2623 Book(s) Related to one night stand with a friend

I’m a werewolf.

Three months ago, I got involved in a back-alley “not my problem”—a man held a knife to a woman clutching her child. I rushed him and tore his throat out with my teeth.

Now the police are hunting me. My pack can’t protect me. The only option left is to slip out of the country.

The fixer at the meet hands me a bottle of “calming meds,” says it’ll get me through the checkpoints.

I smell the drugs anyway. I drink it.

When I wake up, my hands are tied behind my back inside a sealed metal cargo truck. Someone beside me is crying. Someone else is shaking.

That’s when I realize I’ve been sold into a trafficking ring. They slap a number tag on me, lock me in a steel cage, and wait for dawn to ship us out.

A guard cracks my face with a rifle stock—sure I’m just another desperate man trying to disappear.

He has no idea a cage can’t hold a werewolf.

Especially not tonight—under a full moon.

A mouth after my best friend Laura jumped to her death following a rape, I was dragged onto a makeshift stage in St. John's High auditorium by a mob of vengeful students.
They accused me of protecting the real rapist—of being complicit in driving Laura to suicide.
My boyfriend Zayne Spencer, also Laura's childhood friend, was coldly pressing the sensors of a "memory extractor" against my temples.
The agony from my terminal illness made me shake violently, but he didn't even flinch.
He stared down at me, his eyes ice-cold. "Helen, last chance. Either you give up that bastard yourself, or I let this machine rip it out of you."
Thousands of students were screaming for my blood.
And Zayne was about to crack open my skull in this livestreamed witch hunt to drag out the so-called culprit.
But he had no idea that when that face finally flashed across the giant screen, the first person to shatter completely would be him.

Translation

Zombies besieged the city. I fought through the infected zone alone and brought back the vaccine.

All of humanity hailed me as their savior.

But at the medal ceremony, my superior and fiancée Amy shoved me aside. "You're covered in blood. Stand over there. Would it kill you to be more like David?"

"A man who can't even bear to look at violence—that's what a civilized person looks like."

For the sake of being her idea of civilized, I locked away my weapons and spent three years as her errand boy. I took countless bullets meant for her, and still she complained I wasn't gentle enough.

Then the virus mutated. To save David, I crushed a Tyrant's skull with my bare hands.

She threw her arms around the trembling David, slammed the table, and screamed at me: "If you don't get this violent streak under control, you can forget about being the Chief's husband. Apologize to David. Now."

The vaccine I'd risked my life for—she used every last drop of it to win favor with her pretty boy.

I ejected the magazine from my rifle and tossed my medal into the rubble.

"That position of yours? Give it to whoever you want."

Five years after breaking the mate bond, Vincent became one of the youngest Alphas of the North, worth hundreds of billions, with a fiancée who was a perfect match for him — the daughter of Silver Claw Pack’s Alpha.
But I had already disappeared from his world, my name now only whispered in rumors about me being a bar hostess at Midnight Howl Bar, catering to Alphas and nobility.
When someone mentioned my name to him, he simply held his fiancée’s hand with a cold look in his eyes.
"I don't know her."
At his bonding ceremony, everyone congratulated the "perfect match."
But I, floating in the air, watched as Vincent stood beside his dazzling Luna.
What he didn't know...
He was the only Alpha I ever loved.
What he didn’t know...
I had been dead for a year.
Before I died, I was desperately earning money just to get our daughter the treatment she needed.
Then one day...
He found me at the Midnight Howl Bar where I worked in life, catching a faint but familiar scent of me. That moment...
His wolf spirit completely lost control.

“You can stand there and deny it all you want,” he said huskily in my ear. “But I know how drenched you were that night. Your tight little p*ssy? It was calling my name, baby.”

“You’re insane! I never wanted you!” I gritted out, hating how weak I sounded. Hating how my arms suddenly didn’t have the strength to push him away.

How there was a part of me that truly wanted him, despite everything.

“Keep denying it,” he murmured, eyes darkening. “It just makes me more eager to bend you over my desk and f*ck that attitude right out of you.”


When executive assistant Alice Rhodes sent her arrogant and insufferable boss, Theodore Linden-Hawthorne, a sext during the company’s New Year’s party, her life turned completely upside down.

