Esmeralda I have a bad habit of running from my problems. Well, not just problems. Anything that made my heart race and made me anxious.And Christian De Martel made me feel all those things. I didn't like it. As I opened my door and made my way inside, I was glad to find my best friend Tatia and her date had vacated my apartment, though I could see they’d enjoyed one of my expensive bottles of wine. Finding some left, I poured the remainder in a glass and leaned against the counter, taking a sip.A heavy knock sounded at the door.I sighed.I’d been waiting for a visit from David—or, more likely, a check-in—now that I was a single woman. I finished off my wine and went to open the door.My heart dropped to my toes.Christian stood in the hall, his gaze lowered. He’d removed his jacket but otherwise wore his gray tie, pants, and white dress shirt he’d had at the club. When his eyes came up to me, I realized they were clouded with something dark and terrifying.My pulse leapt.
KatrinaExcuse me.” I glanced up from my phone. A young woman with strawberry-blonde curls and glistening green eyes was smiling at me. She wore a nude skirt that hugged her hips and a rose-colored blouse that had three buttons at the top unbuttoned, just enough to tease onlookers.“Hi. Can I help you?” I adjusted my purse on my shoulder.“I’m trying to find The Aldra Place.” She laughed softly. “I’m new to the city, and I can’t seem to find anything.”I gazed at my bus stop across the street.“It’s okay if you can’t. I’m sure I could find someone else,” she said.My bus wasn’t here yet. I had some time. “No, it’s okay. I’d love to help you.”Her full lips stretched into a smile. “Great!”As I gave her directions, she furrowed her brows together and nodded slowly. She sucked in the corner of her bottom lip. I doubted she understood anything I just said. Aldra Place was difficult to get to from here.After gazing back at the bus stop, I shrugged my shoulders. I could catch the next
Tatia“Gurl! It’s the third date! You know what that means!” my best friend, Jessica, said. She pulled me into Victoria’s Secret and skipped to the skimpiest bras and panties that she could find in the entire store.I groaned under my breath, my cheeks flaming, and followed her. “Jess, please don’t. Nothing is going to happen.”But instead of listening to my pleas, she ignored me and kept searching through the underwear for my size. “My girl is finally gonna have sex! She isn’t gonna be no virgin after tonight!”“Jess! Quiet down! I don’t need the whole store hearing,” I whisper-yelled and sent her my deadliest glare. But it was true. I was a virgin with a capital V. I hadn’t been touched by a man since high school when Johnny kissed me behind the bleachers and spread rumors to everyone that he fucked me.I willingly stayed a virgin because I didn’t want any rumors like that spreading about me ever again. It had given me nightmares for weeks and had made me seem like the school’s whor
Tati His strong legs ran down the field, trying to keep the ball away from his opponent. The tension was high in the arena. This was the most important match of the season, and the game was tied. Twenty seconds were left in overtime.I watched as he crossed the middle of the field, running right to the goal. Sweat dripped down the nape of his neck. He pushed his legs harder and harder and looked down at the ball for a split second.In that moment, he made an impact with the ground, and his opponent stole the ball away from him, sprinting down the opposite side of the field.He stood, running after him, anger evident in his blue eyes.Five seconds left.His opponent passed the ball to his teammate, and he kicked it at the soccer net. The goalie jumped at the ball, and it just grazed the tips of his fingers, but it went in anyway.I watched as Dawson stopped sprinting and fell to the ground. He leaned over and hit the ground hard with his fist. He stood and stormed to his side of th
AresI snapped his finger.The third one from the left, right at the first knuckle, until it broke backward.“Her favorite color is blue,” I said to the man screaming in pain underneath me.He thrashed around like some sort of dying fish, in his cashmere suit and thousand-dollar pants that he had pissed already.I snatched a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back, grabbing another knuckle. “You should know that.”“You’re a fuckin’ psychopath,” he screamed at me. “Let me go.”“Did you let her go?” I asked into his ear, cracking another knuckle. “No, you held on to her for thirty-seven minutes. Your disgusting fingers were all over her body, touching the woman who is mine, and now, I have to take care of you.”“I don’t even know who you’re talking about! Let me go!”“Let you go?” I chuckled lifelessly. “Oh, no, I can’t do that and risk you sleeping with her again, can I? I’m going to have to kill you now. You should know not to touch another man’s woman. And if you don’t, you’ll f
Nicole When I first spotted the cameras all over my apartment, I wanted to report the creepy, scrawny maintenance man who lived on the bottom floor of this building. I stormed all the way down to the front desk, caught him staring at me with those dull eyes, and … smiled at him.I fucking smiled at him and turned around after telling the manager I had a leaky faucet.I couldn’t say why I did it. I didn’t know myself.But one thing turned into another, and I started craving the way he looked at me, so hungry and desperate for just a taste of me. It was kind of pathetic, but I loved the attention. I never had someone obsess over me like this before. All throughout high school and college, I had been looked over.Not now.And I wasn’t going to let that go.Then, one night, he snuck into my room, pulled down my blankets just enough to see my bare pussy, and stroked his fat cock against my lips until he came all over them. Not only did he have the audacity to not even clean it up, but h
