Through A Glass Darkly Shakespeare

They say a wedding dress is a promise of forever. Mine was a shroud for the girl I used to be. I was sold to a monster to pay for my father’s sins. I expected to spend my wedding night praying for a quick death at the hands of Don Moretti. Instead, I got a bloodbath. Before the first glass of champagne could shatter, the doors were kicked open by the city’s most terrifying nightmare: Dante "The Butcher" Vane. He didn't come to save me. He came to collect. By the time the sun rose, my husband was a corpse, my family home was in ashes, and I was draped across the lap of the man who had been stalking me from the shadows for years. "Your father didn't just owe the Don, Bianca," he whispered, his thumb tracing the line of my throat with lethal tenderness. "He owed me. And I’ve decided you’re the only currency I’ll accept." Now, I am a prisoner in his fortress—a gilded cage where the line between fear and desire is blurred by every dark touch. Dante is a tyrant, a red flag wrapped in Italian silk, and a man who claims to be my protector while keeping me in chains. But as the secrets of our shared past begin to bleed out, I realize the "Butcher" has a weakness. He doesn't just want my body; he wants my soul. He thinks he’s breaking me. He doesn't realize that in the silence of my mourning, I’ve stopped being the victim. I’m learning his triggers. I’m studying his scars. And once I make the King of the Underworld fall for the widow he created... I won't just take my freedom. I’ll take his empire.

Billionaire Adi Grenier has silently loved the girl since he was a young teenager. But due to the secrets that he had to burden in his early twenties, he never thought of pursuing her watching her from afar. And so he can only look on as she goes from a happy girl to a woman whose eyes only hold sadness. Now, he has finally settled all the matters that stopped him from pursuing her and so, he is going to cross every obstacle that stops him from getting her… But what he has not expected is that the person he has to fight is none other than the woman of his heart. Faith Heming is not going to risk her heart again.The walls around her heart are not going to be broken down. Not even by the one man who has always held her heart. Excerpt: Allie walked over to the couple, "You really are something, Faith. I need to know your secret.” Faith asked curiously, "Secret?” Allie sipped from her glass with a smile before she continued, "Hmm. You have three lovers. Your ex-husband still dotes on you and is ready to protect you. Your sugar baby is always following you around like a dog wagging its tail and Adi is not even ashamed of having you on his arm." Adi stiffened at the insult ready to defend her when Faith silently gestured to him and smiled lazily,"Why, it's the se* of course, Allie. You counted my ex-husband, my boy toy, my eye candy but I also have a female partner." As the woman frowned in horror, Adi Grenier could only sip his wine to stop his laughter from escaping… Finally, Allie stomped her foot and glared at Adi, "How can you even be with HER?"

Kyra Hopkins doesn’t believe in marriage and long term relationships. She co-manages her dream job with her two best friends Lily and Bipasha. With the two worried about her no-dating state, they hit a club with plans to GET KYRA LAID. In a White tiny dress they leave her in a bar nurturing a glass of water and pondering what exactly her newest client’s birthday party theme should be. Horses or cars. That’s what she voices out to the sinfully hot man who took the seat beside hers. And he’s got Kyra’s feet feeling like they were lit on fire. Worst of all, she got what it meant to have butterflies flutter in your stomach walls. Best of all, the man knows what she wants and he wants it too and more. Kyra got in for the ride of her life, planned for a weekend because remember? Kyra doesn’t do long term. But then, neither is Nicholai Damien Ivanov or Sin as he’s more popularly known as into long term relationships. One night stands or at a stretch a weekend fling. Why does the angel in white getting stuck in his head and refusing to leave? Why couldn’t his PI track her from the little information she dropped about herself. The questions haunted his nights and refused to leave until he caught sight of his Angel in a black dress on another man’s arm, then his sister hugged her referring to her as Kyra while his Angel introduced herself to him as April. Sin got his answer and meant to show her how much they weren’t over yet. In fact they hadn’t even begun. It was just the beginning of Nicholai Ivanov’s obsession with his one-night stand.