She lost everything: her fiancé, her family, and her best friend, all because of one embarrassing mistake. To make matters worse, Theodore seemed incapable of staying away from her, and Alice was horrified to realize that the feeling was slowly starting to become mutual.

But this attraction between them came at a price. Alice and Theodore came from two completely different worlds. Their attraction was forbidden and frowned upon by everyone around them. Would their love survive vengeful exes, juicy scandals, hidden secrets, and unexpected surprises?

Elena was born to lead, but her father strips her of her birthright and gives it to her younger brother. Desperate to get back at her father, she does the unthinkable: she sleeps with her father's greatest enemy, Alpha Axton.

But Axton is more than just a rival, he's her fated mate. And he's been searching for her not for love, but for revenge and a chance to destroy her father's pack. The next morning, Elena rejects him, walking away before he can trap her in his ruthless schemes.

But Axton does not take rejection lightly, and his retaliation is brutal: a leaked video, a ruined reputation, and a family that turns their backs on her drive her to flee the city in disgrace.

But when Elena disappears, she takes something Alpha Axton never planned to lose - his sons. Now, he'll stop at nothing to get them back. He wants his heirs, he wants his mate, and Elena will learn that no one runs from the Alpha.

My husband's first love was in trouble.
When the news came, I was lying on the operating table.
Dr. Miller put down his scalpel and said to Dr. Johnson, "I'll leave my wife's surgery to you."

"If I don’t go now, I might regret it for the rest of my life."

With that, he turned and walked away.
Watching my husband's retreating figure, I couldn't hold back—tears fell.
The next second, the cold blade of a scalpel touched my skin.

Dr. Johnson spoke calmly, "Why the tears? With me here, you'll be fine."

My mate, Rhys, brought his dead brother's pregnant widow into our house.
He swore up and down I'd never have to lift a finger for her.
The next morning he stood by the door with a packed bag and a grin.
"Babe. Big news. The pack called me up. Border post out east, two years. I ship out tonight."
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to promise I'd take good care of his brother's widow.
So I pulled my own bag out of the closet, right there in front of him and the woman in the back room.
"Funny. The alliance called me up too. Medic rotation. Two years."
"We can leave together. Lock up on the way out. Colette can rest easy with the whole house to herself."

Sofia married into a brutal mafia clan, trapped in a hollow marriage to distant crime lord Edward. For three years, she's fought a shameful, burning craving for his eighteen-year-old son Ryan—a brooding werewolf heir with golden beast eyes and primal hunger simmering beneath his quiet coldness.
When a risky highway escape forces her onto Ryan's lap, repressed longing erupts into forbidden friction.
Hidden from Edward's line of sight, Ryan marks her, staking primal claim to the woman who should only be his stepmother.
Torn between crippling guilt and addictive obsession, Sofia surrenders to his feral passion.
Until one day, the door swung open...
The taboo stepmother-stepson forbidden love was exposed.

Harper spent ten years as Joel's perfect girlfriend... until he dumped her to boost his brand. Now Joel's getting married, and Harper's crashing his wedding on the arm of Crew Lawson, the one player Joel hates most. It's supposed to be fake: three months of PR revenge. But Crew's hiding a dangerous addiction, Harper's hiding real feelings, and Joel's hiding the truth about why he really left. Some fake relationships burn too hot to stay pretending.

The three alpha wolves who bullied me
never knew the truth.

I wasn't the quiet boy they tormented.

I was the girl hiding behind my dead brother's name.

And I was their fated mate.


For a year, I lived under my dead brother’s name, hiding my identity and my power.

But on my eighteenth birthday, everything changed.

My disguise shattered.
My power awakened.

And the broken boy they mocked became a legendary Lunar Shadow Wolf.

Now the three alphas who once humiliated me feel every scar they caused.

They want forgiveness.

Too bad.

Because the wolves who once bullied me?

They belong to me now.

And this time—

they’re the ones who will kneel.

The Percy Family Heir's Scandal Leaks Again!

Cecilia Davis sat curled up in the master bedroom, scrolling through photos of Edward Percy and Jessica Brown.

The photos were taken secretly, but from a sharp angle.

Through a car window — the two of them, going at it hard.

