Taming Beast

Danielle knew Maurice "Beast" Jackson was fine.

Dark skin. Locs past his shoulders. Tattoos covering his body. A thick beard, dangerous eyes, and a voice low enough to make a woman forget what the hell she was talking about.

But none of that mattered.

Beast was her friend.

The one she could call when a date went wrong. The one who knew when she was lying before she finished the sentence. The one who could sit on the phone with her for hours talking about everything and absolutely nothing.

He was also the man who had slept with her little sister.

Once.

Years ago.

A mistake neither Beast nor her sister cared to repeat, but one Danielle never forgot.

So when familiar conversations start lasting a little longer, innocent looks begin feeling a little heavier, and Beast starts standing just a little too close, Danielle convinces herself she's imagining it.

Until Beast admits she's not.

Now the man who's spent years learning her moods, habits, and body language is using everything he knows to recognize the one thing Danielle desperately wants to hide:

She wants him too.

Danielle knows some lines aren't supposed to be crossed.

Beast has never been particularly good at following rules.

And the more she tries to remind him why they can't go there, the more Maurice Jackson seems determined to find out whether the woman who knows the man beneath "Beast" might be the only woman capable of taming him.

Everybody calls him Beast.
Only she calls him Maurice.