Mark Dauphin loves his nephews, Sam and Logan, and he'll do anything his brother-in-law Cole asks, but when Cole wants Mark to play nice with Stefano Magnussi, Mark isn't sure he can comply. Stefano is hotter than fire, but Mark can't see past the fact that Stefano is one of those guys, the type of men who date guys half their age, the type of guys who made Mark give up on dating.<br><br>Of course, a little wine and several cocktails later, Mark finds himself dropping more than his defenses with Stefano. But when Logan and the rest of Mark's family surprise them in the morning, Mark and Stefano are suddenly at odds.<br><br>When Logan's ego is wounded, not only does Mark find himself desperate to fix his relationship with his nephew, but he also questions whether his night with this beautiful man meant anything to either of them. Mark isn't given much time to reflect though, as the war that's been brewing between the shivers comes to a violent head, and he soon learns that sometimes you just have to trust in those around you.

Mark's Midlife

Now with my eyes above water, I looked toward the shore. The great white’s fin was prodding along moving directly toward land. Was he going to wait for me to try to make it to shore? Is that what he had done last time?


Oh, hell no, I thought. I wasn’t going to be kept at sea just waiting for his friends to return. I moved quickly but with those in the air jumps. My speed was good, but at over twice my size, he was moving pretty fast for a shark, not to mention that while I was diving down replotting, he had had a head start.


He was getting really close to the shore and I was actually starting to worry that he was going to get beached. I know I shouldn’t have been too concerned about this thing that seemed to want to eat me, but I have always had a love for animals, especially the aquatic kind.


Chapter 19