Cecilia let out a cold laugh, tossed the photos into the trash, and felt a wave of deep exhaustion wash over her eyes.

"Do I really have to cut it?"

"Ma'am, this is Mr. Percy's request. Only if you cut your hair as short as Ms. Brown's can we clear up last night's rumors. Of course, you don't have to go — that is, if you never want to see your brother again."

Edward's assistant Leo spoke with a dismissive air, not a trace of respect in his eyes.

As if she, the so-called Mrs. Percy, was nothing more than a joke that nobody needed.

And honestly, that's exactly what she was.

Warning : 21+

"I want you two to make love right in front of my eyes!" He said. My heart neqarly jumped at the sound. Did I mishear or what?

"What do you mean I made love to her? Are you crazy?" Jacob demanded.

"That's my biggest fantasy, Jake! Watching my girlfriend have sex with my best friend or my brother. I wonder if I'll get jealous or join in on the wild game."


Henry William Haydn, a charismatic man of perfection. He became a company director at a young age, living a life of moral values and dignity. But who would have thought that behind the moral wall he always displayed throughout his life, there lurked wild, sometimes unreasonable fantasies.


Amy Evangelista, a simple woman who grew up on the beaches of Bali, realizes her dream of working for a prestigious company in Australia. But her dreams grow even higher when Henry, the company director, is attracted to her simplicity and beauty.


Jacob Andreas Haydn, Henry's cousin, who suffers from a "Brother Complex" and considers Henry the most important person in his life. Jacob, a cold, perfectionist, and sharp-tongued genius, has for months positioned himself as the "Hater" to Amy, whom he considers a stupid woman unworthy of being his beloved brother's girlfriend.

A complicated relationship and crazy love lead them to be trapped in a vortex of traps they call "Fetish"

After she watched her mom die due to negligence from the very people she had worked tirelessly for, her only goal became to watch Vincent Crost crumble.

She did not care who she had to destroy to make that happen.

WARNING …. WARNING…. This isn't your regular werewolf romance. This novel is a bloody werewolf romance with rated scenes that you could find disgusting at any time. In case you do not have the heart to read it, please you can quit it. But at the same time, I'll be glad if y'all could support my first story.

Blurb

When a banished Luna became a slave to the most dangerous Three Alpha brothers. Ashina thought everything that was happening to her was just a mere dream, but little did she know it was never a dream but her reality.

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It all started on the night before her birthday When she suddenly received the doctor's reports that she was pregnant. How? When? Not when her husband, Alpha Ethan is an impotent man who has an extremely low sperm count. Secondly, the arrival of her stepsister, who happens to be her husband's long-awaited mate. Everything happened just the night before her birthday.

Ashina thought she didn't have anything to worry about since her husband had chosen her as his wife and cherished her a lot. She thought it didn't matter that her stepsister was her husband's mate.

While expecting the man to reject her stepsister, Jessica just like he said he would, instead she was the one that got rejected and banished from the pack.

“I, Alpha Ethan, reject you as my wife and banish you from the pack, Ashina!” Those were the words playing in her head when she left the pack and finally crossed the border with her maid.

But little does she know that there's more awaiting her when she finds herself begging for her life in front of the three most ruthless alpha brothers.

Selena stole my sister's talent and became a saint. To appease her, my family threw my sister into a mass grave. The first thing I did after crawling back from purgatory was to crush Selena's knees. She knelt before my sister's grave, never to rise again. As for the Archbishop of the Privy Council? He would kneel before the thorny cross on my chest too.

After the Cosmic Pulse Event, human civilization was wiped off the map.

Some people turned into zombies. Others awakened abilities.

In my previous life, I hadn't awakened anything yet when I made the mistake of letting my uncle's family in — I was too soft-hearted. They thanked me by killing me and my parents.

Given a second chance, I kept that door locked. No matter how much my uncle's family wailed and threatened, I didn't budge.

But when the apocalypse finally broke, I awakened a Farm Ability — while my uncle outside awakened a Killing Blade.

Every time Mason tried to force me to back down, he would slam the divorce agreement onto the table.
Every time my parents wanted me to yield, they threatened to sever all ties with me.
What they wanted was simple: for me to give everything to my twin sister.
I once resisted, cried, and questioned them over and over—why was I always the one left hurt?
Until the doctor slid my medical test results in front of me, and said to me in a tone full of pity:
"The pancreatic cancer cells have metastasized. You only have one month left to live, maybe even less."
I had nothing left to care about. I was doomed no matter what, so they could do whatever they wanted with me.

