
Burning in Madness
Fuzzy Melissa · Completed · 8.8k Words
Introduction
For a full year, he stonewalled my every advance.
Even when I cornered him in sheer lace, his jaw merely tightened. With chilling indifference, he pulled out a sterile latex finger cot:
"If you simply need a release, I can accommodate you."
Humiliated, I drew up divorce papers to end the sham.
But right before I left, I stumbled into a hidden vault beneath his study.
There, laid out on black velvet, was all my "missing" lingerie.
Beside it, pinned under a psychiatric diagnosis for Severe Obsessive Fixation, was a diary filled with frantic scrawl:
[I finally manipulated everything to steal her.]
[But the obsession is eating me alive. I don't dare touch her without gloves. If our bare skin meets, I'll lose my goddamn mind. I'll tear her apart like a rabid dog and lock her in this windowless room where no one else can ever look at her!]
Chapter 1
I tugged at the sash of my robe, letting the black-and-gold embroidered silk slide off my shoulders and pool on the cold floor.
The dark crimson French lace was practically sheer. A few impossibly thin black straps dug into my waist, while the cold, hard metal clasps of the garter belt bit a faint flush into the pale skin high on my thighs.
Just hours ago, I was wearing this exact "armor" to close out this year's Victoria's Secret runway show.
At least fifty million men around the world had been glued to their screens, salivating over my waistline and legs, probably wishing they could reach right through the glass.
But my own husband? Not even close.
Barefoot, I crossed the floorboards, heading straight for the master bedroom at the end of the hall.
It had been exactly a year since the wedding.
When Liam Rothwell left me at the altar, abandoning me to the relentless bombardment of the New York press, it was Arthur Rothwell—Liam's uncle—who stepped up, stone-faced, to clean up his runaway nephew's mess.
Everyone called it a marriage of convenience to dodge a PR disaster. They weren't wrong—for a full year behind closed doors, every provocation of mine had crashed against his wall of ice. He refused to so much as brush my fingers.
Tonight, my patience finally snapped.
Stopping in front of his door, I didn't even bother knocking, just shoved the door open.
At the noise, Arthur, who had just stepped out of the en-suite bathroom, froze midway through towel-drying his hair.
His dark gray silk robe was tied loosely, the parted fabric baring his carved chest and the dangerous dip of his V-line. A single drop of water traced his throat, vanishing into the hard planes I’d fantasized about for countless nights.
I leaned against the doorframe, staring at him, my throat going dry.
Across the half-lit room, Arthur's gaze swept over me, finally landing on my nearly bare shoulders and the dark red lace.
For a split second, his eyes darkened dangerously.
"What are you doing here?" His tone held its usual guarded ice, betrayed only by a faint, involuntary rasp.
I gave him no room to retreat. Closing the distance in one stride, I crashed into his bare chest, seizing his lapels and yanking them wide.
My cool palms flattened against his feverish, rigid core. Leaning in, I let the sheer lace and my bare skin drag deliberately across him.
My fingers dug hard into the edge of his V-line.
"I'm here to fuck you," I said, tilting my head back to hold his stare.
The crisp scent of cedarwood flared. Beneath my palms, Arthur locked up, rigid as a provoked beast with his pupils blowing wide in the dim light.
Just as I thought he was going to snap—pin me against the door and tear me apart—
He closed his eyes.
When they opened again, the fleeting madness was gone, suffocated behind an agonizing wall of control.
"If you simply need a release, I can accommodate you." The raw hoarseness of his voice completely betrayed his actions.
With effortless strength, his fingers clamped around my wrists, peeling me off his body. He took a half-step back, turned, and pulled open the nightstand drawer.
The moment I saw what he pulled out, the lust that had surged to its peak within me hit a wall of absolute ice.
Pinched in his hand was a sealed, medical-grade silicone finger cot.
No desperate embrace. No savage kiss. He just stood by the bed, his eyes having returned to a dead calm, as if he weren't looking at his half-naked wife, but a toxic corporate asset that required PPE to handle.
Not this again.
No matter how much I stripped down and provoked him, his response was always this infuriating, strictly-business rationality!
Humiliation and violent rage shot to my brain. I ripped the packet from his fingers and slammed it against his solid chest.
"Accommodate me?" I let out a bitter laugh, my voice trembling from sheer humiliation. "Arthur, if you're impotent, just admit it! If all I wanted was to get off, I have men lined up around the block on Fifth Avenue. I don't need you patronizing me like this!"
In the dim light, Arthur's dark pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He looked ready to devour me whole, yet at his sides, his hands locked into white-knuckled fists, veins cording under the strain.
His Adam's apple bobbed heavily. "Chloe, I didn't mean it like that," he rasped.
But still, he didn't step forward. Not even half an inch.
