After a tragedy, Amila Johnson abandons her life in New York and retreats back to her birthplace of Houston. She tries to start anew but she can't get far with the skills of being an almost classically trained ballerina. Deciding to take up her friend's offer to pick up a few shifts at a coffee shop, she becomes reacquainted with a person from her past. He wants to help her but values his privacy and she doesn't like handouts. So, they formulate a contractual agreement. An agreement that's pleasurable for them both but will feelings get in the way of this act of ink and lust or will things stay professional. Luxury and sex; what's more to want?

♡| ONC 2020 Short Lister |♡ ♡| Now A Full-Length Novel |♡ Run with the big dogs, they said. It will be fun, they said. Let me tell you riding in the back of a cop car is not as sexy as it sounds. Handcuffs are a lot more entertaining when you're getting laid. I ran with the big dogs. Now I'm caged with them. A textbook drug deal gone bad. Case closed. I've given up fighting, even if my folks haven't. It's like learning to walk again. Lebanon Correctional carries its own codes and laws of violence, bureaucracy, and extortion. Ones I'm hell-bent on avoiding. Until my cellie teaches me to make a tattoo gun. Colt Cross. First degree murder; fifteen-to-life. Brilliant and broken. Fighting for me inside the fence while my family rallies on the outside; proving beyond a reasonable doubt that nothing is as it seems. Cover art by the lovely @AFleetingDream_91 Warning: Contains offensive language (racial slurs, sexual slurs) Contains sexual situations