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