Cold Skin

The moment the acid hit my skin, I heard my own flesh sizzle. In the last moments before my consciousness faded, my trembling fingers managed to dial my brother, the new Don of the Steele family. To my relief, Farrow finally answered. The sounds of expensive jazz and clinking glasses bled through the receiver. His voice was cold as ice. "What is it this time, Grace?" "Farrow... help me..." He cut me off before I could finish. "Listen, Betty's book launch is tomorrow night. If you dare cause a scene or embarrass the Family, I'll disown you. I'll ship you off to a convent in Sicily." The line went dead. A moment later, a second splash of acid hit my face, and the searing agony consumed me. My eyes were gone, leaving nothing but hollow, bloody sockets. You don't need to exile me, Farrow. I'm already gone. Forever.

The champagne was flat, much like the expression on Julian’s face. "It’s not that I don’t love you, Elara," he said, adjusting his $5,000 suit jacket. "It’s just that you’ve become... predictable. I need a woman who challenges the world, not someone who waits for me to come home and tell her what color the sky is." Elara felt the sting of the words more than the cold wind on the balcony. For six years, she had been Julian’s shadow. She had curated his life, managed his moods, and dimmed her own light so he could shine brighter. And now, on the night of his company’s gala, he was discarding her like an outdated software update. "Predictable?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Go home, Elara. I’ve already had your things moved to the guest house. We can talk about a settlement in the morning." She didn't wait for the morning. She didn't wait for the "settlement." She walked out into the rain, her silk dress clinging to her skin like a second, cold layer of grief. It wasn't until three days later, sitting in a dingy motel with nothing but a suitcase and a bruised soul, that the notification popped up on her phone. ARE YOU READY TO LIVE FOR YOURSELF? ENTER THE SURVIVAL GAME. WIN YOUR FREEDOM. Elara stared at the golden icon on the screen. It felt like a trap. Or maybe, it was the only way out.

Mr. Hottie and I (He is a flirt, she is crazy) Genre: Romance, Comedy, Erotic Tags: hatred, love, jealousy, pranks, schemes, contract married, billionaires, highschool, sex, suspense…..etc Location: America Written by - Tema SYNOPSIS Hot, intelligent, successful and heart stoppingly handsome - those are words that Xander Richards is quite familiar with, he is a young billionaire in his final year of high school. Topping all that, is the fact that he is the only successor to his father's business empire. His gleaming ivory skin, rich black, combed over hair, delectable pink lips and perfect masculine figure have most girls fawning over him, in their eyes he is but a Greek god. Despite his cold heart, he loves all the attention he gets yet, considers all girls sluts who want attention and seeks to get it at any cost until he meets Eva Luna. Her headstrong attitude catches his attention and he immediately dislikes her for not falling in love with him like most girls. Eva Luna has more than a handful of screws loose, she is a crazy high school final year student. She was born with affluence at her beck and call but chooses not to flaunt it. She owns chains of companies. She is very beautiful, intelligent and a mean prankster, her golden skin, red hair and blue - hazel eyes are guaranteed to ensnare every heart. She butts heads with Xander from their first encounter and dislikes him immediately because of his sardonic nature and his reputation as a flirt. Alas, the tides of hate can be easily swayed, especially when adventures are thrown. Can there ever be a chemistry between the two?

Aurora is an orphaned pup, who had everything working against her since the pack she grew up in was raided. Through a happy coincidence, she and her sister were rescued by the Beta of a kind pack: the Midnight Protectors. But they are no ordinary group of werewolves. They are highly trained with special skills that make them exceptionally dangerous to any threat: but especially to vampires. When Aurora stumbles onto a mysterious cavern housing tombs, she can't possibly understand what she's unlocked. Her new pack has many secrets she has yet to understand and the biggest one is that they are housing the male destined to be her true fated mate. Javed is a thousand year old vampire stuck in the body of a seventeen year old male. His boyish good looks are incredibly misleading, no one should mistake how deadly he in fact is. And the lengths to which he would go to have his mate. Excerpt: As I leave dinner and move to walk back inside the packhouse, the cold chill from nights ago hits me. The very thing that set that fateful night in motion. The sun has just set and the air is thick with humidity. I have gotten used to this climate which is all the more reason the cold strikes me as bizarre. My eyes move to a post that sits just in front of the door, the crest of the pack is burned into it. “The Midnight Protectors; Light in the Dark.” I had seen it many times now, but never questioned its meaning. When the cold air hits my skin again, it makes me shake uncontrollably. I force my back to stiffen. “Not again,” I whisper, as I quickly move inside and go to my room. Locking the door.

