Naughty Gifts

**Warning: Contains strong language, smuts, abuse and some really explicit content, please read at your risk.** "Let go of me…" Arabella said. She grimaced, shaking her head. "Do you think I would let you go so easily?" He questioned, then tutted. Sandro's nostrils flared as he sniffed her hair wrapped in his hands, Vanilla and Strawberry. The innocent yet naughty scent he remembered her with. "That would never happen, Cara Mia." Arabella gasped as Sandro pressed his body into hers. She moved to shove him away but he grasped her hands and pinned them above her head before pointing the gun at her temple. Arabella shut her eyes tightly as the gun cocked. She inhaled and bit her tongue whilst saying her last prayer inwardly. She wanted to run far away from him. Away from the surface of the earth if possible. But she was certain no matter how far she went, he was going to find her. ------------------------------------- Arabella's life took a u-turn after falling into her enemy's hand. She should feel nothing for him, however. He made her lose all her senses, even her clothes. At the mercy of her foe, she discovers some secrets about him and wishes to unravel more, but got what she didn't bargain for. Alessandro, an Alpha werewolf assuming the identity of a mafia Lord. He was the most wanted criminal in COOAN, and his name incites fear in all werewolves' packs. He was a man fighting his demons and needs a saviour before he drowns. After a traumatic childhood event that left him scarred, Blaze often kept to himself and trusted no one until he met Arabella, whom he believed was the perfect mate sent to him by the moon's goddess. However, she was taken. The powerful urge to save her from her...

I died... and then I died again. “Vale,” I moaned, my voice fractured. He met my gaze, his heart racing. “Yes, baby.” I whimpered softly, my breath hitching as his name escaped my lips once more. “V–Vale–!” “You want to make a mess in your pants again, don’t you?” He asked, locking his gaze with my watery eyes as he pulled my face down to meet his by my throat. “Such a naughty vampire, you were so messy and sticky all over your thighs just earlier, and now you want to do it again,” he murmured hoarsely, watching as I cried out in response. Where had all that macho boldness disappeared? He wondered. Just moments ago, I was ready to drive him insane with my teasing, and now I was a mess, a puddle melting away in his hands, completely at his mercy. The power dynamic shifted, and he reveled in my surrender, eager to push me further into this wild desire. **** Talon/Virgil faces an agonizing cycle of deaths. In his first life, his love was crushed, and he was murdered—only for fate to repeat its cruel game in his next existence. How many more deaths must he suffer before he can find the happiness he's been relentlessly pursuing? Just when Talon believes he’s finally found peace, fate spins him back into chaos, casting him into a void once again. This time, he awakens from a coma to discover he's inhabiting the body of a stepbrother he never knew existed until, of course, he awakened in his body—a married man with a family. As Talon grapples with his new reality, he must balance the façade of being a devoted stepbrother, husband, and father while yearning for the one true love that has haunted him through the ages.

Everyone said I was lucky. After the Don, Lucas Vaughn, brought me back to his estate, I became the woman he treasured most. He would halt billion-dollar deals just to be home on time to put me to sleep. He even learned sign language in secret, just so he could communicate with me after my vocal cords were damaged. At first, I didn’t dare give him my heart. Whenever he looked at me, his focus would drift. He showered me with gifts, yet always disappeared on the days that mattered most. As the child in my womb grew, and as Lucas’s devotion intensified day by day, I let my guard down. I devoted myself completely to the role of wife and Donna. Until the night I gave birth. I hemorrhaged during a difficult labor, but Lucas never showed up. After surviving by sheer luck, I finally saw the trending news. Lucas attended a Thames-side gala arm-in-arm with rising movie star, Serena Vale. That was when I understood. To him, I had only ever been a substitute. He broke his rules for her again and again. He indulged her humiliations toward me and even shoved me toward armed attackers at the brink of life and death. Filled with hatred, I closed my eyes and sank into the deep sea, just as he wished. Later, he knelt, clutching the hem of my dress, begging, "Zoe, please give me one more chance. I’ll repay you with my life." His life was worth too little now. I no longer wanted it.

