Paint Renaissance

My crippled sister, Monica Porter, jumped from the roof of the classroom building. The day before she died, she had just been fitted with the custom prosthetic legs I had paid for with ten years of savings. She was glowing, excited to finally stand up on her own. But my wife's best friend, a guy she said was just like a brother to her, locked Monica inside an empty art room. He smashed her new legs, forced her to crawl on the floor and lick paint clean to retrieve the broken parts, and recorded everything on video. And my wife, a judge, ultimately ruled that the case could not stand. "The video cannot confirm the time it was recorded and may represent consensual performance art between both parties," she said. Sandra Pauley's final judgment was simple. "The deceased had a history of depression. The school and the defendant bear no responsibility." I smiled and cooked her a full table of food. The next day, I hung the bully, Eric Hoyles, from the school's flagpole and livestreamed it to the entire internet. "Honey, remember how you said Monica had such pretty legs?" I raised a claw hammer and brought it down on his ankle. "If you don't hand over the video evidence right now, I'll hook out his Achilles tendon one strand at a time and let him learn what it feels like to crawl!" The wind passed through. His screaming broke apart in the air, mixing with the strained creaking of the flagpole until it sounded almost like music. The live chat went insane. Meanwhile, I laughed until my eyes filled with tears.

After a tragic accident left Emily Yates without her memories, she fell in love with her savior, Justin Yates, unaware that he was hiding the truth and using her as a stand-in for his first love. For three long years, Emily poured everything into the relationship, hoping he would love her back. But on the day Justin proposed, he held his "one true love" in his arms and left Emily stranded on a foreign street, still expecting her to remain his secret mistress. Emily decided she would no longer be his stand-in. She ripped up the contract, kicked Justin out of her life, and hid her pregnancy before faking her death. When word of her death reached Justin, his world shattered. He fell gravely ill, barely clinging to life. Five years later, they crossed paths again. Emily had risen to fame as a renowned painter and jewelry designer, while Justin had swallowed his pride, now shamelessly chasing after her. “Emily, I know I messed up. Please, don’t leave me,” he begged, desperation in his voice. “Emily, can’t you just look at me, not other men? “Emily, I’ll be your model. Come over tonight and paint me, please? “Emily… Emily… My wife…” Emily’s fury boiled over. “Get lost! Who said I was your wife?” But Justin clung to her, refusing to let go, acting shamelessly. “I don’t care. You promised to marry me before, so that makes you my wife. “I don’t care! I don’t care!” he repeated.

Willow Wildwoods is a witch, she has self esteem issues mostly stemming from her poor relationships and her narcissistic boyfriend. She is a curvy girl and an artist, but when a full moon ritual and a wish opens up a whole new world where she discovers her boyfriend isn’t what he seems and that she has four supernatural fated mates she is in for a wild ride. Hikaru’s private jet sets down at Logan Airport under the full moon and they get ushered to a penthouse where they will be under the protection of werewolves. The little nonbinary fox shifter will have a personal guard who they immediately realize is their fated mate. Asim doesn’t like the idea of babysitting a fox shifter. He’s a warrior and Alpha Guard, why should he have to babysit some foreign fox shifter? How is he supposed to do his duty when that little shifter turns out to be the mate he has been waiting to meet his entire life? Aiden gave up on love and meeting his mate. His fated mate didn’t even acknowledge the bond 200 years ago, so now that he has met Willow and has a second chance he won’t let her slip through his claws at any cost. He will have the little witch paint a mural for his supernatural nightclub and show her just how generous dragon shifters can be. Raff seems to be carefree, skateboarding through the underground fae markets and creating street art by day, bartending by night. But he knows there is more to life and his girlfriend isn’t it. How do they all come together and what about these mysterious disappearances of supernatural beings that keep occurring? How is it connected to them?

There's an unspoken rule in my household—everyone has to engage in a drinking competition during the holidays. Whoever gets wasted first will have to pay off one year's worth of house and car mortgages for the other two siblings. In the first year, I collapsed after my first glass of alcohol. I had to pay the house mortgage for my oldest sister, Dahlia Zeller. In the second year, as soon as I picked up my glass, I fainted right away. Since then, I had to pay off Jasmine Zeller, my second sister's car loan. For the next 20 years, I've always been the loser. In the end, my wife, Jean McCarthy, is forced to jump off a building because of the huge debt I've racked up. The debtors keep dumping paint onto my residence, forcing me to deter away from it. Ransacked by guilt, I end up damaging my stomach from overdrinking when I attempt to train my alcohol tolerance. As a result, half of my liver has gotten removed. When I'm on the verge of death, I hear my parents snickering outside my ward. "Don't you think we've laced too many sleeping pills in his drink? He almost didn't wake up back then!" "It's fine. He's an idiot who merely thinks he has a low alcohol tolerance. Our family still relies on him for financial survival, you see. We can keep drugging him so that he'll keep getting wasted." When I open my eyes again, I've already gotten reborn in the timeframe when I'm sitting at the dining table in the 20th year.

“Paint me.” She said and immediately he looked up, his pupils dilated and he froze. “W..what.. you.” he stuttered, stumbling over his words despite his bear sized build and rough looks. “Why professor? You said you needed a muse, you didn't say you needed a dressed one.” She muttered, her lips curving into a smirk and then as his eyes raked over her naked body, she began to trace the contours of her shape. Slowly, her hand slid downwards massaging, caressing and working her body and then it finally stopped right between her legs. As she made to speak, the door slammed open and she watched two other hulking figures saunter in, their shoulders trembling. In their eyes, she saw anger, possessiveness and lust that made her both hot and scared at the same time. *** Christiana is in no way what one would call a saint. She was the brattiest and craziest firecracker. So when one of the features of her fantasy makes an appearance, you cannot expect that she would not want to live out her fantasies. Especially when suddenly she has to live in the same house as the man of her fantasies. Christiana had three problems. One, her parents were suddenly involved in an accident, leaving her in both despair and debt. Two, Her father's closest friend suddenly asked her to move in with him. Three, Her father's best friend is in fact none other than the star in her fantasies. As if that's not enough, she also has to tackle two hockey brothers who would do anything to claim her as theirs. Maybe, her problem is more than three. Fuck that, three is the right number. Three hot men who make her body burn like never before. What will Christiana do?

