Cole McCade

Ash Harrington's life is out of control. At twenty-three years old, he's suddenly the head of a multibillion dollar global corporation he is in no way equipped to run. His father is dying. His mother's run away. He's spent his entire adult life playing fast and loose with his life and his loves, but when he's dragged into a position of responsibility with the fate of the company on his shoulders, he goes spinning into freefall. And Brand Forsythe is the only man to catch him. Icy, detached, nearly twice Ash's age, the massive monolith of a British valet is impossible to deal with and like no servant Ash has ever met. Domineering and controlling, Brand quickly puts Ash's life in order. And quickly takes Ash in hand. Even if by day Ash has to project authority, leadership, and calm...by night he's discovering the breathless pleasure of giving up control. The shivering thrill of surrendering to Brand. The sweet taboo of being submissive to the man in even the smallest things. Ash can't quite understand why it feels so good to put himself in Brand Forsythe's capable, commanding hands. He only knows, as he faces the hardest decisions of his life...the only thing that can save him is the love of his cocky valet. Author's Note: If you're reading this, you likely know why this book exists. Bask in the petty, my darlings. Bask.

Rian Falwell has a problem. And his name is Damon Louis. Rian’s life as the art teacher to a gaggle of displaced boys at Albin Academy should be smooth sailing—until the stubborn, grouchy football coach comes into his world like a lightning strike and ignites a heated conflict that would leave them sworn enemies if not for a common goal. A student in peril. A troubling secret. And two men who are polar opposites but must work together to protect their charges. They shouldn’t want each other. They shouldn’t even like each other. Yet as they fight to save a young man from the edge, they discover more than they thought possible about each other—and about themselves. In the space between hatred, they find love. And the lives they have always wanted… Just like this.

Summer Hemlock never meant to come back to Omen, Massachusetts. But with his mother in need of help, Summer has no choice but to return to his hometown, take up a teaching residency at the Albin Academy boarding school—and work directly under the man who made his teenage years miserable. Professor Fox Iseya. Forbidding, aloof, commanding: psychology instructor Iseya is a cipher who’s always fascinated and intimidated shy, anxious Summer. But that fascination turns into something more when the older man challenges Summer to be brave. What starts as a daily game to reward Summer with a kiss for every obstacle overcome turns passionate, and a professional relationship turns quickly personal. Yet Iseya’s walls of grief may be too high for someone like Summer to climb…until Summer’s infectious warmth shows Fox everything he’s been missing in life. Now both men must be brave enough to trust each other, to take that leap. To find the love they’ve always needed… Just like that. Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories featuring beloved romance tropes, where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters. In Just Like That, critically acclaimed author Cole McCade introduces us to Albin Academy: a private boys’ school where some of the world’s richest families send their problem children to learn discipline and maturity, out of the public eye. This book is approximately 65,000 words.

When a string of young queer men turn up dead in grisly murders, all signs point to the ex-boyfriend--but what should be an open-and-shut case is fraught with tension when BPD homicide detective Malcolm Khalaji joins up with a partner he never wanted. Rigid, ice-cold, and a stickler for the rules, Seong-Jae Yoon is a watchful presence whose obstinacy and unpredictability constantly remind Malcolm why he prefers to work alone. Seong-Jae may be stunningly attractive, a man who moves like a graceful, lethal bird of prey . . . but he's as impossible to decipher as this case. And if Malcolm doesn't find the key to unravel both in time, another vulnerable young victim may end up dead. Contains mature themes.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Malcolm Khalaji is missing. And Seong-Jae Yoon is the only one who can find him. But to do so means walking paths he swore he would never tread again. Descending into the blackest hallways of a twisted and sadistic mind. Breaking down every wall he's ever built around himself, to try to predict what Sila will do next. Yet not even Seong-Jae can anticipate the outcome of this deadly game. One chance. One choice. Will Seong-Jae sacrifice himself to save Malcolm... ...or become the monster that Sila knows him to be? Part Two of the explosive finale and the climactic ending to Season One!

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Broken trust. Shattered hearts. Secrets exposed--and yet still no closer to the truth. When Malcolm and Seong-Jae's relationship hits a wall, their partnership fragments as well...and they may not be able to withstand the crushing tide when protests over Tomasz Kowalczyk's death turn into deadly riots. Too many familiar faces return, and one will be leaving in a bodybag. But for the puppetmaster guiding their every move, the chaos that descends on Baltimore is the perfect opportunity to capture his mark. And when Sila sets his eyes on Malcolm... Malcolm will discover that nowhere is safe. There's no one he can trust. And no one to save him from the man who taught Seong-Jae to love through pain. Through suffering. Through hatred. Through lies. Through betrayal, when nothing and no one are what they seem. Part I of the thrilling Season One finale!

