Ucla Powell Library Hours

At Manatee high, where wealth whispers through the marble halls and last names open doors, Emma Carter stands out for all the wrong reasons. She’s there on a scholarship — smart, quiet, and completely out of place among the designer uniforms and polished smiles. Her father works long hours as a construction worker, and her mother’s absence still echoes through every choice she makes. All Emma wants is to survive senior year unnoticed. Connor Hayes Charming, confident, and born into old money, he moves through school like he owns it — because, in a way, he does. But behind the perfect image lies someone quietly restless, bored of the shallow routines and expectations his family forces on him. When a class project throws Emma and Connor together, their worlds collide. What starts as polite conversation turns into stolen glances, late-night talks, and moments that make Emma question everything she’s been taught about people like him. For the first time, Connor finds someone who doesn’t care about his last name — someone who sees him. But no everyone is happy about it ,The whispers start. And soon, Emma isn’t sure if she’s part of Connor’s world — or just an experiment in rebellion. As emotions deepen, the line between love and heartbreak blurs. Emma learns that privilege comes with its own cages, and Connor realizes that sincerity can’t be bought. Together, they must decide whether what they have can survive the pressure of judgment, jealousy, and fear — or if love alone isn’t enough to bridge two very different worlds. “Emma and Connor” is a coming-of-age romance about class, courage, and finding where you belong — even when the world tells you that you don’t.

My name is Mia, and I am the middle child of Don and Donna Costa. I am also the black sheep of the family. Or the ugly duckling, as my mother would call me. My shift ended a few hours ago, but it takes me long to get home as I do not have a car like my brother, Leonardo, the oldest, or my sister, Amara, the beautiful one and youngest in the family. As you may gather from my story so far, my parents do not care about me. I walk into the house with a sigh. I have seen the cars in front of our home, and I know my family has friends over. "You have nothing I want! You stole from us, and today I will kill your whole family," I hear an angry voice. I wonder what my father has done this time to piss someone off. "Godfather, give me another chance. You can have my beautiful daughter as your wife," My father begs. Holy shit! My father stole from the godfather? I know the godfather is about thirty, and his name is Riccardo Marina. The Marina family is the most powerful in the American mafia. "I do not like blond blue-eyed sluts. I prefer women with dark hair. Besides, Everyone in town knows Amara Costa! She has been around the block," Riccardo says with disgust. I do not know what to do. Shall I hide? Not many people know my parents have another daughter. I am never invited to their parties as my family is ashamed of me. I do not care for my family, and they can die for all I care. "I have another daughter with dark hair. Maybe you will fancy her," My father begs again. I sigh. Typical!

He was a man made of sins. She was the one mistake he couldn’t undo. Luca Romano — the ruthless Don of the Romano crime family — has lived in the shadows for years, drowning in blood, money, and women. But beneath the armor of power lies a ghost he can’t escape: Serena, the girl who once saved his broken soul before vanishing without a trace. Decades later, when Luca sees her again in a supermarket — the same eyes, the same delicate face — he loses control. Within hours, she’s in his mansion, locked away, his lost angel finally returned to him. But she isn’t Serena. She’s Sienna, Serena’s twin sister — the one thrown away, forgotten, and left to survive the streets. Unlike her gentle twin, Sienna bites back. She curses him, fights him, and makes him question the monster he’s become. “You think you own me, Don?” she spits. “No, dolcezza,” he murmurs, pressing his thumb against her jaw. “I think I finally found the one woman who could destroy me.” What begins as a twisted act of obsession turns into a war between them — a battle of wills, lust, and long-buried secrets. Because the more Luca learns about the woman he’s captured, the more he realizes: He might have stolen the wrong twin, but he’s finally met his match. And when the real Serena returns — sweet, innocent, and hiding a darkness he never imagined — Luca will discover the cruelest truth of all: The angel he adored was a lie… and the devil he stole might be the only one who can save him. “I thought you were my redemption,” he says. “No,” she whispers. “I’m your reckoning.”

