Jenika Snow – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Jenika Snow – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:10:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.2 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Jenika Snow – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 Taboo Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:10:39 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Taboo Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 107(@200wpm)___ 85(@250wpm)___ 71(@300wpm)

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Juliet had always known one truth: when her world fell apart, Bastian was the one who showed up.

He was her step-uncle, rough, scarred, and restless. He was the kind of man who never stayed in one place for long, but every single time Juliet needed him, he was there… even if he always left again.

Now her life in the city had imploded, and she’d decided to come back to the family lake house for the summer because it was the only place she’d ever felt safe. And for the first time in years, Bastian was back too.

Only this time, something was different.
The way his eyes lingered on her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and how he clenched his jaw and kept his distance when she was near. There was a thick, heavy tension that crackled between them every time they were alone in the same room.

Bastian knew it was wrong. She was his step-niece. Twenty-two years old, way too young, and way too good for him. Wanting her was deviant on every level. It was taboo, dangerous, and a betrayal of the only family either of them had.
But God, the pull was getting impossible to ignore.

The longer the hot summer dragged on, the more they circled each other with stolen glances, late-night conversations on the dock, and moments where his hand almost brushed hers.

They both knew they were playing with fire.

And when the restraint finally snapped, and they crossed that line they could never uncross, it might destroy them both

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

JULIET

Coming home felt like admitting I’d failed.

Yet, the second I crossed the county line and saw the lake through the trees, something in my chest loosened instead of tightened.

The water was still glittering between the pines like it always had. Same cracked roads, same old houses half-hidden in the woods… but this place had always felt like safety to me even when everything else was falling apart. It was the one spot where the noise in my head finally quieted.

That’s probably why I said yes to spending the summer here. It didn’t feel like escaping. It felt like coming back to the only place that had ever really held me together. I’d caught my boyfriend cheating just two weeks earlier, quit my dead-end job the same day, and driven straight here because the lake house was the only place that had ever felt like safety.

By the time I pulled into the gravel driveway, the sun was starting to dip low in the sky. The familiar two-story house looked exactly the same, weathered wood and wide front porch wrapped in overgrown vines. I grabbed my bags and let myself in.

The second the door shut behind me, I heard them.

In the kitchen, my parents were already going at it. Same old bullshit. Dad forgot half the groceries Mom had asked for, and she was acting like it was the end of civilization. Their voices carried across the floorboards.

I sighed, kicked off my shoes, and headed straight upstairs. I’d greet them later, when they calmed down. Once my bedroom door clicked shut behind me, I leaned against it for a second, eyes closed, letting the quiet settle over me. Then I started unpacking, trying to drown them out with the small, normal sounds of drawers opening and hangers sliding across the rod.

The room still looked exactly the same. Faded blue walls, old books, that big window facing the guest house place half-hidden behind the trees.

I was hanging up shirts when the sound of tires on gravel cut across the room. My stomach did this weird little flip when I saw a truck pull into the guesthouse driveway next door. When the engine cut off, I told myself to move away from the window. I stayed anyway.

The driver’s door opened, and I forgot how to breathe.

Bastian.

Jesus Christ. He looked… different. Older, but in a way that made my brain short-circuit. Forty years old and built like someone who’d actually lived. Big shoulders stretching his black T-shirt, tattoos snaking down his arms, stubble on his jaw. He moved like he didn’t give a shit about anything except grabbing his duffle bag with one hand like it weighed nothing.

He wasn’t like the guys my age. They felt safe. Temporary. Bastian looked like the kind of mistake you don’t recover from.

I should’ve looked away. I didn’t.

Instead, I just stood there, pulse pounding, heat curling low in my stomach. Because suddenly I wasn’t twenty-two anymore. I was twelve, running outside after that huge thunderstorm because my parents were screaming inside the house. I’d run out crying and saw him sitting on the dock, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

And when I’d sat next to him, he’d wrapped his jacket around me and pulled me against his side, both of us silent as we stared out at the lake and took in the aftereffects of the storm. We’d watch for flashes of lightning in the distance, and he softly told me to count the seconds between the flash and the thunder.

At that moment, I’d felt safer than I ever had before.

Now, all these years later, here he was again. And my heart reacted like he was the only person who’d ever made me feel that way.

Bastian slammed the truck door and dragged a hand over the back of his neck. Then he looked up. Right at my window. Our eyes met.

I swore I stopped breathing. For a second, we just stared at each other, the air thick and heavy between us even though a whole house separated us. Then the corner of his mouth twitched into this slow, dangerous little smirk.

He slung his bag over his shoulder, eyes still on me, and headed toward his porch like he had all the time in the world.

The only difference was… I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I didn’t see my step-uncle as a protector. I saw him as a man and someone I was never, ever supposed to want.

This summer was already going to destroy me.

2

BASTIAN

People in this town loved pretending they knew me, and that was exactly why coming back always felt like a bad idea. No matter how many years I stayed gone or how far overseas I disappeared, the second my truck rolled into town everybody suddenly had a story about Bastian Marker.

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Advertisement The Butcher (Love Like A Loaded Gun #2) Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/the-butcher-love-like-a-loaded-gun-2-read-online-jenika-snow Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:51:05 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/the-butcher-love-like-a-loaded-gun-2-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Bad Boy, Dark, Mafia Authors: Jenika Snow Series: Love Like A Loaded Gun Series by Jenika Snow
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Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >49

Alexei Drakovich was born to be a weapon. The Russian Bratva king’s spare son turned executioner. The underworld calls him The Butcher, and he earns the name in blood.

To prevent a mafia war, Alexei is forced into an arranged marriage with Lucia Rossi, the sheltered princess of their Italian rivals. He’s lethal. She’s beautiful. Together, they’re the kind of power couple the underworld crowns.

But on the night of the engagement, a hit nearly kills Alexei’s father and the evidence points to Lucia’s family. The Bratva wants her delivered for interrogation. Alexei refuses.

Anyone who touches her dies by his hand.

As both syndicates careen toward war, Lucia uncovers the truth about her father’s empire and realizes she was only ever a bargaining chip. Blood demands judgment, and together they burn the Rossi dynasty to the ground.

In the smoking aftermath, will Alexei finally take the throne with Lucia as his queen?

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter One

Alexei

The man was still breathing when I walked in but barely, each breath rattling like it might be his last.