Five years ago, my fiancée and a chaebol heir broke my ribs and threw me into the sewer like trash.

Five years later, they implanted a neurotoxin bomb into the back of my sister's neck, forcing me on all fours to crawl between the security guards' legs into their engagement banquet at a Manhattan penthouse hotel.

My ex-fiancée poured champagne over my wounds, while the chaebol heir ground caviar into the muddy water with his leather shoes, forcing me to lick it clean like a dog.

The room full of Wall Street elites laughed at my humiliation, thinking I was still the same bottom-tier temp worker from back then.

They had no idea that through my micro-earpiece, a heavy armored division was already on standby under the cover of night.

When the confirmation came that the bomb had been defused, I slowly stood up straight.

Outside the window, engines roared. Ten heavy Black Hawk helicopters tore through the curtain of rain, their heavy machine guns instantly shattering the banquet hall's reinforced glass.

Looking down at the chaebol heir who was now slumped in the muddy water, I drew my sidearm: "The debt from five years ago—today, I'm collecting it with your family's lives."

Clad in gray mist, kneeling on iron rocks, working as a menial laborer, everyone thought he was just a worthless nobody, groveling in the dust for an old pocket watch. His
in-laws found him filthy, his fiancée defected to a new master, and Lord Calder treated his obsession like a leash, subjecting him to arbitrary humiliation and summons at will.
Until that day, Calder shattered his last hope with an arrow, throwing him into the horde of zombies as a human sacrifice. Everyone thought he was doomed, but no one suspected—
the man kneeling in the mud wiping his boots was actually the reclusive lord of the strongest city-state in this wasteland, possessing S-class superpowers and ultimate weaponry.
He endured, solely for the truth and reckoning.
When he returned from the horde of zombies, radiating overwhelming power, the once high and mighty man knelt outside the city gates, weeping and begging him to open a path to survival.

All because I was unaware that Sophia had followed me on the mission, leaving her stranded in the chaotic dockyard.
My husband, Dante, was furious. He ordered his bodyguards to throw me into a seafood transfer warehouse.
“Cool off in the cold storage. Maybe then you’ll understand how helpless Sophia felt trapped in that container.”
It was a refrigeration unit for seafood, kept at a constant zero degrees, the air thick with the smell of fish.
I pounded on the door, pleading for help, but only Dante’s icy voice came through the intercom:
“Stop the act. The temperature in there won’t kill you. Stay inside and reflect until you learn your lesson.”
He cut the internal communication.
The temperature in the cold room kept dropping—someone had switched on the deep-freeze mode!
Shivering uncontrollably, I beat against the door until my nails left bloody scratches on the wall.
In agony, I curled into a ball. My consciousness faded, and my body grew stiff.
On the third day, Dante finally remembered me while celebrating the takeover of new territory.
In a rare show of mercy, he decided to have someone let me out.
But what he didn’t know was that my heart had already stopped beating from hypothermia long before.

I’m a top assassin.

Three years ago, on a rainy night, I was being hunted when a stranger took a bullet for me. As he lay dying, he grabbed my hand and begged me to protect his son—and to keep living in his place.

To escape my pursuers and keep that promise, I changed my face, took his identity, and stayed by the boy’s side as his father.

His wife was arrogant, cruel, and constantly cheating. For the child—and to protect my cover—I endured all of it.

Until today.

She drugged me.

When I woke up, a doctor was holding a blade over my chest. They were about to take my heart.

Lying on that operating table, I finally learned the truth: her family had been trafficking organs all along.

That man died three years ago because he discovered it, and she arranged the crash that killed him.

She murdered the man who saved me. Now she wants to kill me too.

She still thinks I’m the same weak doctor who gets out of breath after a short run.

She doesn’t know I’m resistant to anesthesia.

And she definitely doesn’t know these hands have held scalpels—and snapped far too many necks.