When all the inhabitants of this big city where everyone falls into the dark world of the fog of passion, in a city where everyone was involved in conspiracy schemes, the search for love and manipulation through the authorities who are involved in power games , control and seduction, in which they were being bought and manipulated, giving their greatest gifts of love, hate and envy, in those who are in search of their greatest desires and desires, those who seek the mystery of the intensity of true love. Come to my side, embark on a world of pleasures of the hidden darkness of desires, in the darkness of the heart moved by your greatest pleasures, on your journeys in your world of desires in which you are increasingly involved in the darkness of your greatest sins, in a world tales that show reality and seduction, between tales of pleasure, pain, love and romances between businessmen Even with an ending to move forward, even remembering forever, when that's what you needed, and what everyone needed was high expectations, in your favor, even thinking about it, when it was easy to show how different everything can be. Even now, in his relationship, with everyone in his life, new friendships, lovers, with the best way of being himself, but manipulating everyone around him, being that basically, supporting and changing everything the world and his city do. involved himself in big parties, events and countless trips, in addition to festivals and holidays, he controls everyone's lives. Today nothing has changed, that feeling he had when he couldn't do anything, it took years for him to be certain that he could never again be accused of arriving too late, that his relatives should have died naturally, but it wasn't a peaceful death.

April Moore’s played by her family’s rules all her life. Now, she’s outlived most of her family and those rules she’s forced to live by have the world seeing her as worthless. April believed she loved David Moore, and she believed he loved her when they married. Soon after the wedding, his sweet compliments, and generous gifts disappeared. Two years later, April said goodbye to her deadbeat husband and enjoyed being challenged by an interesting billionaire. What’s a woman who’s claim to fame’s the yearbook’s ‘Ms. Plain Jane’ going to do with the football captain. Sure, it’s years after graduation but, the things he remembers! Damien Jones is busy pretending to maintain the image of a useless playboy. While he’s stepping in for his father at the new resort because his father wants to hide his slow death. Now corporate sabotage hits the resort during the wedding of a friend Damien is acting as best man for. It becomes complicated. The resort booked for the wedding for the week. The harm came from a guest or staff member. Competition is steep in this town and reputations can die if this leads back to someone. April’s full of talents and secrets. She always was. damien believes he has a chance with April. she’s lost the training wheels and she’s coming out swinging at life. to damien, April’s beautiful in everyway. But will society have something else to say about their relationship through the backdrop of their friends’ wedding and business gone awry? April and Damien will confront social climbing relatives, corporate saboteurs, steamy nights and more. After that, will they find love?

My wife, Heather Conner, secretly steals the funds I've saved up for our daughter, Naomi Hartman's surgery. After that, she books a high-class hotel for Jared Winters, the low-income student she has been sponsoring, just so she can celebrate his birthday with him. When I find out about it, I demand that Heather return all the money to me. But she slaps me immediately and blames me and Naomi for causing her trouble on purpose. "This is the first birthday Jared and I are celebrating together! Since it's such a big day, it's only natural that I hold it in a grand and lavish manner! "Instead, you two insist on undergoing that stupid surgery just when I've booked the hotel instead of scheduling it at any other time! You really are vile! "I've already inquired with the doctor about the surgery. Turns out it's completely optional! I might as well put the money to good use by giving Jared an unforgettable birthday instead of having you waste it on a useless surgery! "Even if Naomi does end up dying, that means she's fated to die anyway! You can't blame anyone for her death!" Heather just abandons Naomi, who's still fighting for her life. She then drives Jared to the hotel, where they spend the night watching a beautiful fireworks display. With 12 critical notices issued by the doctor in my hand, I kneel before Monica Brown, the richest woman in the city. "I'm willing to marry into your family as long as you pay me 35 thousand dollars' worth of wedding gifts!"