“You've been there for me through the best and the worst, shared my happiness and my sadness, you're the person I want to argue with and wake up next to every day of my life. I can go on for hours about how much you mean to me and how much I love you, but I always believed that actions speak louder than words, so I'll knee before you and ask; Will you marry me, will you give me a lifetime to show you how much I love you?” Aria's body was covered in goosebumps, her whole body felt like it had frozen over. She heard every word he uttered like a siren in the night, but her brain wouldn't function. This wasn't supposed to happen. “I can't..." She didn't realise that the words were out of her mouth till she saw his face fall and the crowd gasped. “What do you mean you can't?” Deagan stood up and took a step towards her, but she stepped back before he could touch her. “I- I just can't, I'm sorry.” Tears welled in her eyes and her heart burned with pain, she knew she was hurting him and that made her heart break even more. ### Aria and Deagan face the test of time as two people from opposing social standings trying to navigate a relationship, standing strong when their families try to tear them apart until the secrets they keep from each other are revealed. Will Deagan win back his girl or is his past too heavy a burden to face? There's a fine line between secrets and lies, until keeping a secret means having to tell a lie...

Run, Run, RUN. Don’t stop. The night was falling and like the creatures of the day, I needed to hide. My heart is thundering in my chest, echoing the sounds of the war that rage from the fields of my once loved home. That was before the coven came. Surprising us and taking my home and pack. The attack happened so quickly that no one was ready. We had no warning and after hours of waiting I was found. I had to run. Don't stop running. “CRACK” the current of magic shoots by and hits the tree to my left, my bare feet crunching the earth hard and fast. My small heart fluttering faster than a hummingbird's wings, my once sparkling beautiful dress is no more. It’s tattered, dirty, and torn. The edges burnt to a crisp and coated in blood from bodies of the battlefield that I raced away from. “Come here little wolfie,” a harsh raspy voice calls out cutting through the trees I hide quickly behind a tree to take cover to breathe, “I just want a little chat!” He calls singsong like, taunting me. He wants to find me to kill me. Ducking further behind my tree I hold my breath, my young body shaking with so much force my bones ache. Holding my breath and closing my eyes hoping for safety that surely won’t come. At only 11 years of age, I can’t fight this grown warlock... he will surely kill me like he did my parents... “Wolfie princess, where are you?” He mimics the rhythm of a child’s tune, as if I’d listen. Closing my eyes tighter I don’t want to die. I’m too young. My mind is racing, and my hearts bound t....

Book One: "Eight years ago Julius DaLair, New York's most eligible bachelor, married childhood friend Macey Grayson. Six years ago he made the biggest mistake of his life and she disappeared. Unbeknownst to him she has been living in Paris raising their twins and under the protection of his father who helped her leave New York and supported her while she returned to her studies. Julius is about to learn there is more to the woman he married and their children than meets the eye. Can he win back her heart? Does he have secret helpers hoping to bring them all together?” Book Two: For ten years Lynn has dedicated her life to her triplets working long hours as a waitress she manages to eke out a living providing for two growing boys and a daughter struggling with a degenerative eye disease. When she was younger she had a crush on Silas Prescott the son of her father's biggest business rival. Lynn was content to let her feelings go unvoiced and herself unnoticed. Then one morning she finds herself in bed with the very man she has always loved but he could not be more disgusted. Throwing a blank check at her he orders her to disappear and never show herself in front of him again. While she was raising their children Silas has been desperately searching for her. For ten years he assumed the woman he found in his room was a maid, not the woman of his dreams. Somehow he has to find away to win her back and earn the trust of his children who have been quietly plotting their revenge on anyone who hurt their mother. Silas learns very quickly there is more to them than meets the eye.

“No man will ever want you, Olivia.” He said, his gaze raking over her like she was something pathetic. “Look at you. You let yourself go. Face it, you should be grateful I’m even offering you this.” An open relationship. After he cheated. After she sacrificed everything for him. Olivia should have cried and begged. But instead, she smiled. “We’ll see about that.” And hours later, she found herself tangled in silk sheets, gasping for air as a rough, calloused hand gripped her thigh. “He said no man would want you?” He thrust harder into her. “Good. That means you’re mine now.” ************ He broke her heart. His best friend will fix her. When Olivia’s husband proudly admits to cheating and has the audacity to suggest an open marriage, she realizes the man she gave up everything for never truly valued her. Once a sought-after model, she quit for him. Now, he mocks her, calling her fat at a size six, sneering that no man will ever want her again. Humiliated but furious, she’s determined to prove him wrong. And the man who takes up the challenge? Dante Devereux, her husband’s best friend. Dante is the genius behind Luxe Devereux. He’s called the king of high fashion, draped in money and luxury. Women worship him, men envy him, and cameras can’t look away. One reckless night pulls Olivia into his bed, into his world of luxury, lust, and temptation so dark it should be illegal. But Dante doesn’t just take. He claims. He possesses. He corrupts. And he has no plan of letting go of his best friend’s wife.

