The Barons Books in Order

The Barons is Santino Hassell’s contemporary sports-romance series about players connected to the New York Barons professional football team. The books in this listing are Illegal Contact and Down by Contact. Both pair the public pressure of pro football with characters who are trying to sort out what they want away from the stadium.

Illegal Contact begins with tight end Gavin Brawley in serious trouble. A viral video of a fight has left him suspended and under house arrest, confirming the worst version of his reputation as an angry, difficult player. Noah Monroe, a recent graduate facing student debt, takes a job as Gavin’s assistant and informal babysitter. Their forced proximity turns a practical arrangement into something neither man planned for.

Gavin and Noah come from very different places. Gavin has money, status, and a career built on physical confidence, but he has little control over the story people tell about him. Noah needs the paycheck and has no reason to trust a famous athlete with a temper. Their relationship develops while both have to decide whether they can look past first impressions.

The second book changes the matchup. Down by Contact follows Barons quarterback Simeon Boudreaux and rival linebacker Adrián Bravo. Once teammates, they have become opponents with a lot of unresolved hostility. A fight on the field gets them suspended and assigned to work together at a football camp for Brooklyn teenagers.

Neither of them is thrilled about it.

The camp forces Simeon and Adrián to spend time together without the usual escape of a game, a locker room, or an online argument. Simeon’s easy charm and public approval contrast with Adrián’s harder exterior, but the rivalry turns out to cover more complicated feelings. Their story asks what happens when old resentment meets an attraction neither player is eager to name.

The Barons books are shorter, high-energy romances with explicit content, banter, and the pressures of being visible in a macho professional sport. They are connected by the team and its players, but each novel has its own couple and resolution. Start with Illegal Contact for the introduction to the Barons world, then move to Down by Contact for the rival-player romance.