hot mess noun 1. A disorganized, disaster at life. 2. Someone who excels at disorder and disarray. 3. A person who's holding it together . . . but just barely. 4. Shannon Torres Once upon time Shannon had been young and single. But then she'd met Brian and they'd gotten married . . . and now she was single again, only this time she had the best little girl on the planet to show for it. Which was pretty much the only thing that was going right in her life. Brian, her lousy cheating ex, was finally out of the picture, and she was left with an expensive house, a car payment she could barely afford, and a job that left her drained at the end of the day. She was barely hanging on. Then she met Finn. The number one movie star in the world. The most beautiful man she'd ever laid eyes on. Also, quite possibly the only man whose life might be a bigger hot mess than her own. And he wanted her ....

I saved him. Well, maybe he saved me. Or perhaps we saved each other. All I knew was that one second, I was bickering with the man I pretended to despise—a man I secretly wanted more than my next meal—and the next the world was exploding around us. KTS, the secret military agency I worked for, was under attack by a former agent turned traitor and everything we thought we knew about being the good guys was getting more complicated by the minute. As was my relationship with Linc. I'd asked him out once, bared my feelings for him, and . . . he'd turned me down. Not gently, either. But now we were fighting for our lives, and I discovered that perhaps his rejection wasn't quite so simple. Maybe he'd pushed me away because once I was in his heart, there was no letting me go. Ever.

FUBAR adjective Seriously, perhaps irreparably, damaged Thoroughly disordered or ruined Maggie Augustin's life She was pregnant and alone...and sick. Seemingly every second of every day. Yup. She'd gone from single and carefree to chained to a porcelain goddess...and soon she'd be chained to a baby—to nap schedules and car seats, to saggy boobs and blowouts, to— Nothing that resembled her life before she'd peed on a stick and it had flashed with a plus sign. Which was fine. Her life before that stick-peeing hadn't been all that exciting and great. Aside from her friends, she'd been more than a little lonely, wondering what the hell she should be doing with her life. Then...preggers. Then...Carter. Carter Jackson was gorgeous, funny, and good. Carter Jackson was the type of guy she once would have dreamed of riding in on his stallion and saving her. Carter...

Kate McLeod was desperate. Her younger sister was having her first baby, her younger brother was recently married, and . . . Christmas was coming. And in the McLeod household, Christmas was everything. Every year her parents' house looked like an assembly of angels had puked everywhere. She was talking lights and glitter, garland and plaid. EVERYWHERE. All of that Christmas spirit was topped off with the annual McLeod Holiday Party, complete with mistletoe and happy couples and . . . her lonesome single ass. Kate, the one everyone tried to set up with their friend or cousin or coworker. Kate, the oldest and pathetically unmarried sister. Kate, the sad, single San Franciscan. Well, this year she had a plan. She was going to get herself engaged. A diamond ring on her finger was the perfect way to get her family to back off. And she had just the perfect guy in mind.

He was her mortal enemy. And...he'd decided she was his. She loved being a doctor. She didn't love Connor Jackson. Picking. Poking. Prodding. The man had never met a button he didn't like to push. And since Raven had never met a fight that she didn't see through to the end, when she and Connor were together... Fireworks. Then she got hurt—really hurt—and Connor decided that she needed looking after. And that was when she discovered that maybe what she felt for Connor wasn't hate at all.

I'd fallen for him the first time he smiled at me. My heart was his the moment he'd complimented me on my explosives skills. As members of KTS, a secret military group who was tasked with saving the world from the biggest and baddest of the criminal underworld, we went the places other people couldn't, put our lives on the line when others wouldn't. But being a KTS agent was hell on a woman's love life, especially when they looked like me—not petite and slender or wonderfully curved. For women like me, broad-shouldered, normal-looking, love seemed to always pass us by. Knowing that, I put my unrequited crush of Leo aside, switched teams, and got on with my life, content in my part in taking out the bad guys. But then Leo came back. Then he saw me. And I wondered if perhaps love for a "woman like me" might not be a fantasy after all.

My life was boring until I met him. Painfully tedious, pathetically lonely, and I absolutely hated it. But I was too scared to do anything about it. Too scared to change . . . at least until I met Kace. I should have been terrified of him—scared of his size (he towered over my short, curvy self), freaked out by the fierce tats covering his arms and torso (they even crawled up his neck), and definitely frightened by the angry scowl he unleashed on anyone who dared to disrupt him (though this happened rarely, it still did happen). Except, Kace seemed to like me—shy, boring, socially inept me. He couldn't change the tats or the towering, but he rarely unleashed his trademark scowl on me. Okay, so maybe it was more like he tolerated me, but regardless, Kace didn't seem to care that I hung around the bar he worked at, putting my night owl tendencies to work as I wrote. See, my work was the only place I explored. My safe place to...

I'd spent my life watching everything happen around me. But never actually living it. Sheltered. Naïve. Shy. The top three adjectives to describe me. Well, that and awkward. Until Brent. From the first moment, I'd met him, my filter had disappeared. The things that passed through my lips when I was with him were the thoughts that passed through my mind, but also the things I'd never dreamed of saying aloud. But he seemed to like them, and I couldn't stop. Not when he was also gentle, kind, and protective. As well as the most beautiful man I'd ever laid eyes on. A total winning package, and one who was into me. But I was me. More comfortable on the edges, better at observing rather than living. I'd pushed my boundaries just once, had really gone for what life was offering me, and that had ended about as well as an elephant trying to parachute with a tissue. Horribly. It had ended horribly. So I wasn't going to be ready to try...

She was everything he shouldn't want. He was going to take her anyway. Once Lily had fit the role of an annoying little sister. But then she'd gone and grown up—become all woman and one he shouldn't want. She was off-limits, or should be, anyway. She worked for the San Francisco Gold, worked for the same team he played for. But that wasn't the only reason she was off-limits. Lily was the daughter of the man who had been more of a father than his own. So Will couldn't have her, couldn't risk taking her. Except...his body and heart weren't listening to reason. Because Lily had become the woman he wanted more than anything else.