As the son of music industry royalty and a famous rock star in his own right, Henry “Cinder” Cinderford has spent his life on the road. Craving stability, he signs on to do a special limited engagement in Las Vegas and plans to spend the next six months discovering the meaning of home.
After losing his mom at a young age, Ellis Tremaine survived a childhood with an abusive stepfather who took out his anger on the son he never wanted. Nearly two decades later, Ellis continues to struggle against the emotional manipulations of his family, even in his career. But when he meets none other than the Prince of Pop himself, things start to change.
From attraction to friendship to something so much more, Ellis and Cinder become the celebrity ‘ship known as “Cinderellis.” But when reality threatens their storybook romance, all they can do is hope there really is a happily ever after for every once upon a time.
As the amber and pink hues of a Vegas sunrise peeked through the blinds, the radiant heat of the muted rays fell in bands over the comforter, and Cinder’s eyes drifted open. He blinked up at the ceiling as his mind meandered toward consciousness.
After waking up in the same bed for over two months now—the longest stint he’d ever had in the same sleeping quarters, if he didn’t count his tour bus, which he didn’t—he was finally starting to get used to the luxury of the familiar. He relished the recognizable comfort of a bed he could call his own and the intimate ease of a space he knew and could navigate without thought.
But as his brain chugged into gear, something struck him as different. Not wrong, just not the same as usual. He went to lift a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes but found his arm trapped by an unexpected weight. Before he could turn to assess the source of his encumbrance, enough awareness seeped into his mind to bring back memories of how he’d fallen asleep the night before.
Wrapped in the arms of Ellis Tremaine.
A smile crept up his cheeks as he rolled over to pull Ellis against his chest. Snuffling in his sleep, Ellis came willingly. He threaded a leg between Cinder’s and circled an arm around Cinder’s waist to anchor their bodies together. Smile stretching into a grin, Cinder brushed a kiss over the whorl of hair at Ellis’s crown as he reveled in the beauty of waking to such a cozy, content moment.
This is what he’d been missing all these years. Every time he’d pushed another nameless partner from his bed in the wee hours of the morning—choosing to sleep alone after sharing a romp in the sheets rather than waiting to see where the morning might take them—he’d given up another chance at finding the one thing he’d needed most.
Comfort. Stability. A rock to cling to in the stormy seas of life.
A home.
Because that’s what this was. This moment with Ellis in his arms, sated by memories of a day spent working side by side and an evening shared without the typical pomp and circumstance others required, it was the home he’d been searching for all his life. Just as his parents had always tried to tell him, but he’d never understood.
Home wasn’t a physical space. It wasn’t something you could find in a brick-and-mortar structure or by tying yourself to a single place. Home was a feeling. An emotion. A sense of well-being and security. Of being cared for and wanting to—no, needing to—care for another.
In its simplest form, home was love. And as Cinder clung to Ellis’s sweet warmth, he knew love was where his heart was headed. Maybe he hadn’t quite fallen that far yet, but it was coming for him, and he was ready to take the plunge when it did.
Evie Drae (Ze/Hir/Hirs) is a registered nurse by day and a best-selling, award-winning male/male romance writer by night. Ze has won first place in seven Romance Writers of America® (RWA®) competitions, including the prestigious title “Best of the Best” in the 2018 Golden Opportunity Contest. Ze was a double finalist in the 2019 Golden Heart® in both the Contemporary Romance and Romantic Suspense categories.
One of Evie’s favorite things to do is encourage hir fellow writers. To that end, ze started the #writeLGBTQ and #promoLGBTQ hashtags on Twitter to support and promote LGBTQ+ authors and allies while providing a safe space to connect and grow as a community. Ze is married to the love of hir life, is the parent of two wonderful fur babies, and runs almost entirely on coffee and good vibes.
Evie loves to link EvieDrae@gmail.com or find hir on hir social media accounts listed below. Twitter is where ze’s most active but be sure to check out hir blog too. Ze focuses on reviews for LGBTQ+ authors and allies with the occasional quirky advice/recommendation post just to toss things up.
Do you want to know what it means to live like me? It means being forced not to look at him, not to touch him, not to be left alone in the same room as him. Not to seek him out. Not to want him. Not to love him. Do you know how it feels to spend your entire life pretending to be someone else? Do you know what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t want to be loved? I’ll tell you how it feels. It feels as if you’re living in constant torment: you know which path you should follow, but you also know that, if you follow that path, you can never turn back. And I can’t do that to him. Every day I come back, because I know that he’s waiting for me. Every day I promise him that he will never have to live without me.
Andy
Do you know what it means to live like me? It means being forced not to touch him, not to kiss him, not to be able to leave the room while he’s still in it. Not to breathe him in, not to lust after him. Not to love him. Do you know how it feels to spend your entire life pretending to be someone else? Do you know what it’s like to love the only person you’re not allowed to love? I’ll tell you how it works. You can’t seem to feel anything other than him; when you walk away, you know that you’re turning your back on the only thing that’s good in your life. Yet you still walk away. Every day I leave, knowing that he will be standing there, watching. Every day I ask him to promise me that I will never have to live without him.
He turns towards me, and I immediately regret getting so close to him, in the darkness, the roads around us almost deserted. No one can see us. I regret even coming here tonight, having watched him for three hours with my stomach in flames. I can’t believe I thought I could do this.
I can’t believe I told him that we couldn’t do this.
Not that it’s easy every day, seeing him in a crowd, always surrounded by friends, or with his family. Paddling around in a kayak, or playing a gig, talking, laughing.
Pretending.
He moves quickly, grabbing my face between his hands and bringing it closer to his, until our foreheads are touching. I can’t feel anything, can’t think, can’t speak; his hands are touching me, holding me against him. His large, warm hands are against my skin. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed them until I felt their heat again. I didn’t think that wanting them on me, all over me, would be so painful.