ABOUT THIS EPISODE "I'm sorry." A stage play turns into high drama when the leading man's mutilated body takes center stage--and the remorseful note pinned to his chest is Malcolm and Seong-Jae's only clue to finding the killer. What should be a simple case is complicated by secrets and lies; as more and more of Seong-Jae's past surfaces, every deflection and careful half-truth builds the walls between partners-turned-lovers higher still. When Malcolm and Seong-Jae can no longer see eye to eye...will the closing act of their story turn into a tragedy?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE When a 911 call goes wrong and a young man goes missing, it falls to Malcolm and Seong-Jae to investigate the responding officers when Internal Affairs' internal politics leave the case compromised and the officers aren't willing to talk. But with Seong-Jae on the wrong side of the thin blue line, tensions just may turn violent before the detectives find their answers--and only their trust in each other will keep this investigation from hitting a dead end. Will Malcolm and Seong-Jae's savage love survive the test, or will this case end in self-destruction? With Sade mysteriously vanished once more, taking one of their major assets out of commission, it's anyone's game. Especially when their missing young man becomes a dead young man...and no one will admit who's truly responsible for his violent demise.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE "He pushed me." Three words turn a suspected suicide into an unsettling murder, pointing to a killer whose methods and motives threaten to expose buried memories of Seong-Jae's past. Yet neither Malcolm nor Seong-Jae are ready for the shadowed secrets that could shatter their tenuous new relationship, when a haunting presence seems to stalk them around every corner, watching their smallest move, baiting them and flirting just out of reach. Is it the killer, always staying one step ahead? Or a green-eyed ghost, luring both Malcolm and Seong-Jae toward the point of no return?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Detective Malcolm Khalaji is at a loss. For the second time in his life, he wasn't there when his lover needed him. And with Seong-Jae Yoon on leave pending an internal investigation, Malcolm doesn't know what to do with a shattered partner and boyfriend who's retreated from him into a dark and broken place. It's Gabrielle all over again...yet this time, Malcolm is determined to do this right. This time he's determined to be there no matter what Seong-Jae needs, even if it means taking time off from the pressures of their job to hold Seong-Jae through every moment of trauma, of guilt, of self-recrimination. Until a frantic phone call from Seong-Jae's parents destroys any hope of peace. Because Seong-Jae's younger sister is missing—and there's only one place she would go. Yet even if the desperate search breaks Seong-Jae's numbness, it's the warmth of family that brings him back from a black and dangerous edge—and shows Malcolm a side to Seong-Jae he never could have imagined. But not even these idyllic moments of calm are safe, as the twisted machinations surrounding them continue. If each player in this game is a chess piece, then none other than Edmund Bishop is a pawn, sacrificed to save his queen. Yet is Lillienne Wellington really the one pulling the strings? Or is someone else trying to eliminate Bishop for their own dire ends?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Tragedy strikes on the homefront when a husband and father snaps...but if Detectives Malcolm Khalaji and Seong-Jae Yoon can't track down a killer on the run, this crime of passion may take one more victim. Moral boundaries blur, lines cross, and even as a secretive puppetmaster watches from the shadows, both Malcolm and Seong-Jae must make a choice. One path leads to salvation. While the other may leave an innocent dead. And not even the feelings growing between them will stop Malcolm and Seong-Jae from shattering for good.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE An eerie ritualistic murder sends Malcolm and Seong-Jae down a bizarre path of the occult to find a killer--but when it comes to witchcraft, the suspect's not the only one casting a spell. With Seong-Jae haunting his dreams, Malcolm is practically bewitched, his trust in Seong-Jae growing deeper and deeper as both men learn to rely on each other. But when the murder triggers memories from both Seong-Jae's and Malcolm's shadowed pasts, will the secrets they share bring them closer...or drive them further apart?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE They say where there's smoke, there's fire—but Malcolm and Seong-Jae have a lot of blood and no body in a case where the only witness to a murder may be the killer himself. Yet as they chase down a victim who may or may not exist in a crime that may or may not have happened, it's the sparks flying between them that threaten to ignite into dangerous flame...and by the time this case is over, their relationship may never be the same. One kiss, one case, one night may change everything... ...and when Malcolm and Seong-Jae come together, someone's going to get burned.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE With Malcolm on forced bed rest and off duty, Detective Seong-Jae Yoon faces his first solo case since joining the BPD--and it's one that will challenge his morals, his sense of duty, and his insistence on adhering to the letter of the law, especially when his actions in the Bishop case leave him questioning his own integrity. When the supposedly accidental death of a husband and father points to foul play in the victim's family, how close will Seong-Jae look to determine if the ends justify the means...and will he be able to live with the choices he makes? Especially when his mind is as far from the case as possible, and lingering on Malcolm Khalaji, Malcolm's ex-wife, and Seong-Jae's own conflicted feelings?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Multiple execution-style murders hint at a mob hit, but when Malcolm and Seong-Jae follow the clues the last thing they expect is a host of very familiar--and very dead--faces. They say dead men tell no tales, but if Malcolm and Seong-Jae can't even trust the words of the living, they'll never catch a hit man dead set on burying every trace of an underworld secret...along with a few more bodies. But it's not just the cold bodies on their minds, when a little undercover work sends them to a nightclub once owned by none other than Marion Garvey. Forced to play at being lovers, neither man can ignore the distraction of the very warm body in his arms. To Malcolm, Seong-Jae remains as aloof as ever...but what's really smoldering under that icy mask?

A murdered night club mogul unlocks a web of infidelity and deceit. The most likely suspect? The daughter of the richest family in Baltimore, if only Detectives Malcolm Khalaji and Seong-Jae Yoon can piece the evidence together. The clues just aren't lining up--but Malcolm can't tell if he's missing a piece of the puzzle or completely missing the mark. The McAllister case still haunts him. So many dead. So many he couldn't save. It's throwing him off his game. And the only one who really understands is his strange, coldly aloof partner. A partner he can never see the same way, after a moment of intimacy that haunts him as much as the voices of the dead. Seong-Jae Yoon is struggling in his own way. He can't solve the case when he can't trust Malcolm, and he can't trust Malcolm when the grizzled old wolf is growing increasingly erratic, increasingly dangerous. What disturbs Seong-Jae is how much he needs to trust Malcolm. He doesn't get that close. He doesn't get that involved. But he may have no choice, if they want to stop a powerful killer from slipping away. Contains mature themes.