Velvet Shell

The wild Garvey clan is back. Jodi Garvey and Matt Kirby finally tie the knot. A lost love returns to Gabriella Garvey, but will she be smart enough to hold on to it this time? Jackie has grabbed the attention of a particular deputy who she despises. The deputy is not discouraged and goes to romantic and amusing lengths to make Jackie his. He wants to learn every inch of her body and all of her secrets. Yet, he finds out more than he wants to know. How will he handle it? In the meantime, Patty can no longer hide her feelings for a man who is a true playboy in his heart. Will she go for it or walk away crushed? And we find out what happens after happily ever after begins as a long, lost Garvey returns for his birthright. ******** He knew the contest hadn't started yet, but Jackie had to be the hottest woman in the room. Her long legs and hips were magnificent. Jackie's voice was like velvet on the mic. He continued to gawk at her. Dalton!” Goldman yelled. Nick snapped out of the haze he was in.“What?” Goldman smirked. "Close your mouth.” He frowned. "Not bad for - what did you call her? A rigid anal repressive,” Goldman teased. Nick didn't know what to say. "You may as well shake that bulge off. You said yourself, she hates you. You're not getting any from her." Nick felt an excitement that he hadn't felt in over a year. It would happen when he would see a woman he liked, especially when she was a challenge. He smirked and leaned over to Goldman and stared him straight in the eye. "Where there's a will there's a way, old friend. And I just found my muse.”

> “Stay still, Little Thorn… I want to taste you slowly.” His voice was velvet and ruin. His mouth, a weapon. And I—fool that I was—leaned closer. Before death wore a suit and called itself a lover, I used to believe in beauty. Before the blood. Before the runes. Before I painted the image that killed my parents—I believed my art could save me. Now I know better. I was just weeks from graduating when the painting came to me like a fever. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t plan it. My hands moved, possessed, dragging symbols I’d never seen and a face I’d never forgotten—his. Eyes red as wine. A crown pierced with thorns. And a girl in the center… me. Offering herself. I signed it with a mark I didn’t recognize. I sold it to a stranger. And days later, my parents were dead—no wounds, no reason, just... gone. The police said stress. I say fate. Now I’m being hunted by a world I didn’t know existed. Vampires with ancient courts and older grudges. Symbols that whisper in my blood. And Lucien D’Aragon—the vampire who says I summoned him with my brushstroke. That I belong to him. He says I’m his prophecy. His ruin. His Little Thorn. But I’m not just prey. Something is waking in me. Something hungry. Something I was never meant to survive. If I give in, I lose everything. If I fight, I might finally learn the truth. About my art. About my bloodline. About what really happened that night. And why he keeps whispering that I was painted for ruin... but made for him.

ADRIAN'S POV My head was pounding, a dull throb that echoed the frantic beat of my heart. I was hot, too hot, my skin slick with an unfamiliar sweat. I knew it instantly: drugged. One moment I was escorting Aria, basking in the glittering lights and dancing with her in the ballroom at her birthday party. Next, a wine from a waiter, a trip to the bathroom, and then… darkness. I blinked, trying to focus on the blur above me. Damien. My stalker. The man who’d been haunting the edges of my life for weeks, whispering cryptic claims of a shared past I couldn’t recall. He was on top of me, pinning me to the plush velvet of some unfamiliar bed. His eyes, usually so intense and unsettling, were filled with a disturbing mix of guilt and desperation. "I’m sorry, Adrian, I'm so sorry I had to do this, but I can't stand seeing you with her. Watching you rewrite our history... please, remember me. Remember us." He leaned down, his breath hot against my ear. "I promise, I'll cherish you this time." Then, his lips crashed onto mine, a fierce, possessive kiss that stole my breath away. His hands moved over me, desperate and knowing, igniting a fire that both terrified and strangely thrilled me. Maybe it was the drug blurring the lines of reason. Or maybe… just maybe, deep down, my body recognized something my mind couldn’t. It responded to his touch with a shameful eagerness, a desperate need that mirrored his own. All I could do was surrender to the moment, to the heat, to the undeniable connection I felt with this man, Damien, as I returned his kiss with a fervor that shocked us both.

