HARD EVER AFTER is a novella in the Hard Ink series (#4.6) by Laura Kaye. This is a quick book, 96 pages, and is a delightful revisiting of the characters of Hard Ink Tattoo, Nicholas Rixey's tattoo parlor. Nick had returned from his military life overseas thinking his ex-commander had betrayed Nick and his fellow soldiers to death. Into Nick's shop walked the sexy daughter of the ex-commander, looking for help to rescue her brother, and Nick and Becca ultimately fell in love. Along the way, the lovers' investigation also turned into a full-out war with an organized crime ring and street gang.

Nick and his fellow military teammates are setting up a new security consulting firm and moving on from the war with the organized crime ring. As everyone prepares for Becca and Nick's nuptials, a danger everyone thinks is gone rears up to menace them again. There is a great mix of romance, danger, and erotic interludes nicely spaced throughout the story. The novella opens strongly, with a smokin' bedroom scene, and Kaye keeps the flames burning high between our hero and heroine as they reach for the Happily Ever After that seems held just outside their reach.

Nick and Becca are the couple from book 1 of the series, HARD AS IT GETS, and it is lovely to see the focus on them again, while seeing the other couples from the other books in action as well. HARD EVER AFTER shows the whole team together for Nick and Becca's wedding, and includes all the characters from the previous novels. Kaye does a smooth job of injecting small summaries of the backstories for each person or couple, so that someone new to the series can pretty easily follow along. This is difficult for many authors to do, apparently, and I give full points to Kaye for doing it so seamlessly.

I'm not normally a fan of novellas because I don't like their short format, but I will always read them when they progress a story arc in a series I follow. Kaye does this shorter composition well, and I am not sorry to pick up one of her novellas—I find this as well done as her novels. Thus I can wholeheartedly recommend HARD EVER AFTER, not just to fans of Kaye's Hard Ink series, but also to all readers who enjoy romantic suspense, bridal days, and blushingly-hot bedroom scenes.