The room carried the thick scent of bleach and blood, the kind that clung to everything. It had already been used tonight, and the dark stain beneath the chair proved that. It spread slowly across the concrete and slipped toward the drain in the center of the floor.

The traitor sat tied to the chair, wrists secured behind his back, ankles fastened to the legs, and his head hanging forward like his body had already admitted defeat and was only waiting for death.

I closed the door behind me, the sound loud in the silence, and the two men inside straightened as soon as they saw me.

“Leave,” I ordered, my tone even, my voice low.

They obeyed immediately, boots scraping against concrete as they cleared out, and when the door shut again, silence settled in.

It was thick and suffocating and exactly how I preferred it.

No noise. No interference. Just a place for me to work.

I crossed the room without rushing, each step steady enough that he heard me before he fully lifted his head. It took effort for him to move, but he managed it, one eye forcing itself open through the swelling and blood to find me as I stopped in front of him.

I let him look, let him take me in. Recognition came first, then the fear followed. Good. That made me fucking smile.

I crouched in front of him, bringing us eye to eye, and when his head started to dip again, I reached out and took hold of his jaw, forcing him to keep his gaze on mine.

My grip wasn’t bruising or crushing. It didn’t need to be. Control never was. “Still with me,” I said evenly, more a statement than a question.

His lips parted, something like a laugh trying to push through the blood coating his mouth and teeth.

“You… Drakovich?” My name sounded thin coming from him, like it didn’t belong there.

“Alexei,” I corrected, holding his gaze. “Use it while you can.”

A rough cough tore through him, blood spilling past his lips before he swallowed it down, his throat working against it.

His eye stayed locked on mine, searching, measuring, maybe looking for something he could use against me.

“Do you know what they call me?”

He coughed again, shook his head, but we both knew he did.

“Say it.”

“The… Butcher.”

His focus flickered over my face, desperate now, searching for hesitation, for something human enough to bargain with. There wasn’t anything for him to find.

“Look at me,” I said quietly when he closed his good eye. I tightened my grip just enough to keep him from disobeying me again.

When his eye opened, the fear had settled deeper, no longer something he could push aside or pretend wasn’t there. It hung between us steady and impossible to ignore.

That’s what I wanted to see.

“You’ve already been asked questions,” I continued, my voice calm, unhurried. “You’ve had opportunities to answer them.”

“I told them—” he started, but I cut him off without raising my voice, my fingers pressing just enough into his jaw to stop the words.

“No. You talked but didn’t answer.” I released him slowly and stood, turning to drag the metal table closer. The scrape echoed through the room as I adjusted it into place.

The tools laid out across it were clean and organized, each one positioned with purpose. I picked up a knife, not the largest, not meant to intimidate, just sharp, balanced, and made for this kind of work.

When I turned back to him, I let him see it, let the understanding settle in without needing to explain what was going to happen.

“My associates went easy on you,” I said idly. “I won’t be so merciful. I’m going to ask you one more time.” I stepped closer, my voice steady and even.

“And this is the last time you’ll have the option of answering with your voice.”

His breathing changed then, turning shallow and uneven, his chest rising faster as the reality of that sank in. “You don’t understand,” he rasped.

I leaned in slightly, close enough that he didn’t have to strain to hear me. “I understand perfectly,” I said. Then, without shifting my tone, I asked again, “Who ordered the hit?”

His gaze dropped for the briefest moment before snapping back to me. “They’ll kill me,” he whispered, his voice breaking under the weight of it.

I studied him for a second then leaned down, my mouth right next to his ear and whispered, “I’m going to do worse.”

That was what broke him. Not all at once or in some dramatic collapse but enough that the resistance gave way and something real pushed through.

He knew what I was capable of, that I’d make the torture last for days before finally killing him.

“Rossi,” he choked out.

“It came from Rossi…”

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Advertisement The Death Dealer (Love Like A Loaded Gun #1) Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/the-death-dealer-love-like-a-loaded-gun-1-read-online-jenika-snow Thu, 23 Apr 2026 23:01:45 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/the-death-dealer-love-like-a-loaded-gun-1-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Dark, Mafia Authors: Jenika Snow Series: Love Like A Loaded Gun Series by Jenika Snow
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Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >52

They call me The Death Dealer.

Fifty-five years old. Silver in my hair, violence in my eyes, and twenty-six years of vengeance carved into every scar.

I was paid five million to erase Markom Ivanov, the man who filmed my mother dying when I was seventeen.

I walked into his palace ready to paint the walls with his blood.

Then I saw her.

Anya.

His twenty-three-year-old daughter.

Icy-blue eyes, ivory skin, and a pulse that beat faster the closer I got.

One look and the death in my veins became useless.

I took her instead.

Now she’s naked and my captive. She was meant to be my revenge. She’s becoming the only thing I’ve ever been afraid to lose. But I’d never let her know. I’d never let her see that weakness.

I’ll hunt her if she runs. I’ll burn Moscow to ash if anyone tries to take her from me.

Because the monster hired to kill a king just stole his princess, and a man like me didn’t let go of the one thing that finally made him feel humanThey call me The Death Dealer.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

Dmitry

Iwalked through the side door of the gutted cathedral at three in the morning and felt the Moscow wind slice straight through my coat.

Fifty-five winters in this frigid city had taught me the cold wasn’t an enemy anymore. It was the only thing that still felt honest.

Snow hissed against the broken rose window, against the saints whose faces had been shot out by drunks or soldiers or both. One candle burned on the cracked marble altar, throwing weak gold designs that didn’t reach the corners.

That was where Viktor Lebedev waited. He didn’t turn when my boots crunched over shattered glass. He wore a black cashmere coat, collar turned up, and had his gloved hands clasped behind his back like a saint who’d traded salvation for sin.

He finally turned and faced me. The scar that split his face from his right ear to the corner of his mouth caught the candlelight and looked even more distorted.

“Ty opozdal,” he said without looking. You’re late.

“Ya nikogda ne opazdyvayu,” I answered. I’m never late.

He laughed, low and harsh. Viktor was sixty-two years old and still hungry enough to kill for a bigger throne. He took two steps toward me and held out a photograph.

I looked at the man staring at the lens, face stoic, bloodlust in his eyes.

Andrey Ivanov.