She hides behind ugly suits and fake names. He's done trusting women. When they meet in a masked sex club, neither realizes they've been fighting each other across boardroom tables for eighteen months. At Taylor Industries, she's Joy Smith—the frumpy CFO who drowns her curves in shapeless polyester and wearing a wig. At home, she's the forgotten wife of a cheating lawyer who hasn't touched her in so long she's starting to wonder if she's broken. When she finds hot pink lace panties stuffed in her couch cushions...definitely not hers, it's not heartbreak she feels. It's freedom. Grayson Taylor doesn't do relationships anymore. Not after walking in on his actress fiancée with another woman. Now he channels everything into hostile takeovers and board meetings, especially the ones where his overcautious CFO fights him on every goddamn acquisition. Joy Smith is brilliant, infuriating, and funny when he pushes all her buttons. But Honey is tired of being invisible. Tired of never having felt real pleasure. So, when her best friend gives her the details of The Velvet Room—Manhattan's most exclusive masked club—she promises herself just one night. One night to find out if her husband's right, if she really is frigid, or if she's just never been touched by the right hands. She doesn't expect the masked stranger who claims her the second she walks in. Doesn't expect the chemistry that ignites between them, the way he makes her body sing, or the orgasms that leave her shaking. Doesn't expect him to hand her an email address with one command: "Only me. No one else touches you."

"Let me go," I snapped, even though my voice wasn’t as sharp as I wanted it to be. “No,” he growled, lips grazing the shell of my ear, his breath warm and wicked as his hand slid down, fingers pressing just above my thigh, and trailed all the way to my wet fold. “You want to hate this, don’t you?” he whispered, mouth trailing hot kisses along my neck as his hand shifted my underwear, “But your body’s begging, baby.” I gasped, lips parting, and before I could spit out a comeback, he crushed his mouth to mine. The kiss was rough, full of hunger, and I whimpered into his mouth before I could stop myself. My body pressed into his, desperate for more. But he suddenly pulled both his lips and hand back, “Say the word and I’ll stop.” I stared at him. My chest was rising and falling too fast. My lips were swollen. My thighs, God, I was throbbing. I want, I need. He pressed a knee between my legs and my and I mewed. Yes, me. I mewed like some needy, pathetic bitch in heat. For him. "That’s what I thought," he growled, and the next second he pinned both my wrists above my head and kissed me like he was trying to ruin me all over again. **** Liora once has a powerful name, a future paved in gold, until Tristan Cole walked in and tore everything apart. Now, years later, Liora is forced into a marriage contract with the very man who destroyed her life, all to save her dying brother. But Tristan wants something more dangerous. Her heart. Her body, all of her. Will love be her ultimate undoing? Or will she crawl out of wreckage and gain control?

“I don't want any trouble, Easton.” She breathed. But he only stepped closer, running his fingers on her cheeks slowly as a smirk stretched the side of his mouth, “Well, that's too damn bad because I want to see you in trouble. I want to see you in pain until you're nothing but a shell in a body.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she held back a sob, her throat was dry as she asked the question that was burning in her chest, “Do you hate me that much?” Seeing her tears made something in him shift but he quickly recovered. He took a few steps back and tucked his hands in his pockets before finding her gaze again, “That would make me too kind. What I feel for you isn't hate, Scarlet. It's deeper than that, but most importantly, I want to make you pay for ruining my life and taking my brother from me.” ……….. They say opposites attract, and for them, it was love at first sight. But love wasn’t enough to keep them together when fate tore them apart. She left him, convinced it was the only way to protect him. He believed she abandoned him out of cold-heartedness, and love for money. Blaming her for his brother’s tragic accident. For five long years, he’s harbored a fierce bitterness, a desire for revenge so intense it’s reshaped him, hardening his heart to ice. Now she’s back—stronger, wiser, but still haunted by the shadows of their past. And he’s waiting, ready to make her pay for what he believes she stole from him. She takes his anger, thinking it’s because she left, unaware of the deeper wound that fuels his wrath. But what happens when the truth finally comes out?

“Tell me, Scarlett. What do you want?” His voice is a growl — low, filthy — fingers teasing beneath the lace of my panties, just enough to make me squirm. “Say it. I want to hear you beg for it.” He murmurs the words, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “We shouldn’t be doing this…” I whisper, breathless, my body already arching into his touch, betraying every word I just said. Then his fingers slide into my soaked folds, and a sharp moan escapes my lips. He chuckles. Dark. Wicked. “Then why are you so wet for me?” — All Scarlett Bennett wants after a messy divorce that nearly destroyed her reputation and forced her out of the career she loved is a fresh start with absolutely no complications. Even when she wakes up dazed after a reckless, mind-blowing one-night stand, she tells herself it was just sex. A mistake. A moment of weakness that would never happen again. Until she walks into her new office… and sees him. The man who had her spread across his bed, begging for more. The man she now works for. Lucien Whitmore. Lucien is all sharp edges and sin. He's a Billionaire. Brilliant. Mysterious and every bit as dangerous as he is irresistible. He is everything she should avoid — powerful, untouchable, and entirely too used to getting what he wants. And what he wants… is her. She swore it would never happen again. But when he’s got her bent over his desk, whispering praise in a voice that makes her knees weak, she forgets every reason she ever had to resist him. She’s not just a part of his empire now. She’s his favorite sin. And if the world finds out? They’ll both burn for it.