Aila “Aila,” my boss, Aiden, called from his office.It was Friday night, seven p.m. I should’ve been home by now, but Aiden was still here, which meant that I had to be here too. But I didn’t mind staying later than usual because Aiden was … let’s just say … hot. Really fucking hot.If I went home any earlier, I wouldn’t get to see him until Monday morning. Hell, I wouldn’t see anyone even remotely attractive until Monday morning. Just the same four boring walls of my apartment.I smiled, my cheeks flushing the lightest color of pink, and walked into the room. “Yes, sir?”He sat at his desk. A dark head of hair, pale skin, perfectly pink full lips. “I’m hosting a masquerade ball tomorrow night.” He stood up, walked around his desk, then leaned on it, crossing his arms over one another.He was giving me that look again. At least, I thought it was a look.If you couldn’t tell, I had the biggest—and I meant, biggest—crush on Aiden for months now since I started working here. My sist
Natalie “When will I see you next?” Henry murmured against my lips, his fingers digging into my waist possessively.I pulled back slightly to stare up into his piercing blue eyes, smiled, and pushed a strand of his thick brown hair off his forehead. My stomach filled with butterflies. God, we were so wrong. He was my best friend’s brother, for crying out loud.But I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way he snuck me into his room the other night, the way his lips felt all over my body, the way his fingers danced along every one of my curves. I fucking loved it more than I ever wanted to admit.“Tomorrow?” I asked.“How about tonight?”I frowned and drew one finger across his bottom lip. “I’m hanging out with Morgan tonight.”“I can come with you.”I grimaced. That couldn’t happen, and he knew it. Morgan would freak the fuck out.Henry sighed and pulled away from me, tugging on the gray V-neck that clung to his muscular body. “Sofia, she’s my sister and your best friend. Sh
LukeWhere is your bedroom?” Laney asked against my mouth.I pulled my lips from hers and stared down at her. Had I just heard her right? There was no way she was actually asking me that. Not when I’d done everything I could to put physical distance between us and what happened last week. Fuck, I could still taste her on my tongue.Towing the friend line had been hard as hell, but I’d done it, and now she was asking me where my bedroom was?“Laney?” Maybe she’d meant that she wanted to continue the tour. That was possible, right? My dick was already hard, hoping she’d meant it in the other way—the impossible way.She rose on her toes, slipped her arms around my neck, and kissed me. Her lips were soft against mine, but she raked her teeth across my lower lip as she drew back. “Where is your bedroom, Luke?”There was nothing but desire and honesty in her eyes.The small tether I had on my control started to fray, the threads unraveling so fast that I could barely keep a hold of my own n
I was horny. Too fucking horny to even function.“Why don’t we just skip our last class today and have some fun?” I asked Carter, Harwood Academy’s star quarterback. I wrapped my arms around his abdomen, slipped my hands underneath his shirt, and brushed my fingers against the thick muscle underneath it.Carter opened his locker and shoved in two textbooks next to the football and smelly practice clothes that he always kept in there.I pressed my nose to his neck, inhaling the Azzaro Wanted cologne I bought him for his birthday last year, and sighed. “Come on, Carter.”“You know that I’d love to, but if I miss another class, Coach will sit me out next game.” I placed a lingering kiss just below his earlobe—right where he liked it—and slid my hand underneath his jean buckle, then wrapped my fingers around his hardness. When I began stroking it slowly, he took a deep, shaky breath.“Are you sure about that?” I murmured.I had wanted him to take me all day, had been daydreaming about th
TRIGGER WARNING! Wind whipped through my fur. Branches cut into my sides. I hopped over some fallen tree trunks and sprinted deeper and deeper into the forest. Running away from the pack of ferocious wolves.They growled behind me, following my scent. The scent of a rogue.For weeks, they had been tracking me. For weeks, I had hidden from them. But this morning … Moon Goddess … I made a terrible mistake this morning.Wolves’ paws hit the ground in a thunderous roar. I ran faster. As fast as I could. Faster than I had ever run. Because I was running for my life and away from my mate. Not many people ran from their mate, but my mate was a rogue killer, so I did.I had run through these woods hundreds of times when my brothers were still alive, causing trouble in our pack. We used to stay out until the fireflies started glowing around us. But I had never run around it during the day, when the light was shining so brightly in my eyes.The wolves sounded closer now. I pushed my body f