Bound by duty, Mia Casteel is nothing but a job. A sinfully gorgeous, downright infuriating job. One year ago, I got saddled with keeping her safe, virginal, and out of her father’s business. Little did I know, the spitfire would become my newest obsession. Pretending I don’t want her is easy enough. Ignoring her advances is hard but not impossible. At every corner, she pushes me, crawls under my skin, and makes my icy cold heart beat again. She makes me want her so badly I’m almost bursting to possess her. Knowing the secrets her father is keeping from her, and the fate that will bestow her sooner or later leads me down a path that neither of us will come back from. Caught between duty and desire, which will I choose? I promised her father I’d keep her safe, and she is safe… safe from everyone except me.

She stared into his cold emerald eyes and smiled. "I hear from people that you're the most despicable and ruthless of all beings, but I don't believe them. I don't fear you." He took her hands away from his face and stared at her fragile fingers, admiring the softness and tenderness of her skin but yet resisting the urge to rip it out. "You should because what you heard is true." Alpha Blade returns home after six years of staying away. Although he is not welcomed with open hands by his brother nor the rest of the town, he stays nonetheless in search of a solution to his recent bloodlust. Then he and Emily, his brother's would-be Luna catch feelings and have a reckless one night stand which led to Emily getting pregnant. Unaware of the pregnancy, Alpha Blade leaves town and goes back to his pack. With his crazy Luna, Brianne by his side, would Emily and Blade ever have a chance of being together?

The stranger moved closer, closing the space between him and Anna. His hand came up, gripping her jaw and tilting her face so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. Anna swallowed hard, her pulse racing. “Yes,” she breathed. “I want you to fuck me so hard I forget about my dickhead of a fiancé.” **************** Anna Hawkins was never supposed to fall into the arms of a stranger. But after walking in on her fiancé having sex with her best friend, pain drove her into the dark corners of a nightclub and straight into the arms of a man with cold eyes, inked skin, and a body that could ruin her. Their night was supposed to mean nothing. But unforeseen circumstances throw Anna into a brutal world of betrayal, power, crime, and possession. She wasn’t just heartbroken anymore. She was owned. And the most dangerous part? She didn’t know how to escape from her cruel fate.

I'm undressed and bound to a testing table when my family comes to pick me up. A thick, sharp needle pierces into my neck. A drug is administered into my blood, and the pain almost makes me lose consciousness. Behind me, I can feel a man's cold hands stroking my skin amorously. Before me, several people are staring at me. They point at me and treat me like an educational instrument. I tremble in fear and curl up on the testing table in pain. Three years ago, my brother sent me to Mykorra's war zone to stand up for Yvette Sanders. Those were the three most insulting and torturous years of my life. They burned away my hope for kinship but not my desire for survival. As the hands roam lower on my body, I bite my lip so hard that I almost draw blood. As the hands start to go overboard, someone knocks on the door. "Wendy Sanders, your brother is here for you."

I fell in love with a cold, taciturn tattoo artist named Henry Kane. So I deliberately damaged my tattoo again and again, picking at the skin and reworking the design, just to see him a few more times. By the third visit for touch-ups, scrolling comments suddenly appeared before my eyes: “I’m dying of laughter. This desperate female lead literally destroyed her freshly tattooed skin just to see the male lead again, and she still didn’t dare confess her feelings.” “Henry Kane is actually the embodiment of an ancient ferocious beast who sat on mountains of gold and silver but refused to spend them, choosing instead to open a tattoo studio to experience mortal life.” “He looks icy and distant, but his possessiveness has long since maxed out.” “He was just afraid his violent nature would scare his woman away.” I looked at the man in front of me, who was lowering his head as he wiped down the tattoo machine, and he did indeed give off an unmistakable keep-your-distance aura. But the comments claimed that he wanted to possess me? “Um… Excuse me?” The man tilted his head slightly, and under the weight of his deep gaze, the confession lodged in my throat. My mind short-circuited, and I blurted out, “I… I wanted to tattoo it on my lower back this time.” In an instant, the comments exploded in joy. “Woohoo! We’re taking off!” “Lower back, you say? That’s a sensitive spot! Can this pure-hearted ferocious beast really hold back?” “Good grief, straight to the undressing scene! This cunning move by the female lead is operating on a whole other level!” The man’s hand gripping the tattoo machine jerked to a sudden stop, and the air seemed to freeze for a few seconds. Then he answered, his voice slightly hoarse and unreadable, “Alright.”

During the eight years I spent by Alpha David’s side, I also raised the pup he had with my late sister. At his birthday banquet, I accidentally wore one of her old dresses. Eight-year-old Dorian grabbed a pot of freshly brewed coffee and poured it over me— right in front of the maids. The scalding liquid burned my skin, and when I looked up, I saw the same cold disgust in his eyes that I’d seen so many times in his father’s. “How dare you wear my mother’s dress?” he sneered. “You’ll never replace her. You killed her with that wicked heart of yours!” The coffee seared more than my flesh. It burned straight through my heart. I looked at the child I’d raised for eight long years. I didn’t feel angry. I didn’t even feel sad. Only a quiet kind of exhaustion. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”