My wife's childhood friend, a gambling addict she had known since childhood, returned to Dryana. To help him pay off his debts, she stole and sold my medical patent. Before it happened, I confronted her. I tried to stop her. I even threatened to call the police. Amanda Carroll looked at me as if I had disappointed her beyond repair. "Enough, Cedric Lunsford. You're a grown man. Can you stop nitpicking over every little thing? "Don isn't like you. He's in trouble right now. You make that much money. What's wrong with giving him a little? I'm already your wife. Are you seriously going to tell me where my heart is allowed to be?" I gathered the evidence and headed to the police station. Halfway there, my brakes failed. The car slammed into the guardrail. Metal crumpled and glass shattered. I was pinned in the driver's seat, drenched in blood, forcing out my last breath as I called for help. Amanda's voice on the line was flat, almost bored. "Stop yelling. Don can't stand bloody scenes. Don't make him sick. Your insurance payout is enough for him to start over. Consider it the last duty you perform as a husband." At that moment, I understood. Even at the end, she chose his gambling debt. She chose murder and an insurance payout. The vehicle exploded. Nothing remained of me. Then I opened my eyes again. I was back on the day her "childhood sweetheart" returned. This time, I did not stop her from going to the airport. I picked up my phone and called my senior overseas. "I'll sell you the patent. And the position you mentioned, I'm in. See you in three days."

On the day my dad, the Don of the Capone family, comes to the orphanage to take me home, I show up in a tactical helmet and a bulletproof vest. "I'm not going home with you. You're definitely doing this to trick me into getting married to a perverted old geezer in a marriage alliance. I bet my adopted sister has made preparations to start fake-crying anytime by loading up on her eyedrops." My dad is amused, to say the least. "Why would any of that happen? Silvia is nothing but welcoming you to our home! Also, our family isn't a lowly organization that deals with human trafficking." But I refuse to believe my dad at all. On the way home, I keep typing something on my phone. My mom, the Donna, leans over curiously. "Are you writing a diary entry?" "Nope. I'm writing tips on 'How to Survive the Mafia.'" 1) My food will definitely be poisoned. 2) If I get close to a staircase, I'll definitely get pushed down the stairs. 3) I'll get framed for something that I've never done before. My parents swear to me that none of the things I've written will ever happen. They tell me that my adopted sister, Silvia Capone, has a great personality, and things are amicable in the family. However, everything changes when Silvia brings me a glass of juice before lunchtime and insists on watching me drink it. Instead, I dump the juice into a nearby vase of flowers. Just as my parents are about to scold me for wasting the juice, smoke begins drifting from the flowers inside the vase. Then, they start wilting rapidly. I calmly leave a bright red checkmark behind the "poison" tip. As my parents stare at the dead flowers, they can feel color draining from their faces. "You should send the juice to a chem lab for analysis."

She’d built two years of walls and he dismantled them in one evening. He didn’t announce himself. He never had to. The last person she expected walked in like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Halle hadn’t seen Adrian Vale in two years. Two years of carefully avoiding his name in conversations, his face on screens, and the memory of waking up in his bed, fully dressed, completely alone, and somehow disturbed by that, than if anything had actually happened. Then he showed up to her best friend’s wedding like he owned the place. He reached over her shoulder, lifted the glass of champagne from her hand without spilling a single drop, brought it slowly to his lips, held her gaze the entire time and had the absolute nerve to look good doing it. Adrian Vale didn’t do anything halfway. He never needed to raise his voice because the room already belonged to him. He never reached for things…things simply found their way into his hands. Including, apparently, her. On a moonlit dance floor, his hand slid warm and certain up her spine, his forehead dropped to hers in the dark, and he said the thing that short-circuits every rational thought in her head. “You’re the only thing I’d let ruin me.” He pulled her in for a kiss, close enough to feel his breath, close enough to lose her mind completely, and then he pulled away. Leaving her wanting. He calls her starlight like it’s a secret only he gets to keep. And Halle is so embarrassingly, helplessly gone for him. The ones who make you forget your own name? Those are the ones worth ruining yourself for.

WARNING!!! FOR MATURE READERS ONLY The stories in this collection are highly raw, explicit content. MIDNIGHT DESIRES throws you straight into a story driven by raw desire and real, messy hunger. The scenes are bold and easy to picture, pulling you into a world of forbidden attraction, heated tension, and unapologetic dirty talk. Nothing is left off the page. This isn’t about sweet romance or gentle touches. It’s about lust tangled with power, danger wrapped around pleasure, and chemistry so intense it feels reckless and impossible to ignore. In this collection, you Will find a desperate intern fingering herself during a job interview with her father's boss, leading to raw office sex on the glass desk. To an engaged woman catching her first lover masturbating to an old video of her, reigniting a dangerous craving just before her wedding. A step-sibling secret affair exploding during family holidays. A boss's wife seducing the young intern at a corporate retreat. A married woman risking everything for overtime quickies with her coworker. A celebrity fan turned into a bound sex toy in a VIP booth. A nurse dominating a patient in the hospital ward at night. And many more. These stories don't hold back. Watch out for domination, oral sex, corporate affairs, multiple partners, bdsm, taboo sex, forbidden pleasure, outdoor sex, threesome, cheating partner, age gaps, deep throating, MILF seduction and fantasies. If you're the kind of reader who craves erotica that leaves you throbbing and desperate, grab your favorite toy now, these stories are going to soak you through. Crack open this book at your own risk. Warning: once you turn the first page, there is no turning back. You'll be hooked, breathless, and devouring every single filthy word until the last drop. This book is rated XXX – 18+ Only