My boyfriend pulled off a drone-sky proposal that lit up the entire city.
Crowds cheered, “Congratulations to Mr. Gunson and Mrs. Gunson—at last, true lovers become family.”
But the woman curled in his arms was his secretary.
The “me” in their mouths had long since turned to white bones beneath a mound of earth.

I accidentally entered an S-rank horror dungeon, but thought it was some immersive dating show.

Facing the bloodthirsty Ghost King BOSS:

Others: Begging for mercy.

Me (blushing): Those pecs, that battle-damaged look—where did they find such a gorgeous contestant? I'm obsessed!

When he tried to strangle me, I touched his hand. "You're so cold, let me warm you up~"

Ghost King: ???

Facing the psycho doctor with a chainsaw:

Others: Screaming and running.

Me (swooning): Doctor, those beautiful fingers are meant for piano, not chainsaws. Be sweet and put that down!

Doctor: ...

Facing the flesh-eating demon:

Me: Raw meat isn't healthy! Here, have some chocolate instead!

Seven days later, the dungeon collapsed.

Me, waving goodbye through tears. "Even though it was acting, you became my family!"

In the year 3000, magic and technology flourish side by side.
Wielders of magic are no longer myth… They’re real and revered.
“Joel,” a humble wizard living a quiet life,
accidentally spends his last coin on gemstones,
leaving him broke and desperate!
To make ends meet, he becomes a livestreamer,
broadcasting his mysterious magical lifestyle
just to get through each day.
But then…
His streams catch the attention of “Jaden,”
the heir to a gemstone empire and an art collector obsessed with a centuries-old painting of a ginger-haired, opal-eyed wizard—
a figure he’s searched for his whole life.
Until finally… he finds Joel online.
Is it fate, or something more, that draws them together?
Can Joel unlock the mysteries of Jaden’s past?
A timeless love story infused with magic and technology will change both of their lives forever…

Ten years of secret service honed my Phantom Legion, a force I built that could make a small nation tremble. On the day I retired and returned to New York, I found a cardboard tent next to a garbage dump in a Bronx back alley. Curled up inside was my daughter, whom I hadn't seen in five years. She was covered in bruises, barefoot, and clutching half a moldy loaf of bread. I picked her up and dialed the phone—"I want everyone who wronged her to suffer a fate worse than death! "

Hiding my identity and marrying an ambitious female celebrity—this is the most boring social experiment I've ever done.
She wants me to leave with nothing.
She gave my family heirloom to that gigolo.
She tweeted that I was "low-class trash".
She didn't know that Hollywood, which she was desperately trying to climb up to, was nothing more than my backyard.
She had no idea that those capitalists she fawned over would all bow down and call me "Mr. Rockwell."
Until that night, she stripped naked, attempting to offer herself to the enigmatic "godfather of capital"—
The leather sofa slowly turned around.
The lights were on.
She saw my face.
“Chloe,” I flicked my cigar ash, “what brings you here?”

Last time, she chased the “true love” a corporate spy sold her—publicly branded me controlling, stole my core tech, and helped him shove me off a rooftop.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back before it all began.

This time I didn’t expose her, didn’t confront her, and didn’t beg her to stay. I set the trap—watched her come close again, test my limits, and steal the “core technology”…

Until the stolen code blew up the rival company, until she was unmasked in front of the cameras and taken away in handcuffs.

Through tears, she demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner he was a corporate spy?”

I answered only, “I did. Last life.”

Three years of marriage, and she was nothing but his invisible "secretary" — or worse, the woman he accused of drugging him to get a ring on her finger.
It wasn't until Grace watched Alfred stroll out of the VIP terminal with his ex on his arm that she finally understood. This marriage had only ever been real to one of them.
She signed the divorce papers without a scene. Quietly resigned. And moved on.
That's when he lost control.
"Grace, who gave you the right to just leave?"
"Is this about another man? You're divorcing me for him?"
Then came the night he stood in the rain, eyes red, blocking her path.
"I was wrong. Can we go home?"
She looked at him and said simply, "Mr. White, we're already divorced."

Five years ago, I knelt on marble floors, cleaning wine with my own dress while they laughed.

Five years later, they knelt before me, begging for forgiveness while I walked away.

They thought three hundred thousand dollars could buy my soul. They thought I was just another disposable substitute, another broken girl desperate enough to sell her dignity for her dying mother's medical bills.

