Ten years ago, Maxwell you-can-just-call-me Clark thought he would spend his life as a military man. But his world turned into a nightmare when a suicide bomber destroyed Clark's career. It's been a long road to recovery, but now Clark finally has peace. His bar, Glow, is the place to be in the city of New Amsterdam; Lucian Gray, the son of the mayor, employs Clark as a confidential information man; and Clark’s side venture as part-owner of a BDSM club is quite the profitable release. Clark’s life is a good one, so long as no one gets too close.<br><br>Then a man walks into Glow who will forever change Clark’s rules and reality. Thinking Professor Daniel Germain is just another handsome face ripe for Clark’s kind of good time, Clark puts on his smoothest moves. When the professor turns him down, Clark goes on the hunt, and what he discovers shows him that even the deepest wounds can be healed by submitting to love.

Hearts Under Fire

It all started at Green Dojo, where Clark had taken martial arts for most of his life. The owner let Clark teach, and two kids came through the doors who would forever change Clark’s life: Lucian Gray and Chance Baar.


Lucian was scarily brilliant and the mayor’s son. Chance was likeable and the heir to his family’s empire. Clark trained them both for a short period of time, and he was surprised that when he left for the military, Lucian and Chance seemed genuinely sad to see him go.


After the bombing, Clark returned to New Amsterdam. Both his parents were dead, and he sat on an inheritance that burned a hole in his pocket for a year while he drank too much whiskey in a cheap apartment on the bad side of town. Staring down the neck of an empty bottle of Jack, Clark decided to open Glow. He paid a small fortune for a piece of property in the fashion district, thinking that if he was going to gamble, he might as well go all in.


Chapter 12