To transfer my sister, Suri Voss, who was 13 years younger than I was, to a new school district, I took 7 days of annual leave and went back to my hometown. I pulled strings, delivered gifts, called in favors, and finally forced a spot for her in the best middle school in the city. At last, when I could pause long enough to catch my breath, I told Mom, who was heading out to buy groceries, that I wanted grilled pork ribs for dinner. Suri walked over with a cold expression, then threw a full glass of icy water straight onto my head and pointed at my face as she exploded. "You country leech, mooching off our family for years, eating our food and living in our house whenever you feel like it. I let all that slide. Now you want to steal my mom too? Do you have any shame at all?! "Listen carefully, Mom only has one child. She will only ever love me!" I stood there, stunned. Suri had no idea I was Mom’s biological daughter, too. All this time, she had treated me as some freeloading relative. I looked toward the doorway, where Mom was changing her shoes to go out. She seemed not to have heard a single word of Suri’s disrespect. She merely said casually, "Suri doesn’t like ribs. Let’s have grilled shrimp instead." She had forgotten that I’ve been severely allergic to seafood since childhood. I lowered my head and let out a quiet, self-mocking laugh. Unbeknownst to them, if I could secure Suri a place in that school, I could just as easily make sure she lost it.

Mariin akong napakapit sa bedsheets ng kama sa bawat baon at labas na ginagawa niya. Sobrang init Ng kwartong kinaroroonan naming dalawa na tila ba tinutupok kaming dalawa. "Ugh! You're so hot baby" Ungol nito habang binabayo Ako sa likod at minamasahe Ang dibdib ko, tila ba doe Ang dibdib sa ginagawa nito, patuloy lang ito sa walang humpay Niyang pag bayo hindi ko alam Kong ilang beses akong nanginig sa sarap. Sa laki ba Naman Ng pag-aari niya. "Ughhh I'm coming again" Ungol ko and for an instance, tumirik Ang mata ko sa sarap. Hinihingal kaming pareho, bagsak sa kama at bumabawi Ng lakas dahil sa matinding labanan. I crawled in the top of the bed Saka inihilig Ang sarili sa unan na naroroon. Ilang sandali pa'y gumapang Rin ito papunta sakin Saka ako'y niyakap. Kailangan Kong Gawin to at lunukin Ang delekadesa ko. Kung kasalanan man Ang ginagawa Kong ito handa akong matupok sa apoy Ng impyerno maligtas lang Ang buhay ko. "What is your name?" Napalunok Ako sa laway ko Saka huminga Ng malalim. Just for tonight, I hope someone will save me. "I'm A-a-shanti" Nauutal na sambit ko. I saw him getting up Saka kinuha Ang baso na may lamang alak, nilagok niya ito habang naka talikod sakin at naka harap sa glass window na Mula floor Hanggang ceiling. "P-please---" I swallowed the lump and cleared my throat again before I continued to talk. "Bid for me Mr. Billionaire"

Manhattan was doing that thing again twinkling like it had all the answers, when really it just had expensive lighting. Alexander Knight leaned against the glass wall of his penthouse, seventy-five floors up, watching the city hum below him. Bourbon in one hand (mostly untouched), phone in the other. The merger docs stared back at him from the screen, but the part that actually kept him up at night wasn’t the billions on the line. It was the fine print from the Japanese investors: “Family stability preferred.” Translation: get a wife, look settled, or watch the whole deal slip away. He exhaled, fogging the window for a second before it cleared. His assistant had already sent over a neat little list of “suitable” women—discreet, polished, zero drama. Women who understood arrangements. He hadn’t even opened the attachments. Because something about the whole thing felt… hollow. His gaze drifted down, past the grid of lights, to the tiny café on the corner. Golden glow spilling onto the sidewalk, handwritten sign in the window: Local Artist Pop-Up – One Night Only. A woman stood in front of a canvas, head tilted, paint-smudged shirt slipping off one shoulder. She was talking to someone out of view, laughing softly, then stepped back to study her work like it had personally offended her. She glanced up—straight toward his building, straight at him somehow, even though there was no way she could see him up here. But for a split second, their eyes locked across the impossible distance. But right then, with the whole damn city glittering between them, he had this ridiculous, unshakable thought: She’s the one I’m going to ask. And hell help them both when she says yes.