Talk To Me Tenderly

I fumbled with the lock, my pulse hammering. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want this. "Alaric," I breathed, but his name barely made it past my lips before his hands were on me—hot, demanding, unstoppable. "Tell me to stop," he murmured against my throat, his fingers sliding beneath my dress. "Tell me you don’t want this." I opened my mouth—to argue, to push him away—but all that came out was a soft, shuddering gasp as he found the one place that betrayed me. His dark chuckle sent a shiver down my spine. "That’s what I thought." __ Betrayed and humiliated at the altar. Isla never planned to ruin herself in the arms of another man. But heartbreak led her straight into the grasp of Alaric Voss—powerful, ruthless, and twice her age. One night. No names. No future. Or so she thought. Because when the sun rose, Isla came face-to-face with her new boss—the same man who had just claimed her in every sinful way possible. Now, resisting him is impossible. He’s everywhere—watching, teasing, owning her with every smirk, every touch. She swore it was a mistake. He swears it’s just the beginning. And the more she fights him, the more she realizes the truth: She was his from the moment he laid eyes on her. And Alaric Voss doesn’t let what’s his slip away.

A curse is cast upon everyone in this village, reducing us to mutes. But once a villager's lover takes three laps around the back mountain and marries said villager successfully, the curse on that villager will be broken. My childhood friend, who's the same age as me, has already gotten married and embraced his life as a regular person. Even my cousin, who's just turned 18 years old, has her curse broken as well. I, on the other hand, am about to turn 30 years old soon, and yet I'm still a mute. Whenever I'm about to get married, all of my ex-fiances, who kept telling me that they'd love me with all their hearts, would do anything just to terminate our engagements right after they came out of the back mountain. In order to proclaim his deep love for me, my tenth fiance, Isaac Jameson, tells me confidently that he'd definitely marry me once he's done with his laps around the mountain. But as soon as his words fall, his expression changes the moment he sets foot into the mountain. To my horror, Isaac picks up an axe from the ground and begins hacking at me with it. "Why are you still alive in this world? Why can't you just die already?" I can only lie on the ground while suffering from intense pain. I have no idea what's in the back mountain and why the same outcome will happen every time. Why is it that the entire village can break their curse so easily, and yet I can never get married despite having gone through it ten times in a row?

The wolf inside me howls when the bond snaps into place. I’ve found my second-chance mate. Just a few days ago, the man I’ve loved my whole life gave me to our former enemy in exchange for his sister’s hand in marriage. After I risked my own life to save his, my first mate Alpha Raul traded me like a thing. My heart and mind are in chaos, and I feel like I’m losing my grip on reality. The only thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I want more of the tenderness this stranger is offering me, to lose myself in him. His eyes widen, nostrils flaring, and I know he can smell my interest. I’m straddling his waist, and our bodies are pressed together. “You are mine,” he says quietly, and runs his thumb across my lower lip. My breathing is erratic, and I can feel the heat coiling in me, pulsing through me in delectable waves. This is crazy. I don’t even know his name and still, everywhere our skin touches I can feel the want crackling between us like electricity. I want this so badly, but it’s not who I am. I can’t use my savior to avenge myself on Raul and put a plaster on my shattered heart. “I’m sorry, I can’t. This isn’t right,” I offer an apology before getting off of him. But his hand snaps out and grabs my wrist, yanking me back onto him. “Tut-tut little wolf, there’s no running away from me. You’re mated to Alpha King Aiden now and I fully intend to keep you.”

My husband’s childhood friend was trapped in an elevator for half an hour. In his anger, he stuffed me inside a luggage bag and locked me inside. “You’re paying double for all the suffering Grace went through.” My body was forced into a curled-up state. I had a hard time breathing. I cried as I apologized, but all I got was my husband’s cold reproach. “You’re going through the entirety of this punishment. Once you’ve learned your lesson, you’ll behave.” He then locked the luggage bag in the closet. I screamed in despair and struggled to break free. My blood seeped out of the bag and soaked the floor. Five days later, he felt sorry for me and decided to end the punishment. “Let this punishment be a warning for you. This time, I’ll let you go.” Little did he know that my body was already rotting inside the luggage bag.

I supported Ethan Mitchell and loved him for eight whole years. I thought I concealed my feelings well, but little did I know that after Ethan became a business magnate, the first thing he did was send me to a ladies’ finishing academy. He looked at me coldly, his arms wrapped around his fiancée. "When you've rid yourself of those filthy thoughts, then you can come out." A year later, I finally forgot him completely. However, Ethan came to regret everything.

