Who Was John Steinbeck Novels & Stories

“Are you a virgin?” It should have embarrassed her. Instead, the raw restraint in his eyes made her heart tremble. “Yes,” she whispered. “But don’t stop. Please.” …. "I have only three conditions," he stated, his voice as cold as the diamond on her finger. "First, I can’t stand clingy women. Second, falling in love with me is strictly forbidden. And third? Whoever we choose to sleep with is our own business." … Three years ago, Ashley Barton made a bargain she could never truly win. To secure her freedom, she buried her true identity and lived as an omega, all to make Alpha Rowan fall in love with her for who she was. On the night they were meant to complete their mating, Ashley walked into hell. Her best friend was tangled in the sheets with the man who was supposed to claim her. Ashley ran. Under the full moon, raw with grief and desperation, fate found her anyway. In the wilderness, she collided with a powerful Alpha, dangerous, dominant, and unreadable. Pain blurred into desire. The bond snapped into place. He marked her. Claimed her. Bound their souls together in blood and moonlight. By dawn, he was gone. Just the echo of his presence and the weight of his mark burned into her skin left. She was humiliated and cast out like trash. That was when Ashley broke. She went home, bowed her head, and accepted the arranged marriage she had once sworn to escape. Fate, however, was unkind. Her fiancé was the very Alpha who had claimed and marked her, yet when they met again, he did not recognize her at all. To him, she was a stranger. Instead, he offered her a one-year contract marriage, cold, controlled, and bound by rules meant to suffocate emotion.

I was betrayed by my fiancé and best friend on the day of our wedding. The very next day, I was auctioned off to pay for my family’s debt. Sold. Helpless. Alone. And then I met him— The man they call the devil. The one I never imagined I could love. The same man who vowed to destroy me. Bound by vengeance and hatred, can I ever escape the cage he built around me?

My boyfriend’s cousin went to live at his place after her divorce. Not only did she have a five-year-old, but she was even pregnant. She regarded my boyfriend as her support as if it were her right and blamed me for everything. She thought I had taken away her cousin. At a family gathering one day, her son splashed a drink at me and yelled, "You’re not allowed to steal my dad!"

"Casey, hurry up and pack. Tonight we will move!" "Why so suddenly, Mom? Where are we moving to?" "Your new father's house. I'm getting married to David next week. Your dream of having a family will come true. In fact, you will get the bonus of three handsome brothers." I don't argue. That same night I joined my mother and moved to my stepfather's house in a different state from where we live now. After a long journey, we finally arrived. David greeted us warmly. But, the beautiful dream I previously imagined must now turn into hell. I must be brother with my enemy! He is the young man who once humiliated me and who became my first love. What destiny is this?

Lia Carter’s dirty secret: She wants her stepbrother, Rubben Carter. 6’2 of muscle, scars, and control. The man who’s supposed to protect her. Instead, he ruins her. With one look. One touch. One word. Little sister. He doesn’t know what he does to her. How her pulse races when he’s near. How her body betrays her every time his jaw ticks. He’s forbidden. Untouched. Off-limits. She’s drunk. Reckless. Done pretending. One whisper of his name and he’s there — close, hot, dangerous. She’s helpless under his gaze. She wants him. She can’t. But desire doesn’t care about blood or rules. *Will Rubben give in to the girl he should never touch?* *And when their parents find out… who will survive the fallout?*

This was the second time I lived this life. I was the last descendant of the serpent-kin. I treated men’s fertility issues and other similar problems. In the previous timeline, my adoptive parents chased me out of the house as a way to appease their true daughter, Cynthia, that they had reunited with. Lester Ward offered me his company’s shares and a luxury mansion to persuade me to marry his grandson. His only condition was for me to cure his barren grandson, Matthew Ward. In the end, I did so, and Matthew married me. However, on our wedding night, he forced me to reveal my serpent-kin guise and show him my tail. Then, he extracted my scales and sold me to a red-light district abroad. Only then was I made aware that he had been having a secret affair with Cynthia this whole time. “You’re just a greedy beastfolk who wants the matriarch position of the Ward family! Cynthia is my true love. I was cured when I slept with her. You waited in my room all this time just to pretend to treat me! Cynthia thought that we were really together and ran off. In the end, she was killed by some fiends! Aren’t you a serpent-kin? Your kind is loose and immoral. Well, you will die here in this den of iniquity!” I closed my eyes and waited for death. However, when I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in time at the moment Lester came asking for my help. I waved him off. “Your grandson’s condition is a curse, not a medical affliction. No one can treat him.”

He does not believe in love. She does not believe in giving up. Debt. Empty stomach. A mattress on the floor. This was Elena Hart’s reality. A girl who had nothing but her education and an unshakeable belief in love. Then she met Dr. Adrian Cole. Brilliant. Cold. Untouchable. A man who stood in front of an entire class and declared that love did not exist. A man with locked doors and no photographs and eyes that saw everything but gave nothing back. He offered her a contract. One year as his wife. In exchange for everything she desperately needed. She said no. Then she said yes. She married a man who cannot feel. He married a woman who feels everything. And somewhere between the silence and the rules and the things neither of them will say out loud… Something is beginning to shift. What broke him? And can she survive finding out?

You rejected me, bought me off and now… you want me?!” Born with a bloodline that is equivalent to a curse, Noah Hayes has been through hell in the Ashvale pack until he finally finds his mate but it's a man and the Lycan King of one of the most powerful packs. However, he's rejected as well but fate has other plans in store and Noah meets Elias who is madly in love with him but he's pregnant… For the Lycan King. Will Noah be able to choose between love or loyalty to the alpha who owns him?

Upon hearing about my husband's surgery, I braved a typhoon and torrential rain, driving four hours back to the city. When I arrived at the hospital, my husband, Xander Gray, was lying on the hospital bed, calling out loudly, "I want my wife! Get my wife here!" His buddies around him joked about how his wife had him completely whipped. Everyone said he loved me to death. Blushing, I walked over with a happy smile and held his hand, saying, "I'm here." To my surprise, he shook off my hand in disgust and snarled, "Get lost! You're not my wife! My wife is Beverly Long!"

[Warning: Mature content] "You're not Irina anymore," he whispered, " You're Isabella... my dead sister." When twenty-one-year-old Irina Wilson wakes up in the mansion of Lorenzo De Luca, the ruthless Don of Naples. She's given two choices, go to prison for a murder she didn't commit, or pretend to be his dead sister Isabella. Blackmailed into living a lie, Irina is forced to step into Isabella's world, a world of luxury, danger, and secrets she dosen't understand. But everything changes the moment a little boy calls her Mama. Now trapped between a child who believes she's his mother and a man who dosen't only want her but her body too, Irina begins to question who she really is. When Isabella's husband returns demanding his wife back, the truth she's been running from unravels. What Irina dosen't know is that she is not pretending to be Isabella, she is Isabella. A woman who survived death, lost her memory and fell in love with the man who destroyed her life. As lies crumbles, heart collides and blood debt becomes due, only one truth remains, love can be born even in the hands of the man who killed you.