Echidna Knuckles

Even after more than three years of marriage, Samuel Ferguson still seemed impossible to satisfy. After the third round, he brushed a tear from the corner of Tania Russell's eye, a roguish smile playing at his lips. "Did you cry from the pleasure? Want me to carry you to the shower?" Tania turned her head, avoiding him, her fingers digging into the sheets until her knuckles went white. Steam rolled through the bathroom, wrapping a set of broad shoulders and a narrow waist in a haze of heat — but that heat could not thaw the icy chill in her heart. An hour ago, in the throes of passion, the name "Lulu" had slipped from his lips, and it still lingered in her mind. All those years, he had always called her simply "Tania." After a moment, she wiped her tears, reached for the phone on the bedside table, and stepped out onto the balcony. "Elias, investigate Samuel for me. I think… he's cheating." "A lead?" Elias did not waste time. "He used to call her 'Lulu'".

I watch as he gently places the gun on the table. Seconds tick by a heavy silence filling the room. He takes a stand and makes his way to me. He takes a stance behind my chair and places his firm arms on my armchair, caging me. I bask in his scent and warmth. "You choose now Lana, here and now." He whispers into my ear. His traces my knuckles before grabbing my notebook out of my hands, and tossing it on the table. "I wasn't done with that." I say. He laughs, I feel his chest rumble as he laughs. I turn to face him, feeling my breaths shorten with each passing second. "Eyes on the prize, Lana." He turns my head back towards the table. "You choose the notebook you can go back to living your life in fear and delusion, then one day end up dead in a dumpster or," He brushes a strand of hair from my face, " You could pick up the gun and hunt your past which shall it be Lana?" I feel beads of sweat on my back and my anxiety prickling through my skin. I have to choose, here and now. I extend my hand and pick my choice.

At three in the morning, I stare at the unknown transaction record on my phone screen, my fingertips turning cold. The record is for a payment of 2980 dollars, made for an executive suite at the Wisteria. The time of payment was 8:00 pm last night. My husband, Tristan Griffin, is a detective. He was on the night shift last night. I clutch my phone, my knuckles turning white as I text Tristan, "I just saw your credit card bill for a hotel stay last night. What's up with that?" His reply is instant. "Our team had to work overtime at the last minute, so they put us up at the hotel. I forgot to tell you about it." I scan the text and sputter. The Wisteria is located in the western region of the city, which is on the other end from where his squad is stationed. I don't press him for more details and click on the bank app on my phone. Having found the vendor's address through the payment record, I sent it to my best friend, Rowena Sheffield, who works as a private detective. She replies instantly with an "OK" emoji and follows up with, "Give me a second. I'll find out everything you want in a jiffy!"

To protect my boyfriend, Nico, the illegitimate son of our allies, the Moretti family, from their internal power struggles, I agreed to leave New York with him. But on the eve of my adoptive father, the Don of the Falcone family, signing our transfer orders, he backed out. Through the hidden door of the cigar lounge, I heard his right-hand man tease him: "So you really kept up that act for three months just to get rid of the princess?" "But she's your childhood sweetheart. You really have the heart to some miserable fishing village in the Baltics all by herself?" Nico's voice was nonchalant. "It's just an outpost across the pond. How far can it be?" "Scarlett is too controlling. If I don't get her out of the picture, how am I supposed to get any breathing room? Besides, I need to put Chloe at ease." I stood behind that hidden door for a long time that night, my grip on the doorknob tightening until my knuckles were white, before I finally let go. I turned and walked away, pulling out my tablet to change my flight plan. I changed the destination from the official plan of that desolate Baltic outpost to a seat at the High Table in Sicily, which is the absolute center of old-world Mafia power. Everyone seemed to have forgotten. I am the princess of the Falcone family. And he is nothing but filth from the gutter. We were never a match.

My boyfriend Orion was the leading hunter of the Bright Moon Pack, who was sent on an S-class mission three years ago. Before he left, he told me to wait for his return, after which he would mark me. Holding him to his promise, I waited for over a thousand days, and he eventually did come back. I was delighted, but just ten days after I blissfully prepared for the marking ceremony, I overheard him speaking with his fellow hunters. "Are you sure you're going to mark Elara? What about Dahlia and Emery? Especially Emery—the pup's two years old and looks just like you. There's no hiding it at all." "Hell, the whole thing about a secret mission was a farce, to cover up for you hanging around for Emery's birth. If Elara knew the truth…" Orion shot his deputy a sharp glare right then. "Just tell Dahlia to keep her mouth shut and hide the pup. Elara's the only one for me." Dahlia? The pup? As it turned out, in those three years I was worried sick for him, he had a pup with another woman. My knuckles clenched, I returned to my room and called my father. "Dad, I want to go home."