세상 밑바닥에서 진창을 뒹구는 남장 여인 요원 현신과 이 세상 꼭대기에 군림하는 부와 권력을 다 가진 두 남자 사이가 지독한 집착과 소유욕이 폭발하는 아슬아슬 짜릿한 정통 삼각 로맨스 ==================== Image by whif.io(위프 플랫폼 제공/캐릭터 상품화 계약 완료)

Celeste Leblanc, the daughter of the richest man in the city, has ordered a custom-fitted ring worth a billion dollars according to my finger size. She claims that she will marry the person who can wear it perfectly. In the first time loop, George Braun, the fake heir, secretly enlarges the ring so that he can marry Celeste. She responds by slapping him to the point he's all bruised and battered. "You're not the one!" In the second time loop, my adopted brother, Roger Braun, loses 30 pounds in one go so that he can marry Celeste. She responds by pushing him down the stairs. "You're not the one either!" In the third time loop, my stepfather, Edgar Braun, grits his teeth and makes up his mind. He slices the flesh off his finger so that he can wear the ring properly. Celeste chuckles coldly at the sight. She orders her bodyguards to drown Edgar in a bathtub immediately. In the fourth time loop, everyone is left without a choice. They're so frightened that they deliver me into Celeste's hands. I put on the ring. It fits my finger perfectly well. The entire family heaves sighs of relief. But the moment Celeste sees me, she draws out a blade and stabs me to death. "You're not the one too! Where the hell is my fated husband?" In the final time loop, when Celeste tells her secretary, Donny Griffin, to bring the ring over, all of us claim that we can't wear the ring at all. But Donny shoots us a weird look. "Ms. Leblanc has already made it clear that one of you is the ring's owner."

A doomsday blizzard hit just before Christmas. The zombie virus exploded. Our fortress was a top-tier ski resort. Now, it was about to fall. My husband, Ethan, was a former Navy SEAL. Our head of security. He swore his defense system was foolproof. The blizzard knocked out the power. But he’d sent all the backup generator fuel to the summit. Just to light up a Christmas tree for Chloe. He even had a few guards up there with them, throwing a party. In my last life, I fought him. I herded everyone into the last bunker. But Chloe whined. A crowded Christmas was boring, she said. She stormed out of the safe room and ran right into the jaws of the horde. Ethan carved a path through the horde to secure the walls. Then he sat in silence, cradling Chloe’s bones. He pretended he wanted to start over with me. He let me get pregnant with his child. The day I gave birth, he knocked me unconscious and dumped me into a nearby zombie nest. He always rescued me just before I died. He’d inject me with a serum that kept me from turning. Nineteen times, he threw me to the zombies. I died in agony as they tore the flesh from my bones. "If you hadn't sabotaged my defenses," he’d hissed, "if you hadn't crashed our party and led the horde right to us, Chloe would still be alive!" I opened my eyes. I was back. Christmas Eve.

Jeneta Arinze thought she knew what love was until her husband offered her to another man. When Nonso’s career is on the brink of collapse, he makes a desperate deal with his billionaire boss, Jinhai Maynard, a man known for his wealth, power, and wicked appetites. One month. One offer. One price. Cornered and heartbroken, Jeneta agrees. But what begins as a night of sacrifice turns into something far more dangerous. Jinhai doesn’t just want her body, he wants control. Her submission. Her every breath. Now, Jinhai Maynard is offering her more than money. He’s offering the life she’s always dreamed of… with a taste of pleasure she can’t forget. But Jeneta soon realises the most seductive man she’s ever known might also be the most dangerous. And, now one month is the start of her ruin.

Everyone in the pack knows Marcus has loved me for a decade—that I'm his destined mate. He's devastatingly handsome and brilliant, the youngest and most gifted pack healer we've ever had, with she-wolves practically throwing themselves at his feet. Yet this alpha prince has eyes only for me. But when I was nearly assaulted by a rapist, Marcus signed a settlement agreement on my behalf and issued a psychiatric diagnosis, condemning me to a mental institution. Inside the institution, I was attacked by the truly insane—they tore at my hair with clawed fingers and kicked my stomach until I couldn't breathe. Meanwhile, he held the rapist's sister Victoria close and told me: "Emma, I'll take care of you. I'll compensate you when you get out, but Victoria has severe depression. She can't handle her brother getting in trouble." Even more ridiculous—when I begged him to let me see my suicidal sister one last time, he was honeymooning with that woman in Iceland, hanging up on my eighty-nine calls. The day my sister died, I coughed up blood in that mental hospital. Three years later, he came to get me, saying he still wanted to bring me home as his mate. Looking at his careful demeanor, I suddenly laughed. Marcus, do you know? No matter how high the mental hospital walls are, they can't stop someone who's crawled back from hell for revenge. What you owe me, what you owe my sister—I'll collect it all with interest, using what you care about most.