And then, Andy kisses me, stripping me of my anger and making me forget why it was even there in the first place.
I grab hold of his wrists as he pushes against my mouth, breathing into me, reminding me of the reason I could never want anyone else.
Andy’s kisses aren’t easy to handle: they’re strong and powerful, fuelled by impatience and uncontrollable desire.
Andy’s kisses are laced with bitterness and silence. They taste of lost nights and bad timing.
Andy’s kisses taste of lies, of shortness of breath. They taste of mistakes and decisions we never made.
Andy’s kisses are pain and regret; they’re anxiety and frustration; they’re darkness and desperation.
I hate Andy’s kisses. I hate them so much that I can’t help but love them.
I came for war. I left with an obsession. With one look, Isa captivated me. She consumed me, drawing me into her world without ever knowing the dangers of mine. I intend to make her mine, no matter what lies I need to tell to manipulate her into falling in love with El Diablo. It should be simple enough, but secrets lurk in the depths of her multicolored eyes, and I’ll do anything to understand what broke her before I had the chance. Because she’s mine to break.
Isa
Rafael Ibarra tore through my life like a raging inferno. Consuming every part of me he touches, he promises to show me passion and the real Ibiza. Though our tryst can never be anything but temporary, I never want to leave the man who makes me wish things were different. But there’s a nightmare hiding within his multicolored gaze, a phantom rattling at the cages who wants to devour me, to take me and claim me as his. He’s temptation, pushing me toward sin with his wicked touch. But the sins of the flesh are different from the sins of the mind, and as much as I hate his secrets… I will never tell him my own.
Until Tomorrow Comes is the first book in the Beauty in Lies series and ends on a cliffhanger. This is a DARK mafia romance and contains graphic violence, mature content, and elements that may be triggering. Please read at your own discretion and see the specific content warnings at the front.
He quirked a brow, that intense gaze of his turning unsettling as he stared down at me. “No,” he said, his lip twisting with the words. My pulse quickened, sensing that small hint of something that lurked beneath the surface. With a glance at the man standing next to the walkway up to and around the falls, I looked back to Rafael with a flare of my nostrils and purse of my lips.
I huffed in disbelief as I shook my head and fought back the surge of emotions within me. I’d been so fucking stupid to think he understood that my fear came from a place of trauma. From something not so easily overcome. Leaning into his space, I laid down the challenge I knew probably wasn’t my smartest move.
But something in the cruel set of his eyes made me want to defy him.
Something in the excited parting of his lips told me he wanted that too.
“Fuck this,” I snarled, turning on my heel and yanking my wrist out of his grip. Hiking my purse up on my shoulder, I strode down the road we’d entered in on and made for the main street. Once I had enough distance and found a safe place to settle, I’d call Hugo to come and get me.
But I’d be damned if I would get in that water with him.
“You don’t want to walk away from me, Princesa,” Rafael murmured at my back. The words crawled up my spine, insidious and menacing enough to halt me in my tracks, and I turned back to glare at him.
I swallowed my nerves, pushing down the budding fear that he brought with his carefully crafted words. Rafe could be terrifying when he wanted to be.
I just wasn’t sure if the frightening face was the mask, or if it was what really waited beneath the charming demeanor he gave me in all the other moments.
“And why is that?” I asked, pressing my lips together and turning back around to hide the slight tremble in them. He was the kind of man my grandmother warned me about with her stories. The temptation and lure of evil spirits, as they resided in people who looked just like us.
But evil couldn’t look like beauty carved in stone, could it? Even if it did explain why I burned when he touched me.
He stepped closer, until I felt the heat of his body at my back. He reached around me to grab my face and tilt it, so that I stared him in the eye with one of mine. “Because I’ll chase you,” he murmured, leaning down to touch his lips to my cheek in a slow brush of heat against my skin. His mouth slid up until his nose touched my hair, breathing me in deeply. He hummed just above my ear. “I think the real question is, what will I do when I catch you?”
I swallowed down the saliva in my mouth, clenching my eyes shut as I tried to think of an appropriate response to words like that.
What did one say, when the man she was falling head over heels in love with showed signs of being a monster?
“That isn’t funny, Rafe,” I whispered, stumbling over my own feet as he turned my body to face him. His hand gripped my hair harshly, tipping my head back until I met his unyielding gaze.
“Am I laughing, Princesa?” I shook my head slightly, wincing when his grip didn’t relent. “I promise you, I am far scarier than whatever you think lurks in that fucking water.”
He released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, taking a few steps away before he paused and looked back at where I stood, rooted to my spot and staring at him in horror. I looked to the road, watching as the man who stood guard puffed up his chest and stood a little taller.
It felt like I’d walked into a trap, and still didn’t understand even the basics of what it would mean for me.
A cage without walls. A pressing force on my chest.
“Don’t do it,” Rafael warned me, drawing my attention back to him. He held out a hand, waiting for me to take it. It was a test, I realized, as he forced me to decide my next move then and there. “I like it when you tell me no,” he murmured, making my breath freeze in my lungs as he tilted his head to the side and studied me. “I think I’ll like it when you fight me, too.”
Adelaide always had a love for reading and writing that she cultivated with years of passion and growth before finally publishing earlier this year. You can count on intoxicating alpha males with a twist of darkness who are captivated by the light of their women. Her romance typically involves dark romance themes, colorful language, plenty of steam, and graphic violence. Adelaide lives in her tiny house with her husband and two rambunctious hellions who she adores. When she’s not chasing all three of them around the house, she spends all her free time writing and adding to the hoard of plots stored on her bookshelf and hard-drive.