He didn't throw me onto the bed; he didn't take my face in his hands and kiss me.
"Whatever."
Scoffing, I didn't even bother to cover myself as I stalked out without a backward glance, letting the heavy door slam shut in my wake.
Back in my room, I stalked straight to the wet bar, pouring a heavy whiskey over a single rock.
The sharp burn of the amber liquid seared my throat, but it did nothing to incinerate the suffocating knot of frustration in my head.
The second my skin touched his just now, I felt the uncontrolled tension in his muscles. I saw the wildness in his eyes he couldn't hide.
There was absolutely no way he felt nothing for me.
So why, for the love of God, did Arthur refuse to touch me?
If keeping his distance early in the marriage was to avoid scandal, fine. But it had been an entire year.
Was it some ridiculous, misguided sense of family loyalty? Did the fact that I was his nephew's ex-fiancée make me completely off-limits to him?
I tilted my head back, swallowing another mouthful of liquor, and let out a cold sneer.
No. For an apex predator like Arthur, a man accustomed to pulling the strings on Wall Street, if he wanted something, a moral code wouldn't mean shit.
Unless...
A sudden thought struck my mind, instantly freezing the swirling motion of my glass.
I remembered an offhand complaint Liam's mother had made during afternoon tea.
She had mentioned that Arthur remained single for so many years because he was carrying a torch for a woman he couldn't have. A ghost from his past who had managed to tame the ruthless Arthur Rothwell.
Was his ascetic saint routine driven not by some bullshit moral code, but by a twisted desire to stay "chaste" for someone else?
Was this sexless marriage just his perfect prop to keep the family off his back?
The moment that realization hit me, the whiskey in my stomach caught fire, torching the leftover dregs of my humiliation into ash.
What replaced it was a bone-deep, icy clarity. And absolute rage.
I had stripped myself bare, dropping every last ounce of my pride in front of him, and he was using me as a prop to prove his devotion to another woman?
Fuck him.
I slammed the empty glass onto the marble bar, the sharp crack echoing through the desolate room.
You want to stay loyal to a ghost for the rest of your life?
Fine, Arthur. Count me the hell out.
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
The CEO's Unspoken Love
Before I could answer, he moved closer, suddenly looming over me, his face inches from mine. I felt my breath caught, my lips parting in surprise.
"Then this is the price for speaking ill of me to others," he murmured, nipping my lower lip before claiming my mouth in a real kiss. It began as punishment but quickly transformed into something else entirely as I responded, my initial rigidity melting into compliance, then active participation.
My breathing accelerated, small sounds escaping my throat as he explored my body. His touches were both punishment and pleasure, drawing shudders from me that I thought he felt reverberating through his own body.
My nightgown had ridden up, his hands discovering more of mine with each caress. We were both lost in sensation, rational thought receding with each passing second...
Three years ago, to fulfill the wish of his grandmother, I was forced to marry Derek Wells, the second son of the family that had adopted me for ten years. He didn't love me, but I had secretly loved him all along.
Now, the three-year contractual marriage is about to end, but I feel that some kind of sentiment has developed between Derek and me that neither of us is willing to admit. I'm not sure if my feelings are right, but I know that we can't resist each other physically...
The Contract Wife: Marriage Of Malice
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
I didn't tell him to stop.
Instead, my fingers curled into his shirt, clutching the fabric as though it was my only anchor. Something in him snapped—something he had been holding back for too long. His mouth found mine in a kiss that wasn't tender, but hungry, desperate.
I gasped into him, his hand sliding up to cup my jaw, holding me as if afraid I might vanish.
"You drive me insane," he breathed against my mouth, his lips trailing to my throat. "I can't lose you, Ella. Not you."
My head fell back, a soft sound escaping me as his fingers memorized my waist. My anger melted beneath his desperation.
"James..." I whispered, more plea than protest.
His hand caught mine, fingers threading together tightly. "I'll bring him back. I swear it. Just... don't turn away from me. Please."
The word please—low, ragged, almost broken—undid me more than anything else could have.
Ella never imagined she would marry the man she had secretly loved for years in such a way.
When her brother Theo faced twenty-five years in prison for massive embezzlement, the ruthless business tycoon James Lancaster offered her a deal: marry him in exchange for her brother's freedom.
This wasn't a fairy tale proposal, but a carefully orchestrated revenge. Because in James's heart, Ella was the culprit who had killed his sister Cecilia. He wanted her to pay the price—to atone with a lifetime of suffering.
From Substitute To Queen
Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.
Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.
In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?
From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
The mafia princess return
The Hunter and The Hunted
Mihai’s hand slowly slides up my stomach, his fingers wrapping around my neck as he cuts of my ability to breathe, black spots clouding my vision, and yet, I am not afraid. I want more. I want everything that he can give to me.