ZACH: I had loved Amber all my life, so when she turned of age, and her wolf didn't surface, I made the biggest decision of my life—I would claim her. It didn't matter to me if I was the first Alpha with a wolfless Luna in this generation. I still wanted her. I could win her in the Claiming, and I could protect her all her life. I was sure of that until reality struck, and a tragedy happened, leaving me crippled, unable to walk with my feet. My wolf was strong—still able to run on his paws—which was the exact opposite of my human. I became useless, just a shell of the man I was once. So tell me, how could I claim her? How could I protect her when I couldn't even stand on my own? AMBER: I had loved Zach all of my life. I was determined to be claimed by him—either as his fated or chosen mate. So even if my wolf didn't surface, I was still on cloud nine because he finally confessed he felt the same way. I was beyond ecstatic waiting for the Claiming when he could finally claim me. Everything was perfect until I woke up in a hospital bed, where I almost died from a car accident. I thought it was the worst thing that happened in my life until I met Zach again, and he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I survived the fatal crash, but I had no idea how long I could survive until my heart finally gave up from being shattered by the only man I ever wanted.

"You think you can hunt us in our own territory, little star?" Cain's voice is velvet wrapped around steel as he and his brothers flank me in the shadowy alley. "We know exactly who you are." I was a cop. Then my brother's mutilated corpse turned up in a ditch and every piece of blood-soaked evidence screamed the Vultures MC's name. Three ruthless brothers who ruled through fear, pain, and absolute dominance. So I dyed my hair blonde, erased my identity, and walked straight into the devil's den. Their bar. Their territory. Their world of sin and savagery. I'd destroy them from within or die trying. But nothing prepared me for Cain's predatory stare that strips me bare with a glance. Or Jax's twisted smile that promises delicious torment. Or Ryder's brutal hands that pin me against cold brick while his breath burns against my neck, whispering dark threats that make my body betray every principle I've ever held. Now I'm drowning in their intoxicating darkness. Leather, blood, and raw masculine hunger that consumes everything in its path. They're marking me, claiming me, breaking me down piece by piece until I can't remember who I was before them. When I finally uncover the shocking truth about my brother's murder, everything I believed shatters. The real killer has been hiding in plain sight, and now I'm caught between two deadly worlds. My oath as a cop and my surrender to these beautiful monsters. But when the lines blur between justice and vengeance, between duty and desire, how far will I fall before I lose myself completely?

His fingers slid into my hair, tugging just enough to tilt my head back and expose my throat to him. “We shouldn’t be doing this, Mr. Turner,” I breathed, my voice breaking on a gasp as he found a sensitive spot just beneath my ear and sucked lightly. His growl was low and primal, vibrating through my skin as he pressed his body against mine. I felt every hard line of him, his heat bleeding through my clothes. “Why not?” he murmured, his voice rough with restrained need. I swallowed hard. “You’re… you’re my ex-fiancé’s father.” He paused. For a moment, everything stilled… his breath against my throat, the air between us, even the rain outside seemed to hesitate. Then he lifted his head, and our eyes locked. His were a stormy blue, intense and unwavering. “No one has to know, Catherine,” he said quietly, his voice was like a dark promise wrapped in silk. Then he leaned in with his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “I can be your dirty secret.” A shiver ripped down my spine. His words settled deep in my gut, awakening something dangerous. I bit my lip. Every cell in my body screamed for me to walk away but I didn’t. Instead, I gripped the front of his shirt, pulled him down, and kissed him hard. Desperately. He rumbled low in his chest, kissing me back with equal hunger, his hands roaming my body like he already knew every curve. When he finally broke the kiss, I was breathless. Then he dropped to his knees between my legs, with his eyes darker now. “I’m going to show you the world,” he said. “If you’d let me.”