My hacker roommate

The doctors called it Tactile Craving Syndrome. A rare condition. I crave control. I crave possession. I’ve only ever told one person my secret—my ex-boyfriend, Kevin. He called me a freak. Later, we became siblings. Today, the craving hit again. I just wanted to beg him for a hug, but he threw all my luggage past the mansion gates. "Claire, you make me sick." That’s when a line of crimson text drifted across my sight. [Don’t be afraid. Your medicine… is on its way.]

Chapters

Chapter 2

Life with Carl as my roommate was, surprisingly, peaceful.

He appeared to be a freelancer who kept nocturnal hours—holed up in his room most of the day, venturing out only occasionally after dark. We hardly spoke, yet we coexisted in quiet harmony. Without a word, he would prepare two portions of food, leaving them on the table at just the right time. If I returned late, dinner waited beneath a warming cover, always perfectly heated. The fridge stayed stocked with the strawberries and yogurt I preferred, and my shampoo and body wash were replaced like clockwork, just before they ran out. He was a silent guardian, tending to everything without fuss or fanfare.

Even my frustrating, physical hunger for contact began to quiet. Just seeing him, sharing the same air, soothed that restless, burning itch. I started to crave it. Sometimes, I engineered small moments of contact—"accidentally" brushing his arm in the narrow hallway, or letting my fingertips "unintentionally" graze the back of his hand when passing something over. Each touch felt like a faint electric current, making me sigh with relief. And he… he never pulled away. His eyes would merely darken before he calmly looked elsewhere.

For a while, I thought life would stay this calm forever.

Then came that night.

Kevin called, his tone more agitated than I’d ever heard. "Claire, where the hell are you? A girl living alone in some rented place—it’s disgraceful! Get your ass back here now!"

Probably regretting things but too proud to admit it, he fell back on commands. I didn’t want to go back.

"No," I refused coldly.

"You—!" he sputtered, furious. "Did you find some other guy out there? Let me tell you, no one but me would ever stomach a freak like you!"

*Click.* I hung up.

My chest tightened painfully. That maddening itch prickled under my skin again. Frustrated, I ran a hand through my hair and left my room.

Carl was on the living room couch, a laptop open on the coffee table, its screen filled with dense lines of code. He didn’t seem to notice me, absorbed in typing. I walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a box of strawberry cake—the brand I loved, bought just the day before. Sweets improve the mood. I scooped a big spoonful into my mouth, the cold, sweet cream melting instantly on my tongue.

That’s when the bizarre thing happened.

Right before my eyes, a line of text floated past—crimson red, like a movie subtitle.

**[He’s here, he’s here! He approaches with his little cake!]**

**[Alert! Alert! High-energy scene ahead! Protagonist's blackening level is about to break through the critical point!]**

My hand jerked. The spoon clattered to the floor. I blinked hard, but the text remained. More lines drifted by.

**[Tsk tsk, poor thing. Just got verbally abused by her scumbag ex, and she has no idea she’s in the wolf’s den.]**

**[Look, girls, look at Carl's eyes! Holy shit, he wants to devour her!]**

My head snapped toward the couch. Carl had stopped typing at some point. He was staring straight at me, unblinking, his gaze black and bottomless—a pit I was already falling into. His stare made my scalp prickle.

And the damn commentary kept refreshing wildly.

**[BREAKING: Carl's brain is currently running through roughly 800 different captivity fantasy scenarios!]**

**[What he’s hiding under his pillow… I dare not say. Don’t want to get banned.]**

**[Hint: The kind with chains~]**

My mind went blank with a *buzz*.

Under his pillow… handcuffs? Captivity fantasy?

The words hit like heavy blows to the chest.

Any normal girl would probably be screaming for the police right now.

But me…

I didn’t feel afraid. Not at all. Instead, my heart began to pound uncontrollably, an indescribable thrill shivering from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. That maddening itch transformed, in an instant, into a tingling, electric craving.

I, Claire, am a hopeless, incurable freak.

And I think… I’ve struck gold.

Continue to next part

The bathroom mirror at the Plaza reflected a woman I barely recognized. I'd spent two hours on my hair alone, twisting it into an elegant updo that exposed the curve of my neck. The dress—navy blue, modest, purchased with money I'd saved from grocery budgets—fit perfectly. I'd imagined Cole's face when he saw me tonight. Imagined him finally looking at me the way he used to, back when we were just two people in love, before DeepSpace Tech consumed everything. Three years. Three years of living in the margins of his success. The ballroom of the Manhattan Grand buzzed with the kind of energy that only comes from old money meeting new ambition. Crystal chandeliers cast fractured light across faces I'd seen in Forbes and Bloomberg. I smoothed my dress and made my way through the crowd, searching for Cole among the tailored suits and designer gowns that cost more than our monthly rent.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.1

After My Husband Took Our Son to His Mistress

9.1

The steady beep of monitors pulled me from darkness. I blinked against harsh fluorescent lights, my body feeling hollow and strange. The hospital room was pristine—white walls, white sheets, the antiseptic smell burning my nostrils. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, and that's when the emptiness hit me. Twelve weeks. Our baby was gone. The door opened, and Damon strode in, his tailored suit unwrinkled despite the early hour. His eyes flickered to his watch before settling on me. "You're awake," he said, his voice neutral. No embrace.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.5