Fifty-eight. Fat jowls, beady black eyes, and the same shark smile I’d memorized the year this man’s daughter was still in diapers.

“Pyat' millionov amerikanskikh. Polovina segodnya perevodom. Polovina kogda on perestanet dyshat',” Viktor said. Five million American. Half today by transfer. Half when he stops breathing.

I didn’t touch the picture. I’d carried that face behind my eyes for thirty-eight years. I knew every pore, every wrinkle. I knew the stench of rot that clung to him like cheap cologne. It was the same rot that had filled that basement all those years ago.

“Ya ne delayu tselyye tela,” I told him. “Ya delayu chasti. Vyberi chast’, kotoruyu khochesh’ v podarochnoy upakovke.” I don’t do whole bodies. I do pieces. Pick the part you want gift-wrapped.

Viktor’s scar twitched, but other than that, his expression remained still as stone. “Khorosho. Yazyk, togda. On lzhet slishkom mnogo.” Fine. The tongue, then. He lies too much.

I almost smiled.

They’d called me The Death Dealer since I walked out of a basement with five dead men’s fingers lined up in a cigar case.

Thirty-five years of taking souvenirs.

“Prezhde chem ya soglashus’,” I said, “ya khochu koe-chto.” Before I agree, I want something.

“Ty ne v polozhe—” You’re in no⁠—

“Ya vsegda v polozhenii, chtoby uyti.” I’m always in a position to walk.

Viktor’s eyes narrowed, calculating. Finally, he took the drive and pocketed it and the photograph. “Chё tebe nado?” What do you want?

“Ya ego zamochu za tebya, no informatsiya tol'ko u nego. Mne nado vytyanut' yeyo pered tem, kak ub'yu, tak chto mozhet zatyanut'sya dol'she tvoego dedlayna.” I'll kill him for you, but I need information that only he has. I have to get it out of him before I take him out, so this might take more time than your deadline.

The words came out flat. Just facts, like reciting a grocery list written in blood.

Viktor studied me for a long second before he responded. “Ladno. Glavnoe, chtoby delo bylo sdelano, delai s nim chto khochesh'.” Fine. As long as you get the job done, do with him what you want.

I nodded once. Viktor was old school and produced the contract. It was on thick cream paper, already signed in Viktor’s spidery Cyrillic. I took my knife and sliced the pad of my thumb, pressing it to the paper in a perfect, bloody print beside my name: Dmitry Myasnikov.

But to the world, I had no legal name. I was known to those unfortunate to have heard of my reputation as just The Death Dealer.

My cell buzzed with the first wire transfer. I’d get the rest once the job was done.

“Gala zavtra vecherom,” Viktor said. “Rublyovka dacha. Chornyy galstuk. Ya organizoval formu ofitsianta. Okhrana strozhe, chem pizda devstvennitsy, no ty proskochish’.” Gala tomorrow night. Rublyovka dacha, Andrey’s estate. Black tie. I arranged a waiter’s uniform. Security’s tighter than a virgin’s cunt, but you’ll ghost through.

I said nothing after his crude instructions, and turned to leave.

“Yeshchyo odno, Dima.” One more thing, Dima.

The nickname dug deep. I paused under the broken arch.

“U Andreya yest’ doch’. Zoya. Dvadtsat’ tri. Simpatichnaya shtuchka. Izbalovannaya. Esli ona vstanet u tebya na puti—” Andrey has a daughter. Zoya. Twenty-three. Pretty little thing. Spoiled. If she gets in your way⁠—

“Ya ne ubivayu zhenshchin.” I don’t kill women.

“Ya i ne prosil tebya,” he said, smiling thinly. “Prosto ne day yey sdelat’ tebya glupym. Krasivyye veshchi tak vliyayut na muzhchin tvoyego vozrasta.” I wasn’t asking you to. Just don’t let her make you stupid. Pretty things do that to men your age.

Fifty-five years old and the words still landed like a boot to the ribs. Pretty things. Just like my mother when they broke her on camera. I walked out without answering.

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Advertisement Series Starter (Love Like A Loaded Gun #0.5) Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/series-starter-love-like-a-loaded-gun-0-5-read-online-jenika-snow Thu, 23 Apr 2026 23:01:43 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/series-starter-love-like-a-loaded-gun-0-5-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Dark, Mafia Authors: Jenika Snow Series: Love Like A Loaded Gun Series by Jenika Snow
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Total pages in book: 2
Estimated words: 1411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 7(@200wpm)___ 6(@250wpm)___ 5(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 >2

Moscow belonged to the Bratva.

Behind the city’s glittering wealth lied a brutal empire built on loyalty, blood, and power. The men who ruled it were kings in the shadows, feared by their enemies, and obeyed by the soldiers who enforced their will.

But power inside the Bratva was shifting.
Old codes were breaking. New enemies were rising. And the contracts being written now would change everything.
Enter the dangerous world of Love Like a Loaded Gun, where loyalty was tested, power was taken in blood, and love was the most dangerous weapon of all.
The war was only beginning

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

The man had been begging for almost ten minutes when I finally told them to stop.

The warehouse fell silent except for the slow drip of water somewhere in the dark. A single light hung above the center of the room, casting a harsh circle over the concrete floor where the bound man knelt. Blood stained the front of his shirt, and his voice had turned hoarse from repeating the same promises.

He swore he would fix things, that the money would come, and that his mistake would never happen again.

I listened without expression.

At sixty-two, I’d heard every excuse a desperate man could offer. The jagged scar that ran from my ear to the corner of my mouth twisted slightly when I spoke, a permanent reminder of the knife fight decades ago that had nearly killed me.

“Enough,” I said quietly.

That was the cost of doing business in my world. Debts were honored, loyalty was enforced, and betrayal had consequences.

A single gunshot cracked through the warehouse, and his body slumped forward. I looked at the soldier who’d finished the job.

I rose from the metal folding chair and adjusted the cuff of my coat.

“Clean this up,” I said. “You know where to leave the body.”

Outside, the night air of Moscow was sharp and cold. The city stretched beyond the industrial district in a glittering skyline of glass towers and golden domes, beautiful enough to fool anyone who didn’t know what lived beneath it.

Because Moscow belonged to the Bratva.

Behind the wealth and power of the city ran a darker empire built on loyalty, blood, and secrets that could destroy governments. Politicians bowed to us behind closed doors. Judges forgot cases when asked. Police departments learned quickly which investigations were better left unfinished.