Trigger Warning ⚠️ ‼️ This book contains explicit sexual content, feral dominance, psychological obsession, sadistic control, graphic violence, degradation, and a brutal breeding kink. For mature readers only. Read at your own risk…or give in to the madness. She was just coming off a night shift. Scrubs still on. Exhausted. Bone-deep tired from another fourteen hours in the ER. She wanted food. A hot shower. Silence. What she got was blood. And him. Isadora Bell, twenty..three, top of her med school class and two years into her residency, made one mistake..she took the alley behind the hospital after her shift to avoid the rain. There, under flickering streetlights and the shadow of a gun, she watched a man get executed at close range. And the monster holding the gun? Dominic. Valenzo Head of the Valenzo crime family. Cold. Untouchable. Ruthless. He kills without flinching and fucks like it’s war. No one sees him and lives. No one touches him and breathes. But something about her made him stop. She should’ve screamed. Begged. Run. She just stared. He saw it in her eyes..curiosity. Fear. Heat. So he made a decision. “You’re mine now, little doctor. And the only thing you’ll be saving… is your breath when I’m done with you.” Now she’s trapped in a world of blood, diamonds, and depravity. Torn between what’s right and the man who ruins her every time. Because Dominic doesn’t make love. He claims. He destroys. He fucks until you forget who you were. And every time she swears she’s done, He makes her beg. This isn’t a love story. This is obsession. This is power. This is the kind of dark you don’t come back from.

I stepped out of the shower with just a towel wrapping my body and was startled. It was my first wedding night, and instead of my husband, the ruthless Alpha, Silas, I found a handsome man sitting on the bed shirtless, smirking at me! “Who are you?” “I am your husband!” A few hours ago, I heard that cold voice at the altar. I had expected my husband to be unattractive, but he turned out to be incredibly handsome. So, why did he wear that dreadful mask during our wedding? What shocked me more was when he got up from the bed and walked over to me! Wait, he’s not crippled?! “You couldn’t even recognize your husband! He growled. Seeing him growing ferocious, I walked backward frantically. Just as the towel threatened to slide down, leaving me exposed and naked, he swiftly pulled me into his strong, muscular arms, his hands quickly catching my towel! His face was reigning with lust as he gaped down at me. “Someone is desperate to have her first night!” He inclined his lips to my ear and whispered, “Beware, lady, it wouldn’t be pleasure but pain!” He dropped the towel, and there I stood naked in his arms. He looked at me with lust as if I were his prey. “I will be so hard on you that you won’t forget your husband for eternity!” My heart thumped! I have heard that he is the most ruthless and ferocious Alpha history has ever had! What will he do to me on our first wedding night? ------- I am Bruna Walters, an illegitimate daughter who married my sister’s fiance to save my grandmother. I was scared. What if Silas, my ruthless husband, discovered that I am not Regina but a substitute?

WARNING️This is not a sweet love story. It’s a raw, dark, sensual tale of survival and surrender. These mountain men would ruin everything our little Goldilocks knows about love. “Don’t you want to cum, goldie?” Draven whispered harshly as his rough hands pinned her wrists above her head. Luca’s lips trailed fire down her throat, nipping at her pulse, while Mateo’s fingers dipped between her thighs, teasing her wetness as she wiggled desperate for friction. “No escaping this storm—or us.” She arched against them, a whimper escaping her lips as Luca claimed her mouth in a bruising kiss. There was no need arguing because she had known from the day they had walked in to find her naked in their bed that she was… Theirs To please. *** Soraya, a victim of abuse at the hands of her psychotic husband never thought that she would ever be free. She thought that she would wither away and die at his hands so when the opportunity to escape came, although unlikely, she grabbed it. She was free? Sadly, no. Mere hours into when her flight to freedom had taken off did it come crashing down. Literally!! She had barely had time to get over her narrow survival when she found herself trapped in a large mansion in the middle of nowhere. And worse of all, she's not alone. Have you ever heard the tale of Goldilocks and the three bears? The one where she stumbled into a cozy little cabin, ate their food and then got away scott free with three new friends. This is not that tale. In this tale, Goldie did stumble into the house of the three bears but she never went free. Instead, she discovered three psychotic brothers who showed her the consequence of trespassing.