DESCRIPTION
A man lures a woman into the woods.
Another ruins the life of his best friend.
And yet another strings them along like puppets.
Dark men.
They are intriguing, and charming, and powerful.
They are changing the world.
They are changing themselves.
They are playing with lust, and love, and fear, and loathing.
Addicted to each other, to their secret, to the seduction, to the sex.
It’s a crash in the making.
And yes, it’s on purpose.
These men are dark.
And this is the messy story of how Nova Ryan loves them.
Loving Dark Men is a seductive romantic thriller that will have you turning pages well past your bedtime. A standalone book by New York Times bestselling author, JA Huss.
CHAPTER ONE – NOVA
I pace the floor behind the cash register of my little shop. Counting steps, and breaths—anything I can to make the time go by. I hate waiting. That’s my new thing. It used to be surprises but I gave up on hating surprises.
There is no way to circumvent the surprises.
The earring in my hand is rough with tiny lavender diamonds mounted on a fringe of delicate platinum strands. It was the only thing I could think of. The only link back to them.
More accurately, the only way to get them back.
Mercer, Olsen, and Locke.
My dark men.
But the woman I’m expecting knows a thing or two about dark men, so I’ve planned for a fight.
She will not win.
But even as I say these words in my head, there is a part of me that wishes it was different. That wishes I could just get over them. Just leave them behind for good.
Because even that first day, I knew.
They were going to ruin me.
Mercer, Olsen, and most of all Locke. Because Locke was the first one who completely captured me that morning. It’s like he put a spell on me. And even after I left, years ago now, it has never quite worn off.
I still love, and long for, Locke.
But he’s trapped. Just like I was. And there is only one way to get him back.
The Institute is a ninety-two-acre campus that encompasses the entire area of Private Island #1, located in Meredith Bay, New Hampshire. The fact that the island’s name is quite literally ‘Private’ should pretty much sum up what the Institute is and stands for.
Privacy.
Except not really privacy. Not like, ‘I’d like my privacy,’ or ‘Please keep my data private,’ or even ‘Discretion is advised.’ The Institute and privacy are attached at the crimes.
They need privacy. Or else they would all find themselves in prison.
I was recruited by Mercer, first name Silas. But we didn’t go by given names on the island. Only surnames. This kind of made sense at first. I got it. The Institute is populated with old families and surnames have meaning.
So I understood. The moment that Mercer told me that I would no longer be Nova, I would be Ryan, it kinda made sense.
“Come on now. Nova?” He laughed at my name. “It’s so obnoxious and trendy. You might as well be called Starchild. Your name is now Ryan—because good Lord, Ryanzski, no one wants to go around spitting out those syllables all day long. It’s not even a real name.”
Names on the island meant something. That was the point. So if I wanted to fit in, my name needed to mean something too. You don’t need to know anything about my family to get the bullet points right. It’s all spelled out for you with the ‘z’ and the ‘ski.’
I didn’t mind, though.
I didn’t mind anything about them back then. It was all so exciting, and new, and… yeah. Special. I was now special. Because the Institute had chosen me, of all the new PhD graduates from all the best schools. Their choice was me.
So whatever. If my new name was now Ryan, so be it. I never liked being a Ryanzski anyway. Mercer was right. He’s still right, even to this day—about this one thing, anyway.
Nova is obnoxious enough. Ryanzski even more so. But Ryan? She’s cute, and smart, and tiny. A little whirlwind. A wee bit of fun, as Olsen used to say.
Everyone loves Ryan.
In one day, I went from nobody to somebody.
And it was all because of them.
FIVE YEARS AGO
THE INSTITUTE
June third. A Tuesday.
Nothing special about this day as far as I can tell. But this start date comes with all kinds of questions. I literally just defended my dissertation two weeks ago and now here I am. On a random Tuesday. Starting something new.
So why this day?
Why not start on the first?
Or a Monday?
It’s a mystery.
And I find this intriguing because who doesn’t love a good mystery?
I’m standing in the middle of the campus. There is a square mapped out in gray slate stepping stones, but depending on your perspective, it could be a diamond. From my perspective—from everyone’s perspective entering the main gates of the campus, actually—it is a diamond. But they call it the Square.
Despite the fact that there are only three hundred and one academics here, the Square is super-busy. I can count fifty or sixty of that total just people-watching at nine twenty-two AM.
I would like to stay and just soak it all up—enjoy the warm air, and the sunshine, and give myself plenty of time to acclimate to this big change in my life—but I have places to go and people to see.
Silas Mercer isn’t just my recruiter, he is also my guide. He compared this position to a residential advisor in undergrad. Or a primary investigator in grad school. Someone who watches over you, someone you go to with problems, and, obviously, someone who guides you.
We have a meeting at ten. But I was looking at the campus map in my welcome packet last night, and his office location wasn’t clear. There was a circle on a random corner of a building called Trapp.
I’m careful. I’m a planner. I like things orderly. I don’t like surprises of any kind. So in order to avoid a possible surprise scenario on my first day, I arrive early so I can check things out.
There’s a coffee cart to the left of the Square, so I head that way as I continue my people-watching. Pretty much everyone is my age. Late twenties, early thirties. This is a place of young people, Mercer explained during my recruitment meeting. Of course, most schools are. But the Institute isn’t a school. It’s a research center dedicated to postdocs. Everyone has a PhD. It’s a place of big ideas, and interesting projects, and Mercer was recruiting me to help with his.
He didn’t really explain the project. Said I’d have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before he could do that. But he did explain that it was in my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse being behavioral and systems neuroscience, which is a fancy way of saying I map neural networks throughout the body and apply that data to external behaviors.
Despite the fact that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life preparing for the day I defended my dissertation, I am not prepared to actually be a behavioral and systems neuroscientist.
I knew that. Months and months ago, actually.
So the offer was kind of a relief. I would not have to get my own lab and start my own projects. I could leech a little. Get my feet wet with Mercer and the Institute. And then, after the year was up, I would be ready to move on, or I could stay at the Institute and begin my own project and process of recruitment.