His Secret Heir In Her Arms

9.5

I returned to New York with a broken suitcase and exactly three hundred and forty-two dollars in my bank account. My mother was dying in a public hospital, and the only treatment that could save her required a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit I didn't have. While I was pleading with the billing department, I ran into my billionaire ex, Gannon Sharpe, and his cruel fiancée, Aleta. Without a second thought, Aleta slapped me so hard my lip split, kicking my belongings across the floor and calling me a gold-digging thief in front of the entire staff. I looked at Gannon, the man I once loved more than my own life, hoping for a shred of mercy. Instead, he looked at me with pure revulsion and told me I belonged in the gutter. He believed the lies his grandfather told him—that I had abandoned him after his car crash and vanished with millions. He had no idea I was the one who actually pulled him from that burning wreckage, or that I was currently skipping meals in a moldy motel just so our secret son could have formula. He called me "disgusting" and walked away, leaving me to rot. I wanted to scream that I was the genius scientist who wrote his company’s core algorithms, and that the child he didn’t know existed was shivering with a fever only blocks away. But the ironclad NDA I signed to save my family kept me silent, even as Gannon looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in. Desperate for health insurance to save my mother and son, I took a bottom-tier data entry job in the basement of Gannon’s own tower, intending to stay invisible. But when a billion-dollar error threatened to bankrupt his empire, I couldn't stop myself from hacking the system to fix the code. Now, the man who hates me is standing in my cubicle, demanding to know how a "dropout" knows his most guarded secrets. Gannon is finally digging into my past, and he’s about to find out exactly what—and who—I’ve been hiding for the last four years.

Billionaire Modern Mystery

8.5

Spoiling His Secretary, and Force Me to Abort

8.5

Evelyn was seven months pregnant when her world shattered. Declan, the man she had loved for seven years, publicly claimed his secretary Natalia’s unborn child as his own—all to protect Natalia from the scandal of unwed motherhood. “Natalia is timid,” Declan explained coldly. “She can’t handle the gossip. You’ll understand, won’t you?” But understanding was the last thing Evelyn could muster. Overnight, her child was branded a bastard, her marriage a farce. Worse, Declan’s devotion to Natalia grew unbearable: bedtime stories for her baby, handmade meals for her cravings, even converting Evelyn’s home into Natalia’s domain—while confining Evelyn to a moldy storage room. When Evelyn dared to resist, Declan imprisoned her under house arrest, confiscating her phone and severing all ties to the outside world. His justification? “I want both your child and Natalia’s.” But Evelyn had one last card to play. A phone number left years ago by her long-lost biological parents, with a promise: “If you’re ever unhappy, we’ll come for you.” As Declan whisked Natalia abroad for her “delicate condition,” Evelyn made her move. By the time he returned, she—and the baby he’d failed to protect—would be gone forever.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.0

The Luna Who Defied Her Fated Mate’s Cruelty

9.0

At the pack’s charity auction, Beckham George, the Alpha heir of the George Pack, bid fifty million dollars on a gemstone necklace symbolizing eternal love. The room buzzed with anticipation as he held up the necklace, his Alpha aura commanding attention. He turned to me, his voice steady yet tinged with arrogance, and proposed. The crowd erupted in applause, their admiration for him evident. They all seemed certain I would accept. After all, I had pursued him relentlessly since I was welcomed back into the Mason Pack, and our four years in college were marked by my unwavering devotion. But they all seemed to forget. Back then, when I was suffering from a rare heart condition and needed urgent surgery, Beckham accused me of faking my illness after Ruby Simmons, the rising influencer from the Simmons Pack, planted doubts in his mind. He cut off all my access to pack resources, publicly denounced me, and left me to face the brutal backlash alone. My biological parents, the Alpha and Luna of the Mason Pack, turned their backs on me, and my friends distanced themselves.

Modern Romance Werewolf

7.4

The Runaway Heiress And Her Secret Triplets

7.4

I opened the door to my penthouse, only to see my stepsister's limited-edition Louboutins discarded on the foyer rug. Walking into the master bedroom, I caught my fiancé and my stepsister tangled naked in my bed. When I went back to the family estate to settle the score, my father didn't even care. Instead, he and my stepmother demanded I take my stepsister's place to save the family's reputation. "You will marry the seventy-year-old billionaire next month. We can't ruin your sister's life," my father ordered. Looking at their hypocritical faces, the last shred of my family affection died completely. They really thought I would just accept being their sacrificial pawn while they stole my mother's legacy. So, I pinned them down with a blackmail video of the affair, extorted my father for my shares, and walked out into the freezing night. To numb the betrayal, I went to an underground club, slept with a terrifyingly powerful stranger, and left a red lipstick note on his forehead. "Your technique sucks. Keep the change." Then, I vanished abroad without a trace. Five years later, I returned to New York with my three children, ready to take back everything that was mine. But I didn't expect that the "cheap gigolo" from that night was actually Kendall James, the most ruthless corporate titan in the city. And he had just spotted my five-year-old son—his exact miniature replica—standing right beside me.

Billionaire Modern Mystery

My hacker roommate

Chapter 2

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