I take the necklace and loop it around her neck, hooking it in the back so it falls perfectly in the center of her collarbone. She looks down at it, staring for a moment, and at first I’m unsure if she likes it. It is a gruesome gift. But when she looks back up at me, her lips slightly parted, she gives me her answer, “Ryan, I’d like you to touch me now.” I don’t need her to say anything else. It’s the only permission I need. I bring my body to hers, crawling on top of the table and mounting her. My waist is in between her milky thighs, and I drop my mouth onto hers, taking in the red color of her mouth until she’s swollen from my kisses. She moans into me as our tongues wrap together, devouring one another, pouring every single bit of raw emotion into each other’s mouths. All the torment, all the suffering alone, all the love. My chest hurts. My heart is throbbing, coming alive for the first time in over a year. It feels good to reward myself instead of the opposite. These molt
“I have the perfect lighting.” I walked us up into my bedroom. “Nothing happens in here without your complete, wholehearted enthusiasm. One no from you and it stops.”She nodded, and I led her across the threshold, dropping her hands once we were inside. While she took in the spacious room and its heavy, dark furniture, I hit the button on the remote I kept on the nightstand, and the roman shades rose on the eight-foot windows that lined my bedroom, looking out over the greenspace behind our housing development and flooding my bedroom with late afternoon sunlight.“The golden hour,” she whispered, as the light bathed her face, and a challenge rose in her eyes."Your skin really is flawless.” I picked up the camera and looked through the viewfinder, clicking my first picture.“You’re not going to ask me to smile?” she teased, the corners of her mouth lifting.“I want you to do whatever you want.” Another click. “You are so fucking beautiful, and you don’t even realize it.”“I know I’m
A curvy woman like me was never supposed to be mated to such a cut and chiseled alpha. All the girls from high school made sure I knew I’d end up alone or with a lone wolf, never accepting the fact that I was different from them and from the other skinny girls in our pack. And part of me stupidly believed those rumors, even after we had graduated and gotten on with our lives. Their words haunted me every single time I looked in the mirror, no matter how much I tried to love all my imperfections, all those stretch marks, and all that extra weight on my stomach. But as fate would have it, I was mated to the sexiest, most ruthless alpha in this part of the forest. Nobody dared to mention the name of the tattooed, pierced, cruel man or else there would be consequences. Terrible consequences. Yet here I was, alone in his bedroom, with one of his tattooed hands around my throat and the other between my legs, thrusting his fingers into my wet pussy. “Tell me what she said to you,” he
Cara “So, what should I do?” Ethan asked from across the kitchen table. With his beautifully dark brown eyes, he gazed at me, then he took a long sip of his milk and burped.I wrinkled my nose. “Not that.”He tilted his head and wiped the milk mustache off his upper lip. I swore I’d been living with a five-year-old for the past two years. He placed the glass down.“Cara, I’m being serious. This is our first anniversary together. I need it to be good. Should I get her something, or should I make her something?”“Why are you asking me now? You should have thought about it, like, a week ago, not the day of your anniversary.”He pushed the kitchen chair back slightly, leaning back, and crossed his arms across his chest, making his biceps bulge through his gray sweater.“Well … I was busy …” he said.I cocked my eyebrow at him.“Fine, fine. I forgot about it, but I invited her over tonight, and now, I have nothing planned, and I have to go to work. I don’t know what to do.”“I have tod
AthenaHe wrapped the silk cloth around her eyes and another around her arms and legs. Then, as if she were nothing, he forced her onto the rough wooden chair.His musky scent intoxicated her as he knelt by her side, securing the restraints. She could feel him pause next to her, and then he drew a finger down her jaw, making her shiver. It was so light, but it held a dominance to it.She listened to his departing footsteps and sucked in a breath. He was leaving her here, nearly naked?“Hey! Where are you going?” she yelled, desperately craving her kidnapper’s touch.When the door shut, she struggled against the fabric, trying to escape. But after a few moments of kicking and screaming, she stopped and slumped against the back of the chair. It was useless. She couldn’t escape. He had bound her up too tight.Goose bumps rose on her skin. Her nipples hardened against the thin white material of her shirt. It was colder than she originally thought.She bit down on her lip and squeezed her
Alec had the door shut and locked, shoes kicked off, designer suit jacket that fit like a motherfucking glove slung neatly across the leather chair and was back to kissing him in record time. He plunged his tongue hungrily into Keyes’s mouth. No soft getting-to-know-you kisses—just raw and demanding possession embraced Keyes. He cradled Alec’s face in his palms as he explored that sweet mouth. He was certain this man was used to getting what he wanted, but there were things he wanted too. “You’re so fucking hard,” Alec rasped, breaking from the kiss, his firm hand sliding across the front of Keyes’s jeans. Keyes pushed into the pressure of that welcoming hand. “All your doing,” he growled, chasing Alec’s lips, needing that sinful mouth back on his. Alec must have gotten the hint, because he licked a long slow trail across his lips before diving in with a vengeance. Alec’s tongue darted into his mouth and a low moan vibrated in his throat as he lost himself to the invasion. T