We weren’t a gang.

We were an empire.

And I was one of the men who ruled it.

The car waiting for me idled quietly along the curb. When I stepped inside, the driver pulled into traffic without a word, merging onto the empty road and weaving through the city.

Moscow at night was alive in ways most people never noticed. Restaurants overflowed while music pulsed through crowded nightclubs.

But beneath the surface, the city moved to another rhythm entirely.

Money was collected for illicit drugs, weapons, and favors. Crimes were discussed and deals made in the shadows. Political favors traded behind closed doors. Entire industries bending slowly under the influence of men who never appeared in public headlines.

The Bratva moved through the city like blood through veins, unseen but vital.

This was the part no one ever saw, the part that kept everything from collapsing.

Later that night, I sat at the head of a long table inside my private club. The room smelled like leather, vodka, and quiet violence.

The men seated around the table were the kind who ruled cities without ever appearing on a ballot. They’d earned their place by how much blood they’d spilled.

Each member at this table controlled territory and revenue streams that stretched far beyond Moscow.

And tonight the air between them was tight enough to snap.

I studied the men in front of me before speaking.

“Something rotten has crept into our house.” The words settled heavily over the table.

Across the room, a captain shifted in his chair while another stared down into the untouched vodka in front of him. They all knew what I meant, even if the name hadn’t yet been spoken.

Andrey Ivanov.

I had built my empire the old way. Through blood, loyalty, and a code that existed long before Moscow’s modern skyline rose above the city. When the Soviet Union collapsed and chaos swallowed the country whole. But power came with rules.

The Bratva had to remain disciplined if it wanted to survive. Violence was necessary, but it had to remain controlled and strategic. Quiet enough that the outside world never saw the machinery behind the city’s glittering facade.

Some lines were never meant to be crossed.

“You mean Ivanov,” one of the captains said carefully.

I lifted my gaze. “Yes.”

The name spread across the room like smoke. Ivanov was a creature of the post-Soviet chaos, a man who had grown rich exploiting the cracks left behind when the world fell apart.

Where I built influence through weapons shipments and political leverage, Ivanov built his empire on something far darker.

Trafficking.

Women stolen from broken towns and war zones. Girls promised modeling contracts or jobs overseas. Runaways who vanished from train stations and border crossings.

They disappeared into Ivanov’s world and were never seen again.

Private auctions, underground clubs, and wealthy buyers who treated human lives like luxury purchases to be used and discarded.

Flesh trafficking was dirty work, and it was tarnishing everything we’d built.

And if that wasn’t enough, Ivanov had another business whispered about in the darkest corners of the underworld.

Snuff films.

Only the truly sick and depraved admitted to watching them.

These were recordings of suffering, carefully staged horrors sold on encrypted networks to wealthy collectors across the globe. Every detail customized. Every victim disposable.

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Advertisement Forbidden (A Real Man #28) Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/forbidden-a-real-man-28-read-online-jenika-snow Fri, 03 Apr 2026 23:15:26 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/forbidden-a-real-man-28-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Forbidden, Novella, Taboo Authors: Jenika Snow Series: A Real Man Series by Jenika Snow
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Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >22

At twenty-three, I never expected coming home to feel like stepping into a painful memory.

Marcus married my mom when I was eighteen and already halfway out the door to college. We barely lived under the same roof for a year before I left for good.

Five years later, their marriage ended, and now I’m crashing in his house.

I came back expecting boxes, silence, and the awkward limbo of helping my ex-stepfather pack up the house to move out.

What I didn’t expect was the way Marcus looked at me… like I wasn’t the awkward eighteen-year-old again.

A lingering glance across the kitchen island. The slow brush of his knuckles when he passed me a coffee mug. And the low, rough way he said my name when the room felt suddenly too small, too quiet.

We broke every unspoken rule, crossed every line. Despite that, the man I was never supposed to want, the one who was once family by marriage, became the only one I’ll ever need

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter One

Lila

The tires of my beat-up Honda crunched over the gravel driveway as if they were announcing my return, loud and final.

I killed the engine and sat for a second, staring at the familiar two-story colonial that used to feel like home and now felt like a museum of things I’d outgrown.

The paint on the shutters had faded to a tired gray-blue, the porch swing still hung crooked the way it always had, and the maple tree in the front yard had gotten taller, its branches brushing the second-floor windows like they were trying to reach inside.

Everything looked the same. But it all felt so different.

I popped the trunk, hauled out my duffle and the cardboard box of sketchbooks and laptop cables, and climbed the three steps to the front door. Before I could knock, it swung open.

Marcus.

He was bigger than I remembered, with broader shoulders and thicker arms. It was the kind of solid muscle that came from years of swinging hammers and hauling lumber rather than gym selfies.

His dark hair was streaked with more silver at the temples now, and the lines around his eyes had deepened, but those storm-gray irises were sharp and exactly the same.

His gaze flicked over me in one quick, assessing sweep from my chest to my hips, down my legs, and back up again. He didn’t smile right away. He just looked.

“Lila,” he finally said. His voice was low, gravel-rough, and held the same tone that used to tell me to turn the music down when I was blasting indie rock through the hallway well past my bedtime. “You made good time.”

“Yeah. Traffic wasn’t bad.” I shifted the box in my arms, suddenly aware of how I wasn’t wearing a bra under my thin cotton tee and how my high-rise jeans left nothing to the imagination.

I felt exposed in a way I hadn’t expected.

“Thanks again for letting me crash here.”

He stepped aside, holding the door wider. “Hell, you’re doing me a favor going through all this shit. Besides, it’s your house, too. Always has been.”

I never expected the simple act of coming home to feel like stepping into a memory that was painful. For years, I’d wanted to leave, to be independent. I never expected to… miss this place.

I walked past him into the foyer. The smell hit me first—a mixture of wood polish, faint sawdust that always clung to him no matter how much he showered, and something warmer, earthier, and unmistakably Marcus.

The same narrow entry table stood against the wall with the same framed photo still centered on it… Mom, Marcus, and me at my high school graduation. I was eighteen in the picture, skinny arms and uncertain smile under the cap and gown.

Marcus had his arm slung around my shoulders, his stance casual and protective, but back then, I remembered it felt heavy in a way that made me feel both anchored and strangely unsteady at the same time.