Caspian Ashford wanted a replacement for his precious Scarlett. The Hampton elite wanted a servant to humiliate. They all wanted me to disappear quietly when they were done with me.

They got their wish—I did disappear.

But the girl who drowned in that yacht "accident" five years ago? She was weak, desperate, powerless.

The woman who returned as Elena Whitman?

I'm their worst fucking nightmare.

They chose her. They always chose her.
For eighteen years, I was the ghost in my own family while my adopted sister was the star. So when the ransom call came and they had to choose which daughter to save, I knew the answer before they spoke.
"Save her," they told the kidnappers, nodding at my sister. Then they turned to me. "She's strong. She can survive."
They were right. I was strong enough to survive the warehouse. Strong enough to disappear. Strong enough to come back.
Now I’m stepping onto the nation’s most-watched reality show, right alongside the people who left me for dead. They’re here to polish their perfect image for the cameras. I’m here to strip it bare—one live scandal at a time.
The problem? The show’s most powerful investor isn't playing their game. He’s a cold, record-breaking F1 champion​ who shuts down my sister’s tears and backs my play every single time. When my family tries a live ambush, he steps in front of the lens and makes it clear: I’m under his protection.
They called me strong because they thought I was disposable. Strong is the last thing they should have made me.

On the third day after the Ice Age began on Earth, the temperature plummeted to minus fifty degrees Celsius, and human civilization disintegrated in the extreme cold.

My name is Anson, an ordinary convenience store clerk. After the apocalypse broke out, I risked my life to drive to pick up my mother-in-law Martha and her family and take them to a shelter.

Along the way, I unexpectedly discovered a large supermarket with abundant supplies, and I collected supplies with my wife Erin, mother-in-law Martha, father-in-law George, and brother-in-law Tom.

Just as we were about to leave with two trucks full of life-saving supplies, my mother-in-law, Martha, tricked me into going deep into the warehouse to move some goods. Then they locked the iron gate and drove away, leaving me to die in the supermarket surrounded by icy beasts.

In that moment of despair and waiting for death, the [Ice Fishing System] activated in my mind...

On our wedding day, she vanished wearing the gown I had bought for her.
I didn’t chase her. Instead, I went back to the operating table.
For three years, I had paid off her debts and filled the holes she left behind—enough for her to live a second life. My heart couldn't take it anymore; I had a stent implanted, though she never knew.
Three days later, I died in the hospital corridor. My ECG flatlined.
She didn’t know. She was still at a cocktail party in another city, clinking glasses with someone else.
A month later, she came back, kneeling before my tombstone in tears.
But it was all too late.

On our wedding night, my wife said to me: "Lucas's family needs an heir, and I've agreed to carry one for them."
Seeing me trembling all over, she gently cupped my face and added softly: "It's just IVF—a way to repay their kindness. The entire process is medical, with no physical contact at all. Once the baby is born and the debt is settled, I'll have as many children with you as you want, okay?"
For the sake of our ten years of love and the debt of gratitude we owed, I gritted my teeth and agreed.
Until three months later, when I found her lying naked on our wedding bed, frantically making love with Lucas.

"You were like a starved beast last night," I complained, spreading jam on my toast.
Gideon's hands froze mid-knot on his tie. He turned to me, his eyes filled with utter bewilderment.
"Nadia, are you out of your mind? I was in the study finishing up that proposal last night. I crashed on the couch at three in the morning. I never even went into the bedroom."
The knife dropped from my hand onto the table.
If the man I made love to all night wasn't my husband.
Then... who was it?

When sunny California girl Avery Kane is uprooted to icy Evergreen, Minnesota, for her dad’s new job as head coach of the junior hockey team, she braces for frostbite and culture shock—not a heart-racing collision with team captain Knox Callahan. From a near-fatal rogue puck to stolen hot chocolates, flirty texts, and bonfire sparks, Avery’s guarded world thaws fast around the charming, mint-gum-scented hockey star who calls her “strategically adorable.”

