When Nate signs up with a matchmaking app, the sparkly, colorful, always-fashionable florist is hoping to find the guy who will finally see him as more than just a one-night stand. In fact, he’s hoping he’ll find “the one” who wants the same things he does – white picket fence, kids, minivan, dog – and doesn’t mind having them with a man others might think shines just a little toobright sometimes.
 
Enter Harrison Garrison.
 
The uptight lawyer is all wrong for Nate. He’s rigid, distant, controlling, emotionally closed off, and content to live his life in black and white…with maybe a little gray thrown in here and there. But when a misunderstanding leads to an encounter that is all kinds of white-hot, Nate starts to think maybe the matchmaking app got it right after all.
 
Until he finds out the real reason Harrison signed up for the app…
 
Will Nate be the one to finally add a touch of color to the staid Harrison’s life, or did the app completely miss the mark?

NOTE: This SHORT STORY was previously published as part of the Heart 2 Heart Anthology so please double-check to see if you own it before one-clicking!

Unbroken (The Protectors, Book 12)
By Sloane Kennedy
 
 
Everything was supposed to go back to normal when I was rescued. It hasn’t. And I’m starting to think it never will because I don’t even know what normal is anymore…
It’s been two years since Aleks Silva was rescued by his older brother from the dark underworld of sex trafficking and every day since then has been a battle. Leaving the house, interacting with people, even doing something as boring as deciding what clothes to wear or what to eat for breakfast are tasks that most people take for granted. But for Aleks, they’re torture. Because freedom and choice are things that once came at a steep price and survival meant submitting to the whims of those who only saw him as a possession and plaything.
 
Until there was one man who saw him as something more…
 
 
I knew from the moment I saw him that I was going to get him out. But I also knew once I did, I’d need to let him go…
He’s known as Vaughn and nothing more. His job is to make sure secrets don’t get out and the possessions he’s been tasked with guarding never escape and tell their story. After eight years in a world where innocent kids are used to feed the darkest of depravities, Vaughn has seen things that would break even the strongest man. But he’s played it smart and built up a wall between himself and the darkness that threatens to consume him.
 
It wasn’t until he met a young man who had to be a thousand times stronger to survive the life he was forced into as a child that the first crack appeared in his carefully constructed wall.
 
Vaughn’s only job was to make sure young Aleks Silva remained the ugly little secret of one of the most powerful men in Chicago. It was one job he was more than happy to fail at, and when he eliminated the threat against Aleks and set him free, he was sure their paths would never cross again.
 
But fate has other plans…
 
Vaughn is the only man from my other life who never had a starring role in my nightmares… but he’s been in every one of my dreams. And I don’t know why…
When Aleks is suddenly abducted after leaving work one quiet spring evening, he’s certain he’ll never see his brother and family again. But terror quickly turns to relief when a familiar face once again comes to his rescue, along with all the feelings he’s always had but never quite understood around the dangerous, older Vaughn. Certain that Vaughn will make everything okay again like he did once before, Aleks knows he doesn’t even need to ask Vaughn to take him home. But when he does anyway, nothing he’s ever experienced prepares him for Vaughn’s answer… or the brutal betrayal that comes along with it.
 
I’m sorry, Aleks, I can’t do that.
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