I set the box down and turned. He was still watching me, arms crossed now, biceps flexing under the cotton of his T-shirt. The silence stretched, thick and awkward.

“You look…” He searched for the word. “Different.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Five years will do that.”

“Guess so.” His gaze flicked down again, slower this time, tracing the line of my slightly sweaty tee where it still clung tight across my chest from the drive, and then back to my face. “Your room’s still yours. I didn’t move or touch anything.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed my duffle before the air could get any heavier and headed for the stairs. My heart was thudding too loudly in my ears. I told myself it was just the weirdness of being back, just the echo of old routines, and that the last time I’d lived here he was still married to my mother.

The hallway upstairs smelled like clean sheets and aged pine. My door was ajar, and I pushed it open. I stood there and looked around.

Nothing had changed.

Lavender walls, a white iron bed with the quilt Mom pieced together when I was twelve and my desk still littered with charcoal stubs and half-finished sketches from senior year.

The corkboard above it held the same faded concert tickets, Polaroids of me and friends I barely talked to anymore, and the dried corsage from prom.

I dropped my bag and sat on the edge of the mattress, letting the stillness press all around and let it all sink in.

Back when I was eighteen, and they’d just gotten married, Marcus had been this quiet, towering, constant presence in the house. He ran his own construction company with the same steady focus he brought to everything else.

He’d be gone long hours, and when he walked through the door, everything smelled of sawdust and sweat.

Marcus was never cruel and never raised his voice. But his protectiveness was something else. If a boy called me after ten, Marcus would appear in my doorway, arms folded, asking who it was in that calm, unhurried tone that made the guy on the other end stammer.

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Advertisement Sinful – After Dark Taboo Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/sinful-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Sun, 01 Feb 2026 09:24:01 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/sinful-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Insta-Love Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 6
Estimated words: 5609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 28(@200wpm)___ 22(@250wpm)___ 19(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 >6

**EXTREME TABOO**

In the hushed confessional of his own church, a devoted priest listens as his s!ster confesses her darkest, most forbidden cravings.
For him, her br*ther, to sin with her in the confessional

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter

One

DAMIEN

The church smelled of old wood, incense, and quiet desperation.

Every Saturday afternoon, the same handful of souls shuffled into the dim nave.

Widows clutching rosaries, a recovering alcoholic who still smelled faintly of yesterday’s whiskey, and her.

Lyla.

She never came at the same time as the others. Lyla was always last, always when the light through the stained glass had turned dark and low. She’d slip into the confessional like a shadow moving under a door, her footsteps soft on the worn carpet, her presence electric even before she spoke.

I told myself it was routine. She was my younger sister. I had taken vows. I took my role as her older sibling seriously: protector, guide, and the one who shielded her from the worst parts of our fractured home.

When our parents died three years later in that rain-slicked wreck on I-71, I was twenty and already studying for the priesthood. I finished seminary, took my vows, and kept her close. She lived in the small house behind the rectory. We shared meals. We shared silence. We shared everything except the one line I’d sworn never to cross.

Until she started coming to confession.

At first it was small things. Impure thoughts about boys from her college classes. Fantasies she described in careful, halting whispers. I gave the standard absolutions, assigned Hail Marys, and reminded her of chastity. My voice stayed steady. My hands stayed folded. My body stayed obedient.

Then the confessions changed.

The boys disappeared from her stories, the fantasies sharpened, and she began to speak of a man who was forbidden. A man who wore black. A man who had taken vows.

Lyla never named me outright. Not at first, but the details were surgical in the way his hands looked when they turned the pages of the missal, and the low timbre of his voice when he said “Dominus vobiscum”.

I should have stopped her. I should have ended the charade, sent her to another priest, transferred parishes… anything. Instead I listened. I let the words coil around me like smoke. I told myself I was hearing her sins so I could absolve them. I told myself it was pastoral duty.

I lied.

Tonight the church was empty except for us. The last penitent had left twenty minutes ago. The candles were guttering, and I sat in the dim booth, stole around my neck, waiting.

I knew it was her as soon as the door on her side opened with a soft click. I exhaled slowly through my nose and waited silently..

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Her voice was velvet and sin and home all at once. My fingers tightened on the edge of the kneeler. “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may confess all your sins well.”

A pause. A small, knowing exhale. “Well, Father… I’ve had some very inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that would repel the Lord and cause the devil to smirk in glee.”

My throat clicked when I swallowed. “Go on, my child.” She began. And I burned.

Every word was a spark. Every description a brand. She spoke of inappropriate thoughts about someone she should never think about. Someone close. Someone who had given everything for her. Someone who served the Lord while she dreamed of dragging him into darkness.

My pulse hammered in my ears. My cassock felt suddenly too tight, the air too thick. I knew what she was doing. I knew she knew I knew. And still I said, hoarse, “Go on, my child. Tell me about all your impure thoughts.”

She did.

And then her voice dropped lower, painting pictures so vivid I could almost feel her mouth on me. She spoke of wanting to corrupt him, to make him worship her body the way he worshipped at the altar.

Lyla spoke of wetness between her thighs right then, in the booth, while she confessed.

I felt the fabric of my trousers strain. Shame and hunger twisted together until I couldn’t tell them apart. I knew I wasn't strong enough to resist, strong enough to stop from being a sinner.

And I didn't want to. I wanted to step into damnation with both feet.

Chapter

Two

LYLA

I stepped into the confessional booth like I did every week. It wasn’t because I was compelled to purge myself of my sins, but because I knew what those stories did to my brother.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Damien cleared his throat. “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may confess all your sins well.”

“Well, Father, I’ve had some very inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that would repel the Lord and cause the devil to smirk in glee.”

“Go on, my child,” Damien said.

“You see, I’ve had inappropriate thoughts about someone I should never think about.”

“We all have bad thoughts, child. It’s only a problem if we give in to sin. Go on, confess.”

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Advertisement Snowed In Tied Down Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/snowed-in-tied-down-read-online-jenika-snow Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:40:25 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/snowed-in-tied-down-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Dark, Novella Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >24

She wrote the monsters. Then they came for her.

When romance author Gwen Ash retreated to a remote mountain cabin to finish her book, the blizzard outside wasn’t the only thing closing in.