But Evergreen’s tight-knit world comes with sharp edges. Sophia Reyes, poised team manager and Knox’s on-again-off-again ex, isn’t the only threat. Enter Riley Voss, the venomous queen bee of Evergreen High—captain of the cheer squad, daughter of the town’s biggest booster, and fiercely territorial over “her” hockey boys. Riley sees Avery as an outsider invading her carefully curated kingdom and wastes no time unleashing petty sabotage: locker-room rumors, iced-out group chats, and a public humiliation at the next game that leaves Avery questioning everything.

As Knox’s family crisis pulls him away and Sophia circles closer, Avery must navigate jealousy, small-town politics, and Riley’s escalating cruelty. In a town where hockey is religion and love is a brutal game, one wrong move could send her crashing. Will Avery fight back, claim her place, and win the boy—or let the bullies skate away with her heart?

My target should be terrified of me.
Instead, he's smirking like he already knows I'll never pull the trigger.
My heart races in my chest. This isn't me.
I am born to kill. I am born to take orders.
Yet those eyes, they're killing me.

She was born into power.
Now she chooses revenge.

Valentina Santangelo doesn’t belong in the shadows.
She was raised in them.

Daughter of a legacy built on blood, secrets, and ruthless control, Valentina has spent her life watching empires rise… and enemies fall. She knows the rules of this world. She knows how to survive it.

What she didn’t expect…
was to become its most dangerous player.

When betrayal rips through her family and threatens everything her father built, Valentina is done standing on the side-lines. She steps into the game—cold, calculated, and ready to make them pay.

But revenge has a price.

And the man standing in her way?
He’s not just her enemy…
He’s the one man who sees through every wall she’s built.

Dark. Dangerous. Impossible to resist.

As loyalty turns to obsession and desire collides with vengeance, Valentina must decide how far she’s willing to go—
and whether love is worth the risk of losing everything.

Because in her world…
you don’t fall in love.

You survive it.

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: SCANDAL AND SUPPER is Book #5 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews!Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.When Marie is hired to cleanse a unique and massive hotel in a nearby town, the scope of it is beyond anything she has encountered before. Just as she wonders if she has finally met her match, she learns that her local Mayor is trying to re-zone the downtown—and to shut down her B&B while he’s at it. Having a murder in the mix—for which she is pinned—hardly helps matters, either. In a multi-front war for her survival, can Marie manage to purge the ghosts, stay out of jail, and keep her livelihood?A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS is an un-putdownable cozy series that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)

She knelt in the pouring rain, pounding on my glass door, covered in mud, her voice hoarse from shouting. I stood inside, holding Lily's hand. She called my name, over and over, like calling a dead person. I lowered my head and said to Lily, "Come on, Daddy will take you to dinner." Then I turned and closed the door. From beginning to end, I didn't look at her once. Not because I still hated her. It was because she meant nothing to me anymore. And that woman didn't know—three years ago, when she threw me away like trash, I had already learned not to cling to trash.

At the company's annual client appreciation dinner, I was the one in charge of booking the venue.
To save the company money, I picked my aunt's upscale restaurant with a skyline view. Since we were family, she only charged us at cost. When I posted the details in our Slack channel to confirm with the team, no one had any objections—except for the intern, who slowly tagged me in the chat:
[Arthur, I don't mean anything by it.]
[I just want to ask—how big a kickback did you get for booking your family's restaurant?]
[After all, the money for this dinner is coming out of our bonus pool.]
[So you should return that money to the rest of us, right?]
The other coworkers started liking the message and chiming in to support him.
So I dropped the whole thing on the spot and handed the task over to that intern, who loved talking about "fixing workplace injustice."
Then the night of the dinner came.
From the CEO all the way down to the investors, everyone was pinned on the deck and searched by armed Coast Guard officers.
The most important client contact collapsed from a heart attack on the spot and was airlifted by helicopter straight to the ICU, costing the company a multimillion-dollar enterprise cybersecurity contract.

I am the youngest Don of the Obsidian Family.
After an unexpected rest, my opponent sent me a street racing invitation.
I went to my brother's company to retrieve my car, but was drugged with ether by my brother's secretary.
She told me that no one could seduce her man.
She kicked my stomach, threatened me with a paper cutter to make a vow, and said her future sister-in-law is the youngest Don of the Obsidian Family—if I dared to retaliate against her, I would die miserably.
I looked at her coldly.
Really?
But I haven't agreed to be your sister-in-law yet!