On My Brother's Bed
"You walked into my room, Astrid. No bra. No panties. What did you expect me to do? Pray?"
"I expect you to look away."
"Look away?" he chuckled in a low, dangerous tone as he trod toward me. "Baby, I've looked away for damn five years."
~
When Astrid returns home for summer, she's expecting chill nights and zero drama.
Except her brother's best friend–Rhett Rivers–is crashing at their house. And he has grown into every bit of the trouble she shouldn't want.
One time at a party leads them to an unforgettable one nightstand
What if Astrid Cole realizes she'd not just had sex with her brother's best friend but also let him touch her in some kind of way she never felt?
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Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Astrid's POV
I didn't plan on waking up tangled in sheets that didn't belong to me.
Or next to a man whose face I couldn't fully see.
My head banged terribly from how drunk I was last night.
All I remembered was laughter, lights. The feel of a stranger's hand on my hip, his mouth on my neck.
And then sex.
I blinked slowly, my head still pounding. The early morning sun filtered through unfamiliar curtains as a deep, masculine scent lingered around me. My bare skin prickled as the sheet slipped down my shoulders.
Panic crawled into my chest.
My bra was on the floor.
My dress–the tiny black one Talia insisted I wear–was draped over a couch.
Realization hit me right there. I turned to a man's silhouette, face turned away, one muscular arm thrown over his eyes.
I didn't recognize the room.
I couldn't even remember how I ended up here!
What the hell did I do last night?
I carefully slid out of bed, moving slowly and trying not to wake him. The throb in my head wasn't helping at all.
I gathered my clothes, and tugged my dress back on with shaky fingers. Then I stuffed my heels into my bag.
Whoever the heck that was, I would make sure we never crossed paths. Ever again.
Eventually, I got out of the hotel and hailed an Uber.
The ride felt endless. I kept checking my phone, expecting a text from Talia but nothing came. I looked like I'd lived through a tornado of sin and shame.
I didn't go straight home.
I couldn't let anyone see me this way. So I located a store and got into a new dress.
I wasn't sure how to feel. I wanted to be cool with it, and shrug the fact that I'd slept with a complete stranger.
Because damn, that man last night felt so dangerous. It didn't feel like a mistake.
*
By the time I got home, the front door was already open.
I paused. Did Rhett forget to lock it?
I walked in quietly, still barefoot. I made to move toward the stairs when the familiar voices and laughter echoed through the walls.
I tiptoed closer and peered around the corner to see Micah.
My brother stood in the kitchen, a bag on the counter, and a phone in his hand. He wore a wide grin.
Rhett stood beside him. They seemed to be in a deep conversation to even notice my presence.
Rhett looked so calm like any other day.
What the fuck was I thinking?
He looked so damn hot in that T-shirt that almost exposed his abs.
Like he felt my stares, his eyes flicked to me in a matter of seconds, and his smile faltered.
Something flashed in his eyes that reminded me of last night when that stranger touched my waist.
Those eyes...familiar. They looked so familiar. I couldn't remember.
The same warmth. It was the same way Rhett looked at me.
When he lifted his hand to his face, I saw the tattoo on his arm that looked exactly like the man on that bed.
Wait, was I hallucinating?
No. It couldn't be Rhett Rivers. It didn't make sense. It had to be someone else. It had to be.
Right?
Rhett was the only guy with that tattoo and those eyes.
"Astrid," Micah's voice made me flinch from where I stood. "You're up. I didn't come upstairs to your room. Rhett said you were fast asleep."
I flickered my gaze to Rhett and back to Micah, trying to move along with the lie.
"Ah. Yes." I mumbled, forcing a smile. "Barely awake."
"I also didn't tell you I'll be returning today. Rhett picked me up from the airport. Flight was hell." My brother walked toward where I was and hugged me briefly.
Rhett leaned against the rails, his arms folded as he watched me.
"She looks like hell too," he said causally, but his voice dropped an octave.
I glared. "Thanks. You look like a walking headache yourself."
"Alright. That's enough." Micah chirped in with a chuckle.
Rhett's mouth twitched and he gave me a knowing look. "Long night, huh?"
"None of your business," I muttered, brushing past him toward the stairs.
His hand brushed mine for barely a second. My heart jumped.
I turned around, and stared at him.
This time, I saw the same eyes. I knew I wasn't hallucinating.
It was him.
No. No way.
Was it?
"Don't stare too hard, Astrid," Rhett said, his voice low. "You might fall."
I swallowed and bolted up the stairs before Micah could notice.
Once I was in my room, I rested on the door, my chest rising and falling as I tried to catch my breath.
What did I just get myself into?
Memories came in like floods. The frat party with Talia, Rhett's arrival, and how he forced me to the car. Then we pulled up at a spot.
And now I couldn't look Rhett in the eye without wondering if it was his lips I felt.
Goddamit.
I couldn't believe it. It was still difficult.
Rhett wasn't the man I woke up to find on that bed.
For crying out loud, he was my brother's best friend. He only teased me and got protective when I dated losers.
But last night...why couldn't I forget it?
The feel of his lips on mine. His hands on my waist as he spread me open. I couldn't remember much, but I could swear down that I recalled how he thrusted into me like a possessed man.
"Astrid," Micah's voice called from outside.
I gathered myself back together and replied with a trembling voice. "Yes, Micah? Do you need something?"