He slowly inserts a third finger, the intense fullness that I feel teetering me over the edge of a cliff I cannot even see, and then he sucks and pulls at my clit. Sparks erupt throughout my body, the orgasm shaking my soul, and destroying what was left of my resistance.
She was the Daughter of a Hunter, he was one of the creatures that her family had sworn to destroy, what could possibly go wrong?
When their worlds collide, who will be left standing, will it be the hunter or the hunted, and which is which?
Timeless Us
The world she knew is gone.
Her husband, Nathan, is no longer the young man she left behind—he’s successful, respected, and living with a new family.
But when the woman who disappeared twenty-three years ago suddenly returns…
can love survive the years that were lost?
To protect what’s mine
The Unwritten Princess
My name is Mia, and everything I touch is dying.
The flowers beneath my mother's window turned black overnight. The herbs I gathered at dawn rotted in my hands. When the court wizard finally told me the truth—that someone cursed me, that my presence would kill everyone I love—I realized the prophecy everyone believed was never meant to save the kingdom. It was meant to destroy me.
So I ran. Not to fulfill some destiny, but to survive it.
Now I'm traveling with a hunter who lost his companions to the same curse I carry, chasing fragments of a prophecy the Fae sing differently. An elf took a baby from the palace the night I was born. And somewhere between the lies I've been told and the truth I'm hunting, I'm starting to suspect: What if I'm not the princess from the prophecy at all?
Vengeance of the Forsaken Luna
"Bella." Ethan's tone shifted, taking on that warning edge I knew too well. "Faye is vulnerable right now. She's terrified you'll resent her, that this will divide the pack. The last thing she wants is for this baby to come between us."
"Then you shouldn't have done it." I met his eyes squarely, letting him see the ice in mine. "Go back to your son."
"For fuck's sake." He dragged a hand through his hair. "How many times—it was artificial insemination. They used my sperm, yes, but Faye and I never—"
Bella let out a cold snort. Such brazen lies. Her mate had an affair with his brother's partner, and his entire family helped force her out with nothing, all to make way for the mistress to take her rightful position. Poor fool—he thought she was just an unwanted adopted daughter, easy to dismiss and control. He never knew the computer genius he'd been searching for was his own Luna.
Since he'd tainted himself, Bella was done. She rejected him and reclaimed what was hers, rising to the top with help from Victor, who'd been secretly in love with her for years.
When Ethan tried winning her back: "You don't want our child growing up fatherless."
Bella smiled mockingly. "The child's father isn't you."
Accardi
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.
Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.
Ruined : You will always be mine.
“Fuckkk”, I couldn’t help but scream.
“You need to learn to be obedient” he said as he kept thrusting into me. When I felt his hands on my clit my body shook.
“Asher please, it’s too much”.
“No. if I really wanted to punish you, I would give you all of me”, he said against my ears and my entire body froze. Suddenly he moved and I was standing again. This man was insane.
I felt him behind me. “Ten Lashes for your disobedience”, he said
“Asher please”,
“No”. His voice was cold and void of any emotion.
Asher was what I wanted , what I truly craved until it was too late. An orphan should never fall in love with someone out of their reach. I thought loving him was the right thing to do until he revealed his true identity and Ruined me. I was ruined for everyone one else . I could still feel his touch, it was as if it was etched into my skin. I tired to avoid him but fate wouldn't let it happen.
The Sterling's were the most powerful in Havenwood and Dorian Sterling was off limits.
As an orphan finding out you still have people looking for you is hard to take but when it turns out to be people of wealth and standing I took the other road and ran, but running led me right back to the place I was avoiding and the person I was avoiding.
Asher and Dorling Sterling one and the same. When his first love shows up and along with everyone that has set out to ruin me, I prayed that he could protect me.
Glimmerdrop: The Crownwake Series
"This is your last chance to push me away."
At the fiercely hierarchical Haldorian Academy, magic-less commoner Hettie just wants to remain invisible. But Zadok, the academy's most untouchable elite, backs her into a corner she can't escape.
His fatal obsession sparks ruthless revenge: Dana, a high-tier wind mystic, turns paper into deadly blades during combat class, nearly blinding and disfiguring Hettie in a bloody attack .
The massive class divide and brutal bullying force Hettie to draw a line, demanding their romance be kept strictly underground .
That forever unattainable golden boy pinned her against the tree trunk, his scalding and aggressive kiss accompanied by a hopeless surrender: "You're going to be my doom ."
Worse still, Hettie discovers her parents’ dark secrets are dragging her into a deadly conspiracy of betrayal . Survival clashes with forbidden desire. In this deadly, cross-class temptation, whoever gives in first is doomed!












