Shell Collectors

“I bought you to be my whore.”Hendrix Parker lost it all four years ago. Angry at the world, he's become an asshole—a bitter shell of the man his family once loved. A recluse, he’s now forced to leave his sanctuary in the Florida Keys and become an active member of the real estate development community he now dominates.Problem is he's all alone and needs a buffer. Someone to draw attention away from him...Beau Carter is young, beautiful, and with a bright future ahead of her. Her dreams of becoming the first woman in her family to graduate from college are just within grasp, when the financial aid runs out. Up to her eyeballs in debt, she works night and day to make ends meet, but even that can only last for so long.A contract. Six Months. The catch?I'll become the sugar baby to a very rich man. Someone I find myself wanting to punch in the face and throw myself at, on the same breath.Craving Sugar was created by Elena M. Reyes, an eGlobal Creative Publishing author.

"Genie" His voice was barely a whisper, his breath warm against the shell of my ear. "This is so wrong, we can't be doing this." His lips find their way back to mine, trailing the bottom lip with his tongue. "So so wrong" He pulled my lower lips in, biting on them. I stifled a moan. "I know," I managed to say. I could feel the warm slickness ache between my legs. "We shouldn't be doing this. You're my step brother." My body doesn't agree with what my mouth is saying. I snuggled closer into his chest wanting to feel the heat of his bare body against mine. I want his mouth against mine, ravaging me like he had done before. We have gone too far to back out now. "Take me, Ryder" Those were the words he needed. Only those three words. Suddenly, he grips the back of my thighs and lifts me up, forcing my legs to wrap around him. Planting me against the wall, he peers up and look straight into my eyes "You're mine" Then his lips came down on mine. I'm yours. I whispered back in the back of my head. ******** Ryder Saint, for years, has bullied me. Reasons? None. It was like he signed a contract from heaven to make my life hell. From the moment he set his eyes on me, he added my name to his list. Don't be fooled by his last name. It's a charade, he's not anything like it. Everything about Ryder Saint smells evil. His heart, dark. His soul, dark. His aura, dark. Except his face. I should have neglected him like I always have, but I couldn't when our parents decided to tie the knots and he became my stepbrother. He and I, under the same roof.

The Protagonist of the story : Fayth Aurora Valentino is just another average teenager. She is the epitome of the word introvert, who would rather be buried in her books than do anything else. She was hoping to complete her senior with very little problems and finally be able to attend the universities of her dreams. But what happens when suddenly the ground beneath her feet opens up wide and suddenly she is falling into an endless void. A fourth war that threatens to finish the last set of humans, breaks all over the world and this time, hope is something that is no longer existent. A girl who was always cocooned is thrown right in the middle of a battlefield, fighting for something that she doubts will survive any longer. Fighting for the people who will ultimately betray her. The lines between right and wrong get so blurred that she often slips. Hurting strangers to protect the ones she loves, is it right or wrong? Is a question that looms over her head all the time. Enemies become friends, while the ones she trusted the most stab her in the back, literally. Fayth finds herself turning into someone that she isn’t sure whether she loves or hates. Everywhere she turns she finds herself losing the people she loves. Everything seems to be drawing out her energy leaving behind an empty shell made up of only pain and sorrow.

When my husband Jason Carter’s first love, Renee Lynn, showed up at our doorstep heavily pregnant in my past life, I still refused to divorce him. She was soon accidentally pushed down the stairs by debt collectors, killing both her and the baby. Ever since then, Jason hated me to the core. Not only did he cheat and keep a mistress, but he also conspired with her violent, mentally unstable brother to kill me. Before I took my last breath, he sneered, “You owe Renee a life. It’s time to pay up.” Fine. I must have been blind. After my reincarnation, I decisively signed the divorce papers, abandoned my savior complex, and stopped meddling in others’ fates. If he wanted to be a pathetic simp, I would let him be.

Sometimes love finds us in the most unexpected places—through the most unexpected person. At 40, Daniel’s life is a careful balance between raising his three children and running the family business. After losing his wife, he built a cold, impenetrable shell around himself—one he has no intention of breaking. Deanna, on the other hand, is full of dreams. With just one year left before earning her degree in Arts, she’s focused on one thing: making it to the opera stage. But when her best friend Harry begs for her help, her life takes an unforeseen turn. An outdated family rule threatens to keep Harry from marrying his pregnant girlfriend. The only solution? His older brother, Daniel, must marry first. To help him, Deanna and Daniel agree to a fake relationship—a temporary arrangement that should have been simple. But the pull between them is undeniable. She brings warmth into his cold world, while he offers her a love she never expected after a painful breakup. Together, they begin to build something real—something worth fighting for. Yet, not everyone wants to see them happy. Between outside forces determined to tear them apart and their own fears whispering doubts, their love faces an uphill battle. And with a 15-year age gap standing between them, one question remains: Can they defy the odds, or will reason win over the heart?

A near miss tragedy bonded Janet and Danielle as best friends forever. However, when a silly and fun bet between friends that involves Jayden, a no nonsense CEO son of a big wig politician was made to bring Janet out of her shy, good girl next door shell turns into a love triangle. Will their friendship stand a test of time? Or will all be fair in love and war?

Peter Wayne, is a painter known for being playful. He was only rumored to be like that, but he hasn't slept with any women. Then, while being drunk by his friends, he had an affair with a woman. So she left and left him some money. Peter was considered a concubine, so his friends laughed at him. Mia Joan is a quiet person, who always lives in her shell after losing a loved one by her side. But her shadowy life is illuminated by Peter, a man she once considered troublesome. He was so good, that he reached out to pull her out of the scary darkness. Their love begins there. The cynical, immoral painter fell in love with a cold, pure novelist and screenwriter.

What lies beneath the surface of a man who grew up abandoned by his birth parents? A childhood marred by the trials of an orphanage, only to be thrust into a world of even greater adversity after adoption—where he found himself entangled in a web of struggle and darkness, culminating in the ultimate act of taking a life. Jeremy became a mere shell, a living corpse, his existence a mere obligation. Even amidst wealth and power, his heart remained shrouded in sorrow and despair. Until he encountered Melissa Williams—the epitome of boundless optimism, radiating humor and cheerfulness. Will she become the catalyst that breathes life into his weary soul? Can Melissa turn Jeremy's world upside down and chart a new path filled with hope and redemption?

In a world falling apart can a shell of a young woman survive? Bailey is a young woman struggling with her demons, trying her best to fight through a living hell; literally. Not only does bailey fight for every living breath but now she must fight for her place in this dying world.

At a dinner party, my genius painter of a husband, Henry Shepherd, used his hands, hands insured for millions, to shell crabs for his young assistant, Tamara Lee. This was all to coax her into eating a few bites when she claimed she had no appetite. Meanwhile, I drank myself into a bloody mess, trying to secure investments for him. When I asked him to hand me some antacids, he refused without even looking up. “These hands are for painting. Use your own.” For ten years, he couldn’t even be bothered to change the way he treated me. That night, as I sobered up in the cold wind, I asked my lawyer to draft a divorce agreement. "Henry, in this vast, chaotic world, our paths end here," I said inwardly