"No. I just need you to come downstairs for breakfast once you've changed. I'm preparing something delicious." My brother said again. And then I heard footsteps retreating.
I held my chest like I was suddenly having a panic attack.
If my gut was right, if the goosebumps still racing in my arms meant anything–then I didn't sleep with a stranger.
I slept with Rhett Rivers.
And I had no idea what the hell I was going to do about it.
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7.7
Bella arrived New York City with ambitions, goals and desperate hunger to escape poverty. Raised by her single poor mother along side beloved sister Emily, Bella believed the only way to succeed and save her family from the ruthless hands of poverty was education.
After countless denial and rejection letters, she finally gained admission into one of the most prestigious universities in the country. What she doesn't realize is that stepping foot into that campus would pull her into a dangerous world of obsession, wealth, and power She never knew existed.
Benson Vale is everything Bella despised, Arrogant, untouchable and born into privilege.
As the heir to a billionaire empire, Benson is being forced to get married in order to acquire his inheritance something he dreaded with passion, but Bella crashed into his life and his tightly controlled world starts to unravel.
Lurking in the background is Angella Browns, Benson's childhood friend and the campus self proclaimed queen bee. Obsessed and possessive Angella would do whatever it takes to keep Benson all to herself even if it meant destroying Bella's life to pieces.
When tragedy strikes and secrets begins to unfold, Bella and Bensons relationship are bounded together by a dangerous DEAL - one that could either save or destroy them both.
As danger draws closer Bella must not only fight for justice but also uncover the truth behind her sisters death and choose Whether love was meant to survive in a world filled with Wealth, Power, and betrayal.
It was never meant to be love until fate made them collide.
8.4
Palermo does not forgive.
Neither does it forget.
When Guerrero Valenti, the feared leader of the Vikings, vanished, the city exhaled a dangerous calm-but only for a moment. In the shadows, enemies waited. Rivals sharpened their knives. And one woman bore a secret that could ignite every street in the city.
Lucia Romano carried the child of a man who had disappeared into legend and rumor. A son who had not been claimed, not protected, not named.
The city whispered of him with venom: the bastard of the Vikings.
The boy was fragile, but he was a storm waiting to erupt. And every night, Palermo tested him. Masked men tried to snatch him from his crib. Fire, steel, and blood became his lullabies. Yet he survived. Every threat only sharpened his instincts, every scream hardened his mother's resolve.
But whispers spread faster than steel through the night-rumors of a man returning. A shadow that would claim everything, sparking fear in every heart:
Guerrero Valenti.
The father who abandoned him.
The legend whose name alone commands obedience.
The storm that will rise, carrying vengeance, blood, and fire.
And when he comes,
Every man who dared call the bastard his enemy will fall.
Every street, every roof, every whispered corner will bow to the son of Guerrero Valenti or be washed in blood.
This is the story of survival.
Of fire and steel.
Of a mother and her son.
Of a father's return.
Even the earth is getting ready to absorb blood ... the blood of those who call the legitimate son of the Vikings a "BASTARD", and collect necks........the necks of those fallen by the sword of GUERRERO VALANTI.
And upon his return Heads will bow to the one they called a BASTARD .
8.3
I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground.
But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes.
Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted.
Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream.
I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold.
That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash.
"You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.
7.4
In a city where data is power and truth is a weapon, some secrets are worth killing for.
Mara Quinn is a ghost in the system, an underground journalist known only as Cipher, feared by corporations and hunted by those with everything to lose. When she breaches a classified network inside Axiom Industries, she uncovers something no one was meant to see: ORACLE, a predictive AI capable of shaping human behavior on a global scale.
She expects retaliation. She doesn't expect Kael Draven.
Cold, brilliant, and untouchable, Kael is the architect behind Axiom's empire, and a man who doesn't make threats he can't execute. Instead of silencing Mara, he offers her a choice: work under his watch, or disappear from existence entirely. Trapped inside his glass fortress known as The Spire, Mara is pulled deeper into a world of surveillance, manipulation, and power plays that stretch far beyond anything she imagined.
But ORACLE isn't just a tool, it's already been used. Governments have fallen. Empires have shifted. And someone else is pulling the strings.
As a rival syndicate closes in and a hidden war erupts across the city, Mara and Kael are forced into an uneasy alliance, one built on intellect, suspicion, and a dangerous, undeniable pull neither of them can ignore.
Because in a world where every move is predicted...
the only thing more dangerous than control is feeling.
And the system is already watching.
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
8.7
At eighteen years old, Estelle is kicked out of the only place she knew as home. With nowhere left to go, she goes toward Club Paradise, a place that offers the basic amenities she lacks: food, clothes, shelter, and a well-paying job.
***
The room was thick with smoke and muted chatter, but the moment Antonio D'Amico's eyes landed on her, the world narrowed to just her.
Estelle froze, heart hammering, as if some unseen force had pulled her into his gaze. He didn't move at first, simply studied her with a cold, calculating intensity that sent a shiver straight down her spine.
One night with him shifts the course of her life forever. Something in him fractures; obsession blooms, dangerous, consuming and he decides to take her away, forever.
***
What will happen to Estelle? Will her fortune finally turn around, or is she about to experience hell... and an unexpected, forbidden bond growing inside the darkness?