's ship.

Neither Zeke nor Kira realize their parallel missions. Slater is determined to send her home, but when they land, he is unexpectedly challenged to fight for Kira's freedom. Slater wins, only to discover they are now legally bonded.

Kira sees this farce of a marriage as another form of ownership. Unlike slavery, however, love doesn't own or possess. It sets you free.

To Slater, love is a weakness, the lack of which makes him so successful and dangerous at what he does. The lesson he must come to terms with is that Love is a strength. Not a weakness.

EXCERPTS