When Autumn encounters the enigmatic and devastatingly handsome Tristan Jordan in downtown Chicago, she quickly realizes he's no ordinary man—he’s a vampire, and he knows who she is. What begins as a chance meeting spirals into an intense and magnetic connection that neither of them can ignore. Autumn soon learns she’s been under surveillance by the vampire world due to her unique bloodline, which may carry untapped magical power. As she and Tristan grow closer, their bond deepens—literally. Through Tristan’s bite, their souls become psychically linked, giving them the ability to communicate without words and feel each other's emotions. But love doesn’t come without shadows. Tristan harbors secrets of his own: a dark past, a chaotic younger brother named Jaiden with dangerous ambitions, and a vampire world divided by ideology. As Autumn moves into a new house with her best friend Jade and begins a new college semester, her life shifts from ordinary to surreal. Vampire politics, ancient bloodlines, and supernatural threats swirl around her. Soon, she’s being stalked by Jaiden, who is obsessed with making her his vampire bride—or worse. As her mystical ancestry begins to awaken, Autumn is drawn into a deeper war: between light and dark, power and purpose, legacy and love. She must learn to control her gifts, guard her heart, and survive the pull of ancient forces that seek to claim her. In the final chapters, Autumn embraces her destiny—not just as Tristan’s beloved, but as a powerful force in her own right. She faces the Hollow, confronts her shadow self, and finds the strength to forgive, love, and transform.

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

I was born destined to be fertile. The kind of woman who brings heirs into the world as if it were destiny. My womb had never failed me. The Schuyler family had practically begged me to marry into their family. The reason was simple. For three generations, the Schuyler family had only produced a single heir each time. Their bloodline was hanging by a thread. The patriarch of the family, Albert Schuyler, went everywhere looking for solutions. Doctors, fortune tellers, shamans, anyone who could give him hope. In the end, every prediction pointed to me. After I married Jack Schuyler, my first pregnancy was twins. The entire Schuyler family exploded with joy. Albert donated to every church and fortune teller alike, kneeling in gratitude. Before the babies were even weaned, the Schuyler family business began to thrive. Everyone said that it was the blessing of having noble heirs. Wedding gifts, properties, and company shares. The Schuyler family spared nothing. They treated me like a queen, terrified that I might suffer even the slightest. Until the day I gave birth to my third child. Jack Schuyler's true love, Bianca Chance, barged into the delivery room, screaming at me, "You shameless tramp! You're nothing but a breeding sow! One baby after the other! Are you trying to trap Jack with your womb? You disgusting woman! Jack had said that everything you give birth to will just be burdens sooner or later!" I pressed a hand on my wound and looked at her. Burden? Fine. I would take these so-called burdens with me. As for the Schuyler family's precious bloodline, they had to figure out how to continue it on their own.

After my boyfriend, Mitchell Cooper, finds out that I've spent 300 thousand dollars on a mug, he demands that I buy his mother a single-level apartment that's worth eight million dollars in the heart of the city. Naturally, I turn his ridiculous demand down in a roundabout way. But this sets him off instead. "Don't be so stingy! My mom will become your mom in the future! What's wrong with showering her with gifts in advance?" Afterward, he records all our expenses that have taken place during our relationship on presentation slides and tells me that we have to split them up. "If you think splitting up our expenses is a troublesome thing to do, then you might as well imburse all of them. You're the rich one, after all. "I've already discussed everything with my family. We'll only give you one dollar as a form of wedding gift. It means 'the only one,' which sounds amazing, right?" Upon noticing my lack of response, Mitchell issues the ultimatum right away. "If you refuse to accept these conditions, then we can call off the wedding. You've already dated me for so many years. I'd like to see if anyone wants a second-hand woman like you." I stare at the long list of expenses that need to be split. I even catch sight of the two-dollar Uber fees that were charged when Mitchell came to look for me in the past. With a smile on my face, I reply, "Okay, then. I don't want a single cent from you in terms of wedding gifts. I'll buy your mom that apartment right now."