What began as writer’s block soon warped into a fever dream when the story she was crafting started to answer back.
Three masked trespassers emerged from the storm… and from the depths of her imagination.

As the power flickered and snow sealed her inside, fear bled into foreplay, and Gwen found herself caught between terror and temptation. Each knock on the door dragged her deeper into a darkness that felt disturbingly like desire.

Because in this cabin, creation demanded surrender, and the monsters she wrote about might be the only ones who ever truly saw her

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

Itold myself this was a good idea, that locking myself away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere until I finished this damn book would jump-start my creativity.

How wrong I’d been.

The snow had started as a whisper, and by nightfall, it was a roar and a whiteout.

My laptop sat on the kitchen table, silently mocking me. Being an author was supposed to be the dream job. It was fun, sure. It was an outlet for all the wild stories rattling around in my head. But sometimes, I got… stuck. So I’d decided that getting away from the world might help. It had, at first. Then the storm rolled in, and it wasn’t letting up soon.

I stood at the window, mug of tea in hand, watching thick, wet flakes blur the world outside. Everything became a smear of white noise.

The storm howled around the cabin like something alive. My reflection stared back as a pale, sleep-deprived writer on a brutal deadline. I knew my eyes were ringed with exhaustion, the kind that made reality feel like a dream.

Holiday lights framed the window, red and green and irritatingly cheerful. I traced their glow with my gaze and muttered, “Guess I’m the Grinch now.”

My phone buzzed across the table, rattling against the wood. I turned and grabbed it.

Kai: How’s it going? Need help fleshing shit out?

I groaned and texted back: Deliriously working. A storm just hit, but the cabin’s still standing. Barely.

Three dots blinked, vanished, blinked again.

Kai: You got this. Don’t overthink the trespasser scene. Make it crazy. Readers are gonna love it!

Make it crazy. The unofficial tagline of my career.

I took another sip of lukewarm tea and sat down, determined to power through. The cabin was warm enough, but I’d dragged the space heater under the table, anyway. It smelled faintly of burned dust. Common sense told me to turn it off. I told common sense to shut up.

Outside, everything blurred together. Wind, snow, and branches creaking as ice smacked the windows.

I flexed my fingers and started typing.

The horror-erotic romance was one I loved working on, and I forced myself to focus.

He wore a mask because he was scarred and dangerous. He came at night, his presence thick enough to choke the air. He watched her through the window, waiting for her to see him, too.

I groaned and hit backspace. Too dramatic. I tried again.

The masked man stood at the tree line. He watched, waiting as the storm erased his footprints as fast as he made them.

Better. Moody. Mysterious.

I got up, set down my mug, grabbed the vodka and an energy drink, and made myself a pick-me-up. Settling back at the table, I drank and typed until the words flowed.

Then… three faint taps. Soft. Measured.

I froze and looked toward the door. Probably just ice hitting the wood. But when it came again, closer this time, my pulse spiked.

“The weather,” I muttered. “It’s just the fucking storm.”

Silence answered back.

I exhaled, took another long drink, and went back to typing. Coming to a cabin in the middle of nowhere was the worst idea ever, I thought. But when Kai booked me the trip, saying it would do wonders for my creativity, I agreed. She was always right.

I sent Kai a message complaining about the storm but told her the isolation was helping. My gaze drifted to the Christmas tree in the corner. It looked like something straight out of a fifties department store catalog.

Perfect in a way that felt unnatural.

Silver tinsel shimmered under the glow of multicolored bulbs, the kind that hummed faintly when they got too hot. Glass ornaments painted in soft pastels and metallic sheen dangled from artificial pine branches too symmetrical to be real. A paper angel crowned the top, its edges yellowed with age, its smile cracked.

The whole thing was beautiful in that eerie, frozen-in-time way, like the kind of tree you’d see in an old advertisement, untouched by real life or the hands that decorated it.

My buzz kicked in. I took another drink and then started typing. The words on my screen blurred, and not from the vodka. For a moment, the world outside went utterly quiet before the storm howled again.

“God, I’m losing my mind,” I muttered, staring at my drink. “Or maybe I shouldn’t have poured a double.”

I focused and continued with the scene.

The knock came again. It was harder, deliberate. He was here. For her.

And then I heard it again in real life. Three heavy knocks too controlled to be the storm.

The lights flickered—out, back on, then out again long enough for my heart to stutter. The generator coughed, chugged, and the heater sputtered back to life. I sat perfectly still, the cursor blinking on my screen like a heartbeat.

The fire crackled in the hearth, a fragile heart in a body of cold wood and storm. It threw shifting light across the cabin, gold teasing at the edges of the shadowy corners, heat reaching just far enough to touch my legs. The scent of burning pine threaded through the air.

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Advertisement Raw – After Dark Taboo Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/raw-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:40:24 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/raw-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Taboo Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 9
Estimated words: 7418 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 37(@200wpm)___ 30(@250wpm)___ 25(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 >9

**EXTREME TAB*O**

He’s the only man I’ve never been allowed to want.
And now… some rules were made to be shattered by Daddy’s hands alone.

CONTENT / THEMES: Inc*st (F@ther / D@ughter), Age-Gap, Daddy K!nk, Authority Dynamic with Power Imbalance, Forbidden Romance, Tab*o Romance, Stalking, Mask K!nk, Dub-con Undertones, Rough Consensual S*x, Manhandling, Explicit language, Graphic S*xual Content, Possessiveness, Obsession, Secret-Keeping and Risk of Discovery, Breath Play, Light Ch*king, Ana! Play, Breeding K!nk, HEA

All characters are 18+. This is a dark, taboo fantasy romance between consenting adults. If any of these elements are triggering for you, please skip this story.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

I made it to the mouth of the alley behind my building before he took me.

The rain was a solid sheet now, hammering everything it touched, and turning the ground into a solid pool. My cheap umbrella barely kept the rain away. If I could just get under some covering, I could wait out the storm then haul ass to my building.

I couldn’t see five feet in front of me, but it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. One minute I was running down the sidewalk and the next, a wet leather-gloved hand clamped over my mouth so hard my jaw creaked. The hand felt massive, big and masculine and wholly male.

An arm thicker than hell locked around my ribs, and I was lifted effortlessly off the ground and swung to the side. My feet kicked uselessly in the air, heels scraping the brick of the building to my side as he dragged me deeper into the dark alley. The wind caught my umbrella and whisked it away; the ribs snapping and breaking.