Elsa a vingt et un ans quand elle épouse Alexandre Duval. Ce mariage, elle l'a attendu depuis ses seize ans. Elle aime Alexandre depuis si longtemps qu'elle n'arrive plus à se souvenir d'une version d'elle-même qui ne l'aimait pas. Alexandre, lui, a accepté parce que son père le lui a demandé. Édouard Duval, le patriarche de l'Académie Vocale d'Élite de New York, admirait la famille d'Elsa et voyait en elle l'épouse idéale pour son fils. Discrète, fiable, sans ambition propre qui pourrait faire de l'ombre à l'empire familial. Ce que personne dans cette famille ne sait, c'est qu'Elsa a une voix. Une voix de soprano lyrique que son professeur appelait autrefois un accident de la nature en faveur de l'humanité. Elle a tout arrêté à dix-sept ans, après la mort de ses parents dans un accident de voiture. Elle n'a jamais rechantée. Pas une seule note. Et Alexandre ne l'a jamais entendue. Cinq ans de mariage plus tard, Elsa découvre que les vitamines qu'Alexandre lui donne chaque matin sont des contraceptifs. Qu'il l'a délibérément empêchée d'avoir un enfant pendant qu'elle pleurait après chaque test négatif. Qu'il retrouve Viviane, son amour de jeunesse, mezzo-soprano adulée du Metropolitan Opera, depuis que celle-ci est revenue à New York. Elsa part pour Londres avec une valise et les bijoux de sa mère. Ce qui suit est l'histoire de ce qu'on devient quand on n'a plus rien à perdre. La renaissance d'une femme retrouve sa voix et . Mais c'est aussi l'histoire d'Alexandre qui comprend trop tard ce qu'il avait.

Shortly after we said "I do," the Family sent my husband, Dario, down to the Mexican border. He told me it was a meat grinder down there—cartel territory. where guys were zipped into body bags every day. He said he had to go—to expand the territory, for the glory of the Family. He claimed it was too dangerous and that his enemies would paint a target on my back, so he wouldn't take me with him. I believed him. I stayed behind in his old, rot-infested house in New Jersey, taking care of his bitter, spiteful parents. I spent my days and nights in the Family's moldy laundromat, washing bills stained with blood. He told me he sent every dime he made down there to the widow of a brother who took a bullet for him. He asked me to be understanding. I never complained. Day after day, I pressed expensive suits in that humid laundromat, waiting for him to come home. It wasn't until the eighth year that a mobster came back drunk. When I asked about Dario, he froze, then sneered at me through a haze of alcohol. "Dario? Are you kidding? He’s been a King in Manhattan for years. He’s the youngest Underboss of the Corleone family." I stood frozen, the iron in my hand burning a hole right through a shirt. "And he got married seven years ago. Biggest cathedral in New Jersey. Half the mob was there to toast the groom..." He pulled a crumpled photo from his leather jacket. Snuggled up against my husband was a woman in a high-end couture gown—the very same "poor, widowed sister-in-law" he had told me about. The next day, I contacted a fixer who specialized in fake IDs. On the application for a one-way ticket to Europe—a ticket to vanish off the face of the earth—I filled in the fake name I had prepared long ago. He trapped me for seven years with a sham marriage. From now on, I’d be done with this damn loyalty.

Cette histoire est le tome 3. Vous pouvez retrouver le Tome 1, Regarde-Moi. Après le deuil déchirant de leur enfant, Ava et Vincenzo De Luca refusent de sombrer. Pour sceller leur renaissance, ils organisent un mariage somptueux, une odyssée luxueuse des rivages grecs aux palais siciliens, où le désir devient leur seule loi. Vincenzo, est prêt à tout pour reconquérir sa femme, mais l’ombre de la mafia plane sur leur sanctuaire. Pour protéger son empire et sa reine, Vincenzo doit honorer une dette envers la famille Romano. Chaque escale devient alors un jeu de séduction brûlant où la passion se heurte à la violence d’un monde sans pitié. L'équilibre vacille à Paris lorsqu'un vestige du passé d’Ava resurgit chez Christie’s, menaçant de briser leur union. Tandis qu'elle affronte ses démons, Vincenzo mène une guerre invisible pour verrouiller leur avenir. Dans l'univers des De Luca, le bonheur n'est qu'une trêve, et les prédateurs n'attendent qu'une faille pour frapper. Avertissement : Ce roman s'adresse exclusivement à un public majeur et averti. Il contient des descriptions explicites pouvant heurter la sensibilité de certaines personnes, notamment des scènes de violence physique et psychologique, de consommation de drogue et d'alcool, ainsi que des scènes à caractère sexuel. La lecture de ce contenu est déconseillée aux personnes mineures ou sensibles à ces thématiques. Note de l'autrice Cette œuvre est une fiction entièrement originale. Toute ressemblance avec des personnes existantes, des événements réels, ou d'autres histoires de fiction, publiées ou non, serait purement fortuite. Si certains thèmes ou archétypes peuvent évoquer d'autres œuvres du genre romantico-érotique, l'univers, les personnages et les intrigues de ce récit sont le fruit de l'imagination de l'autrice.