On the eve of our wedding, Ellis Stewart threw a tantrum and hurled the wedding ring I had given her. I spent the entire night searching through the icy lake until my numb fingers finally closed around it. When I went to return the ring to her, I overheard her speaking with a close friend. “How many times have you toyed with Jonathan already? “It’s been three years since Gregory’s passing, and you still can’t forget him?” “If Jonathan hadn’t clung to me three years ago, begging me to pick him up, how could Gregory have died in that car accident?” Ellis replied coldly. “He’s the one who killed Gregory. Everything that happened was nothing but his own doing.” My knuckles whitened around the ring, and for an instant, it felt as though all the blood in my body had turned cold. So Ellis had never loved me at all. My unwavering devotion had been nothing more than a crucial piece of her revenge. In silence, I let the ring fall from my hand. Then I pulled out my phone. “Dad, Mom, I’ve figured things out. I agree to the marriage you’ve arranged. Let the wedding be in three days.”

"I hate you Mason Livingston," I mumbled breathlessly, my knuckles wound tightly around his collar, as my knees threatened to buckle under me. "I know," his throaty whisper threatened to undo the very last of my resistance. I had to resist him, I had to resist his kiss, his touch, his smell, I had to resist him. He broke my heart before. "But just for tonight," he brushed his lips lightly against mine and the very last shred of resistance gave way. "Just for tonight Imogen, I want to feel your passion, raw and untamed..." Just for tonight... Was my last thought before he claimed my lips with fiery passion. *** Imogen Grey wanted nothing more than to be loved by Mason Livingston, heir to the multi billion dollars Livingston empire. That was until he broke her heart in the worst way possible. Six years later, fate brings them together. Now Imogen wants nothing than to ruin Mason Livingston and also to protect her 6 year old son from him. But Mason is not the same playboy she knew six years ago. Now with everything riding on the line, Imogen must choose, passion or revenge

[MATURE CONTENT] "Please..” I begged, my body trembling with want. “Please let me cum. ” Despite my desperate pleas, he smiled, that twisted dark smile that never failed to make my heart stop. His knuckles graze my cheeks as leaned in, the gentleness of his caress was a huge contrast to pain he'd inflicted on me. “Sorry darling.” He rasped, his eyes darkening with a mix of satisfaction and amusement. “You don't deserve it.” *** Aurelia Ravenwood was fed up with her boring love life, but she never had the courage to explore her wild fantasies. After she comes across a peculiar survey site, it rewards her with a sex bucket list that brought her carnal desires to life, a list that requires her to fill in her top three candidates who would help her complete her list. She adds her long time crush and coworker first, followed by a charismatic actor, and finally her enigmatic boss. But her life turns upside down when the list is leaked in her workplace, and the first person to call her in is her boss. Aurelia had feared and expected him to punish her, but instead she gets a shocking offer; He would help her complete her list if she agreed to be his new plaything.

I chase after Dean Wagner for five years while Graham Ashford chases after me for seven. When Dean marries Emily Caldwell, I finally say yes to being Graham's girlfriend. Graham is over the moon. He treats me like I'm everything to him, like he'd do whatever it takes just to make me happy. But Graham doesn't believe in marriage. Even when our daughter turns four, he still hasn't married me. He won't even let her call him "Dad". One night, I overhear him joking around with his buddies. "Your daughter's already four. You still aren't bringing your wife and kid home to meet your parents?" Graham taps his knuckles on the table and laughs. "You know why I got with Nora and had a kid with her. I just want to make Emily jealous. "Nora's easy to fool. She won't ever leave me, even if I never bring her or the kid home." He thinks he has me all figured out, but he doesn't. I turn and leave without a word, then plan to leave him for good. A man like that doesn't deserve my love. And he sure as well doesn't deserve to be my daughter's father.

Milo never expected survival to look like this. At twenty-one, he’s spent most of his life drifting, bruised by the world and too soft to fight back. His beauty makes people underestimate him; his fragility makes them think they can shape him. Isaak is a walking contradiction: cold-eyed, dark-inked, and terrifyingly controlled. At thirty-one, he has carved his body and his life into hard, elegant precision. Power clings to him as naturally as oxygen, and people follow him even when they don’t understand why. To him, Milo isn’t fragile. He’s fascinating. He’s something worth remaking. Kasym, older by barely a year, is the opposite—a broad, golden-haired monolith of warmth and violence. He smiles easily, loves fiercely, and destroys without remorse. Under his tattoos and bruised knuckles lies a heart that has bled too often, yet still hungers for someone to protect. He sees Milo’s softness and doesn’t want to change it. He wants to guard it with his teeth. But three hearts are not easily aligned. Isaak’s possessiveness clashes with Kasym’s tenderness, and both men fear that the softness they worship will shatter under the weight of their devotion. Milo must learn to navigate two hungers, two ways of loving that demand more than he has ever given. The question isn’t whether he belongs to them—it’s whether they can learn to belong to each other without destroying the boy who binds them. This is a love story built not on simplicity but on collision—where surrender becomes power, devotion becomes war, and three lives entwine in a bond too fierce to break.