My back hit the unforgiving wall with a wet thud that drove every ounce of air from my lungs. For a second, the world was nothing but pain and rain and the smell of hot male skin under wet cotton. Then I saw him.

He moved to step in front of me. He was six-foot-seven, maybe more. Shoulders so wide the alley seemed to shrink around him. Black t-shirt under a black hoodie plastered to his chest, and every ridge and slab of muscle outlined like he’d been carved from obsidian.

Water streamed off the matte black skull mask, running in rivulets over the hollow cheeks, dripping from the lipless grin. Those empty eye sockets swallowed the streetlight whole.

I should have screamed.

Instead, the most pathetic, needy sound crawled out of me and vibrated against his palm, muffled, wet, desperate.

He leaned in until the cold plastic of the mask brushed my cheek. I heard him inhale slow and deep, dragging the air from my throat into his lungs like he was tasting me. His thighs were thick as my waist and solid muscle. He shoved one between mine and pressed up. Hard, grinding it against my pussy.

The material scraped over my clit, and I jerked, thighs clamping around him on pure instinct.

I was drenched. And not just from the rain. My panties had been ruined the second I felt those footsteps behind me. Now, my sick desire clung to my pussy, my underwear soaked through with slick that had nothing to do with weather.

He pulled back an inch but kept his thigh right where it was. He tilted his head, studying me as if I were prey he’d finally cornered.

“Been watching you for weeks, little girl,” he rasped, voice wrapping around me and turning me on more. His voice was deep, holding something demonic and velvet-rough. “Every night you walk this street, I wonder if your cunt is dripping down your thighs. Wonder if you’re being watched and followed. I bet you pray someone big and mean finally snaps and takes what’s his.”

I shook my head, frantic, even as my hips rolled shamelessly against his thigh, chasing friction.

He laughed low and filthy and ground harder. “Yeah, you’re a dirty little girl, aren’t you?” The ridge of his quad dragged over my clit again, digging the seam of my jeans against the swollen bundle of nerves pulling a gasp from me. He did it again until my knees buckled. Only his body pinning me to the alley wall kept me upright.

His hand left my mouth and fisted in my wet hair, yanking my head slightly back and to the side until my throat was bared. My scalp burned like fire, and the pain aroused me more. Tears mixed with the downpour instantly.

“Say it,” he snarled against my ear, breathing heavily through the mask. “Tell me you’ve been fingering this sloppy pussy every night dreaming of a stranger’s cock splitting you raw in the dark.”

I sobbed, shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut, but the word tore out of me anyway, cracked and ruined. “Please…”

He tightened his hand in my hair. I opened my eyes to see him pushing the bottom of the mask up. I felt his teeth sinking deep breaking skin. Warm fluid trailed down my neck, and I knew my blood bloomed hot under his tongue. The pain arrowed straight to my clit like a lightning strike.

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Advertisement The Framer’s Daughter – After Dark Taboo Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/the-framers-daughter-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:40:24 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/the-framers-daughter-after-dark-taboo-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Taboo Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 8
Estimated words: 6777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 34(@200wpm)___ 27(@250wpm)___ 23(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 >8

**EXTREME TAB*O**

When I returned to the farm that summer, it was to be a helping hand. I didn’t expect to fall into a taboo, kinky affair with my D@ddy… and enjoy it so much.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

I had been away at college for four long years, immersing myself in lectures on sustainable farming, soil science, and crop rotation all in pursuit of a degree in agriculture that I hoped would breathe new life into our family farm.

At twenty-two, I felt like a different person from the wide-eyed girl who had left home, but as my old pickup truck rattled down the familiar gravel drive toward Meadow Creek Farm, a wave of nostalgia washed over me.

The sprawling acres of golden fields, and the familiar big red barn, stretched out like a welcoming embrace. I smiled when I saw the weathered buildings and silos that had stood sentinel over my childhood.

The air was crisp—a far cry from the stale city smog I’d endured the last four years.

But things were irrevocably different now. My mother had passed away five years earlier, taken too soon by cancer that had left a void in our lives.

My father, Malachi Steppard, had shouldered the burden of running the farm alone ever since. Of course, he had help, but my mother had been an integral part of making everything run smoothly. Without her, it felt like the air was missing.

My father, at fifty-two years old, was the epitome of rugged strength. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with salt-and-pepper hair that curled slightly at the temples. He sported a chiseled jaw perpetually dusted with stubble and had piercing blue eyes that seemed to see right through to your soul.

His hands were large and calloused from endless days of labor, yet they moved with a surprising gentleness when handling the animals or fixing machinery.

My father exuded a raw, effortless sexiness forged from years of battling the elements. And that was definitely something I shouldn’t have been noticing. But it was something I couldn’t help but notice.

His flannel shirts, often rolled up to the elbows, clung to his muscled frame, revealing veins that mapped out stories of hard work. His jeans, faded and form-fitting, hugged his powerful legs. And there was something about the way he carried himself.

He was confident and commanding, and it made my heart skip a beat if I dwelled on it too long. But he was forbidden territory. It was wrong on every single level to want him.

He was the man who had raised me through my awkward teenage years, enforcing curfews with a stern voice and offering sage advice on everything from riding horses to navigating first crushes.

“You’re my girl, Polly,” he’d say, his tone gruff but laced with an undercurrent of protectiveness that now, in hindsight, stirred something deeper within me.

Desiring him was a complicated, tangled web of familiarity, respect, and an emerging desire that I pushed down deep.

The taboo of it all had simmered in my mind during those lonely college nights, when I’d lie awake replaying memories of him shirtless in the summer heat, hay bales stacked high behind him, his skin glistening with sweat.

It was wrong, disgusting, to desire my father. Hell, society would label it perverse, a betrayal of the family dynamic.

And they were right.

I arrived on a summer afternoon; the sun casting long shadows across the yard, my truck kicking up a plume of dust that announced my return like a herald.

Malachi was out by the barn, hammering away at a loose fence post, his sleeves rolled up to reveal those tanned, veined forearms that spoke of unyielding strength.

He straightened when he heard the engine, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, his blue eyes locking onto mine through the windshield.

“Polly,” he called out, his deep voice carrying across the yard like a warm rumble.

