And he rewarded me - with his mouth.
It found the underside of my bra, dragging along the lace with unbearable slowness. His lips brushed the fabric, then parted. He sucked lightly, through it, eyes still locked on mine. My back arched off the bed with a sound I didn't recognize - part gasp, part moan, part plea.
"Fuck," he growled against me, voice shaking now too. "You drive me insane."
His hand gripped my waist, thumb brushing the sensitive dip between rib and hip, holding me steady as his mouth continued its path - tasting, teasing, retracing places he'd already kissed like he wasn't finished with them.
Golden light poured over his shoulders, bathing him in fire.
The muscles in his back flexed with every movement - tight, tense, like he was restraining himself from going too far, too fast. His skin glistened with a faint sheen, each dip and ridge of his body cut in gold and shadow. He looked otherworldly. Feral. Controlled chaos wrapped in a perfect body.
And still, his hands were gentle.
His touch was reverent.
His mouth... devastating.
_____________________________
Alani, a young, beautiful woman, has been abused her whole life by her father. In a cruel twist of fate, she is sold to a mafia boss after her father refuses to keep her any longer.
Atlas, a 29-year-old man- cold and ruthless mafia boss. His mother and father have given him no choice but to find a women and wed her. When a man who forgets to pay Atlas back, offers to give his daughter to Atlas for marriage.
Their connection is something out of this world, their souls bound in a way that they're perfect for each other. The only obstacle separating them is their fear. Will they take the leap towards true love, or will they forever be apart? Only time can answer this question, but their hearts yearn for each other so strongly.
Book 1 in the Sacred Bonds series.
There are two kinds of scars on a man. The ones you can see, etched into skin by the Texas sun, and the ones you can't; the kind carved into a twelve-year-old boy watching his legacy get stolen at the barrel of a smile.
For AZAD MARTINEZ, the memory is a film reel that never stops playing. The day his father was laid in the ground, his uncle, MALIK MARTINEZ, arrived to deliver his first lesson in family: it's a weakness. He threw Azad and his grieving mother out of their own home, the only home they'd ever known, the very dirt his father had sworn was a sacred trust. But Malik didn't just take the land. As a final, calculated act of cruelty, he took Azad's older brother, ZAYAN, dragging him away to be remade in his own corrupted image.
Now, years later, the echoes of that day have become a relentless soundtrack. Azad has built a new empire from nothing, a legitimate agricultural powerhouse, but every success is shadowed by the ghost of what was stolen and the sound of his mother crying in the next room, her tears a silent prayer for the son she couldn't protect, begging for a forgiveness only God and his return can grant.
But Malik isn't finished teaching lessons. He's back with a contract, wielding a forgotten debt from Azad's father like a holy writ. He offers a choice that is no choice at all, a move designed to break Azad's spirit completely and claim his hard-won empire.
This is where the real war begins.
This is a halal romance, a journey deep into the heart of what it means to love under the weight of duty, to seek revenge without losing your soul, and to find the impossible path to forgiveness when the wound is the only thing that reminds you you're still alive. This is a story of one man standing on the land he built, forced to choose between the vengeance that fuels him and the faith that could save him, all while the ghost of his brother and the cries of his mother threaten to pull his world apart at the seams.