Maintain

I was laid off. Having reached middle age and lacking any special skills, I could only work as a warehouse manager in a private company. On the first day of work, I saw a large, dusty object in the corner. An imported precision instrument worth four million dollars sat there as scrap metal. My new colleague scoffed. "Stop looking. The boss spent a fortune on it. Even ten experts couldn't handle it. It's just a decoration." I walked up and touched the familiar body of the machine. "I can fix this." The entire workshop fell silent. My boss came upon hearing the news. He looked at me with contempt. "If you can fix it, I'll give you half of my shares. If not, you'll pay with your life."

At first, I thought it was just a regular body check-up. But when I wake up on the cold examination chair, the feeling of the binds on my limbs snuffs out the last trace of my hope. I growl at him threateningly. Still, I can't stop him from sliding his hand along my inner thigh all the way up. That's when I feel the cool latex being inserted into my body. I can only sob softly from the invasion. But the feelings of excitement, embarrassment, and humiliation keep surging into me. Once the check-up is over, I vow to never see him again. But what I don't expect is to see him haunting my dreams like a phantom…

Adrian Chen is the golden standard of the marketing world—brilliant, commanding, and emotionally impenetrable. At thirty-two, he's built an empire on control: controlling projects, controlling people, controlling himself. He's never been vulnerable with anyone, and he's never had to be. Eli Reeves is twenty-seven, underestimated, and fighting twice as hard as everyone else to earn respect in an industry that dismissed him the moment he walked in. He's competent, passionate, and invisible to anyone important—until Adrian's firm brings him in as the fresh voice on a multi-million-dollar campaign. Adrian resents him immediately. Eli's creativity clashes with Adrian's rigid strategy. Eli's openness threatens Adrian's carefully constructed emotional distance. And the physical pull Adrian feels toward him is absolutely unacceptable. But forced proximity becomes forced honesty. Arguments become negotiations. Dismissals become defense mechanisms. And when Adrian finally kisses Eli after weeks of suppressed tension, neither of them can pretend anymore. What begins as dangerous attraction becomes something more: Eli's discovery that submitting to Adrian (both in the bedroom and emotionally) is empowering, not diminishing. Adrian's terrifying realization that loving Eli requires surrendering the control he's built his entire identity around. Their secret relationship deepens through escalating intimacy and escalating risk. But when someone in the firm begins sabotaging them—threatening to expose their relationship and destroy Adrian's reputation—they face an impossible choice: separate to protect their careers, or fight together and risk everything they've built. In a relationship where dominance and submission define their passion, Adrian and Eli must learn that true power lies not in control, but in trust. That surrender, when chosen, is the bravest form of strength. And that love worth fighting for is worth burning for.

While inspecting my company’s cold-chain operations, my wife, Mandy Snow, and the college boy, Jonas Leedon, who I’d been sponsoring suddenly vanished. As I passed the cabinet storing the research supplies, a stream of floating comments suddenly flashed before my eyes. [That was way too close! Jeff Miller almost caught them. Good thing Mandy reacted fast and dragged her boy toy into the storage cabinet.] [But that cabinet is about to be locked up and shipped to the Antarctic research station. Are those two trying to turn themselves into ice sculptures?] I froze. My wife was cheating on me right under my nose? I was just about to pull open the cabinet door when my wife’s assistant, Patrick, hurried over and forced a smile, blocking my way. “Mr. Miller, the seal on this cabinet was just waxed and hasn’t dried yet. Careful, or you’ll get your hands dirty.” The floating comments appeared again. [That was so close! The assistant’s pretty sharp. Once Mandy gets out, she totally owes him a car.] [No wonder she’s the lucky heroine. She always gets out of trouble. I seriously can’t wait to watch her sweet romance with her boy toy.] Looking at the comments in front of me, I let out a cold laugh. “These are critical supplies for the research team. To make sure nothing goes wrong, seal the cabinet right now.” “Go get a welder. Weld the door shut.” The assistant froze, and so did the floating comments. [What the hell? This evil male character is brutal. The two people inside aren’t wearing a thing.] [Help! If the door gets welded shut, the male and female leads are going to drift at sea for a month and freeze into specimens!]

They can’t leave. She can’t escape. Desire was never supposed to be the key. When Elarys bleeds on ancient stone, she doesn’t just open a door—she awakens a prison. Now she’s trapped inside with four cursed beings bound to the ruin… and to her. A starving vampire who aches for her blood… and her surrender. A wolf who guards her like prey he hasn’t yet claimed. An arrogant fae who would wrap her in vines and ruin. A hollow one who watches her every breath. They were never supposed to want her. She was never supposed to love them. But the prison is changing. It responds to touch, trust, and tension. And as the curse unravels, so does the truth: the only way out is through desire. Through them. Bound to Ruin is a dark, sensual, slow-burn, reverse harem monster romance featuring possessive supernatural beings, forced proximity, and one mortal girl at the center of it all. Contains graphic content, obsession, blood, and monsters who don’t know how to be gentle—but learn, for her.

It started with a sudden downpour. I turned around to buy an umbrella. By the time I got back, Winston Sterling had already draped his overcoat across Sera Thorne’s shoulders. He pulled me under the umbrella, his tone gentle, as if soothing a spoiled child. "Sera can't handle the cold. Just let her have it this once, Nat. Be a good girl. Don't make a fuss." I looked down at my own shoulder, which was already completely soaked through. I didn't say a word. We had been building our startup for five years. Everyone always said Winston and Sera were the dual heart and soul of Sterling Tech. One wrote the code, while the other pitched the product. Meanwhile, I was the one managing the budgets, chasing down clients, advancing money for our office rent, and pulling all-nighters to grind out business proposals. Yet, all I ever got from him was a single, offhand sentence. "Nat, you're always the reasonable one." But I finally understood. It was always the reasonable one who got pushed out into the rain, time and time again. When the car door opened, Winston practiced an all-too-familiar routine, adjusting the passenger seat cushion for Sera. That was a lumbar support cushion I had bought for myself after injuring my waist. I threw the newly purchased umbrella straight into the trash can. Then, I pulled up my phone and clicked send on the equity exit agreement I had prepared long ago. Three minutes later, his reply came back as a brief, three-word text. "Don't be silly." What he didn't know was that at that exact same moment, I had also opened another email.