LOGINHEADS UP He was paid to keep her safe from everyone else. Nobody told him the biggest threat would be the way she looked at him.CHAPTER ONEZARA’S POV Soft music drifted through the ballroom, low enough to sit underneath conversation without interrupting it, and the air smelled like fresh flowers and expensive perfume and the kind of evening that looks perfect from the outside and feels like work from the inside.I was on my fourth glass of wine, which was two glasses more than I usually allowed myself at events like this, but the conversations kept circling back to business and investments and my father's latest acquisition and I needed something to do with my hands.Damien was nearby. He was always nearby. I didn't need to look to know exactly where he was standing because after six months of him being my shadow I had developed something close to a sixth sense for his presence. The stillness he carried into every room. The way people unconsciously gave him space without knowing
FREYA'S POV I woke up sore in all the right places.I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling and pressed my thighs together and felt last night move through me like a memory I was going to be replaying for a very long time. My body ached in ways it had never ached before and I stretched slowly into it and smiled at the ceiling like a complete fool.I stood up from my bed, showered and dressed and sat in my room. Patiently waiting for the time to move. I was absolutely watching the clock.Petra came for me at nine.She knocked once, opened the door, looked at me sitting on the edge of the bed already dressed, and something shifted in her expression that was not quite surprising."The Don wants to see you now," she said.The Don. My Don.I stood up in excitement and followed her down the long corridor of the compound to the end where the doors were heavier and the lighting was different, darker and warmer. She stopped in front of a set of double doors, knocked twice, stepped aside w
FREYA'S POV INTRO!!I had dreamed about this night for three years.Not the way girls dreamed about weddings or careers or the life they were going to build. I dreamed about him. Madden Cruz. The man my father called the devil and my mother refused to speak about at dinner. The man whose name made grown men lower their voices and whose face I had seen exactly twice before tonight, once at my cousin's funeral and once through a car window when I was seventeen and too young to understand what the feeling in my stomach meant.I understand it now.He is going to ruin me, I thought, standing outside the door of the room they had prepared for me in his compound. And I have been waiting for it.My family presented me to him the way people presented things of value. Formally. In his sitting room with my father doing the talking and my mother sitting rigid in her chair and me standing there in the white dress they had chosen, my hands loose at my sides, my face composed into something th
Disclaimer!! This story contains explicit adult content intended for mature readers aged 18 and above. All characters are fictional adults. Reader discretion is advised.EMMA'S POVThe hallway would not stay still.I pressed my shoulder against the wall and squinted at the door in front of me, my key card loose in my hand. The numbers kept shifting. I was almost certain it was my room. Almost. I had been on the fourteenth floor, on the eighteenth. It could be one of those.The door was slightly open anyway, a sliver of warm amber light spilling out into the hallway. I must have forgotten to pull it shut properly when I left. That sounded like something I would do tonight.I pushed it open with my palm and walked in.The lamp on the nightstand threw warm light across the bed and the man standing beside it with nothing on and a glass of whiskey in his hand staring right at me.I stopped walking.He was tall. Dark hair. The kind of chest that made you forget you had a thought in progre
ACE POV I walked into Gilt at half past ten on a Thursday evening after spending seventy two hours inside a boardroom.I rode up forty two floors, stepped out into the dim warm interior of the club, and handed my coat to the attendant without looking at her. I walked to the corner booth I used every time I came here and dropped into the leather seat.I stretched my legs under the table and loosened my tie. I flagged down a waitress, ordered a whiskey I did not particularly want, pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and opened the Hargrove file.I read the same paragraph three times and retained none of it.I put the phone down.The stage at the front of the room held a dancer I vaguely recognised from a previous visit. Technically accomplished. Leaving me completely cold. I looked away, picked up my whiskey, turned it in my hand and stared at nothing in particular.The music changed.Something happened to the room.I could not have explained it precisely. The noise level did not cha
Hey loves! 🖤 So… Daddy's Best Friend. Oh God forgive me. If you made it to the end of this one, first of all, are you okay? Because I am not okay and I wrote it. Maverick Cole has absolutely no right being that man and yet here we are. This was a three chapter short story and I wanted every single chapter to hit. If you loved this one, please drop your rating and leave a comment because it genuinely means everything to me as an author. It tells me you want more and trust me, there is always more from where this came from. Thank you for reading, for supporting, for sharing. You have no idea what it means. With love and absolutely zero apologies, Naya Hart🖤
CHAPTER ONE Clara slammed the front door with more force than she intended. The sharp bang echoed loudly through the quiet house, making it feel as if she had shouted her secret out loud.Her backpack hit the wall with a dull thud, and she kicked off her sneakers, one of which landed crooked by th
CHAPTER FOUR Clara and Uncle Ethan returned home from the lake house on Sunday evening, just as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. The truck rumbled to a stop in the driveway, and Clara felt a lingering tenderness in her body from the intense weekend
CHAPTER THREE The weekend came faster than Clara could prepare for.On Friday evening, Uncle Ethan finished packing the truck—cooler stocked with drinks and food, thick blankets folded neatly, groceries tucked in bags. He looked over at her from across the driveway, a small smile playing on his li
CHAPTER ONE !! Beware this is a Lesbian love!! Elise Moreau had tutored dozens of college-bound students over the years, yet none lingered in her thoughts the way Daphne Harlow did. The girl possessed a sharp mind that sparkled whenever she focused, but focus came rarely. More often, Daphne sat