I parked the truck and hopped out, and he strode over with that purposeful gait, his boots crunching on the gravel, and pulled me into a hug. It lingered a beat too long, his body hard and warm against mine, the scent of hay and leather enveloping me.

“Missed you, kiddo,” he murmured into my hair, and when he pulled back, his gaze held mine with an intensity that felt far from paternal.

I forced a smile, my cheeks flushing under his gaze. “Missed the farm. And you.” The words hung in the air, loaded with unspoken meaning, and I quickly busied myself unloading my bags to break the moment.

Life on the farm slipped back into its familiar rhythm almost immediately, but with an undercurrent of tension that hadn’t been there before.

As the days passed, I dove into the chores by mending fences under the golden sun, tending to the livestock as they grazed peacefully in the pastures, and baling hay that scratched at my skin and filled the air with its sweet, earthy aroma.

<<<<1 2 3 >8

Advertisement Bloodstained Read Online Jenika Snow http://www.books2020.com/bloodstained-read-online-jenika-snow Wed, 19 Nov 2025 18:27:26 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/bloodstained-read-online-jenika-snow Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Vampires Authors: Jenika Snow Advertisement

Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >46

Ivan Vorlok was once a powerful prince. But betrayal broke his world and took the only thing that made him human. His wife.

Now, for centuries, he lived in the shadows, a monster of myth and whispered superstition. Blood was his only solace, violence his only language.

Eternity was his curse.

In rage and despair, Ivan gave himself to the darkness, trading his soul for immortality and becoming something monstrous in the hopes one day his one true love would return to him.

He was now a monster who killed in her memory just to ease the undying pain her absence left.

And then there was Clara. An identical reincarnation of his wife, Mircalla. She bore a new name, a new life without the memories of them he held, but her soul was the same. He’s found her again, and this time, he wouldn’t let her go.

Clara feared him. Yet beneath the terror was something else—an echo of what they once were to each other. He was her captor, but soon, she’d remember who they truly were to each other.

Their story was one of obsession and betrayal, but underneath all of it was a love so relentless it defied death itself.

A dark gothic, and romantic reimagining where Dracula meets Nosferatu.

Their story was one of obsession and betrayal, but underneath all of it was a love so relentless it defied death itself.

*A dark gothic, and romantic reimagining where Dracula meets Nosferatu

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

PROLOGUE

CLARA

The word still echoed in my ears long after it had left my lips.

Monster.

I should have felt safer for saying it out loud, like naming the thing that haunted me would strip away its power. But all my whispering did was thicken the air between us.

The word—the truth—seemed to seep into the walls themselves, swallowed and repeated back in silence.

Though I had seen him—seen the reality of his true identity, his claws and teeth were made for nothing but rending—I couldn’t deny I didn’t feel the type of terror I should.

And then there was something else—this pull. This molten throb in my body. A demon from nightmares stood before me, yet every nerve inside me ached for him like he was the only thing left on earth I needed.

That was what terrified me.

Ivan didn’t react to my accusation. In fact, the corner of his mouth curved faintly, an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. His head cocked slightly, the same gesture I’d seen reflected, but here in the flesh, it was slower, deliberate, almost curious.

“You see clearly, then,” he murmured. “I wondered how long it would take.”

The sound of his voice—too smooth, too deep—crawled down my spine and left me trembling. I forced myself to straighten my shoulders and tilt my chin up, though my legs shook.

“You’re… you’re a monster,” I said again, my voice holding more weight to it.

His dark eyes glinted, unreadable in the fire's glow. “You think naming me gives you power.”

“Doesn’t it?” I asked, though even to my ears, it sounded thin.

His smile widened then, revealing a hint of sharp white teeth that belonged to the reflection more than to the man. “No, Clara. It only makes you mine differently.”

I swallowed hard, clutching the thin blanket against me. My throat was so tight the next words almost broke on their way out. “What do you want? Like, what do you really want?”

His gaze raked me slowly, deliberately, and though I hated myself for it, my body warmed even more beneath the weight of his attention. He didn’t need to touch me to strip me bare, I realized.

“You already know. You can feel it.”

He wanted me. But for what? I rocked my head, desperate for denial, for something solid to cling to.

He smiled, and although I looked at the man before me, his monstrous visage stayed rooted in my mind.

I spun away from him and crossed the room, desperate to put space between us. My bare feet slapped the stone, but no matter how far I moved, the oppressive sense of him filled the chamber.

“Stay away from me,” I hissed, my voice breaking, betraying how close I was to sobbing.

“From you?” he said softly, behind me now, though I hadn’t heard him move. “You think I will,” he growled. “You think I could?”

I spun, trying to keep him in front of me, my heart pounding against my ribs. The fire painted shadows across his face, ones that hinted at the demonic visage beneath, the evil I’d seen in the mirror. My chest ached with something I didn’t understand.

I retreated until my back met the cold stone. The impact jarred me but also grounded me. I pressed my palms flat to the wall at my sides; the blanket falling from my grasp. “You can terrify me all you want,” I whispered, my breath shaking, “but I’ll never be what you want. I’ll never be yours.”

Ivan’s expression was one of certainty. “My little one,” he crooned, and the tone of his voice struck something deep inside of me. “You’ve always belonged to me. You just didn’t realize it.”

I bit back the sharp retort on my tongue. I didn’t want to anger him. I didn’t know what he was capable of. He stepped forward, slowly, purposefully, until the space between us hummed with his presence. My body betrayed me again, shivering not with fear or from the cold stone I was pressed against but with an arousal that disgusted me.

He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring as if to savor the scent of my shame. Oh, God… Ivan could smell what he did to me.

“There it is,” he whispered. “The truth you try to hide.” He smirked. I hated how handsome he was. “You can lie with your lips, but your body will always betray you.”

CHAPTER ONE

CLARA

The train rattled softly as it wound its way through the countryside. I rested my head on the window and looked on, the faint sound of wheels against tracks a steady backdrop to my thoughts.

I watched as the sprawling fields and clusters of trees blurred by and faded into the horizon. The scenery looked nothing like London—nothing familiar or what I was used to—but somehow it felt like it this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

It felt like I was going back to a place I should have always been, like I was finally finding the perfect soil to grow my roots. I’d grown up hearing stories about this area from my parents and maternal grandparents. The village I was moving to was tucked away in Eastern Europe—the same place where my family had once lived.

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