Book Review: The Contract by Elyse Thomas

 

Book Description

Twelve months. Total submission. One million dollars.

I spent six years in a convent, preparing for a life of silence and service. I never expected my new life to begin under the ruthless control of Stephan Marek—my boss, my temptation, and the most dangerous man in Chicago’s most elite law firm.

Stephan is a brilliant, untouchable predator in a thousand-dollar suit. When he discovers I’m a virgin—untouched in every way—he makes a deal only a monster would propose:

One year of complete sexual submission in exchange for one million dollars.

The money will save my sister’s life. The price will cost me my soul.

The contract is airtight. The rules are absolute. But nothing about Stephan Marek is simple.

As I’m drawn deeper into his world of dominance and control, my shame collides with a dark, awakening desire. In the shadows of his penthouse, obedience begins to feel dangerously close to freedom. I vowed never to surrender again—but what if my submission is the only thing that can set me free?

He owns my body by contract. But will he keep my heart by choice?

The Contract is a dark, emotionally intense BDSM romance that explores the thin line between possession and protection.

If you loved the religious and moral tension of Priest by Sierra Simone or the erotic depth of The Siren by Tiffany Reisz, this is your next obsession.

Fans of the forbidden workplace dynamics in Beautiful Bastard and the high-stakes legal tension of Terms and Conditions will find their new favorite anti-hero in Stephan Marek.

If you crave the raw intensity and binding sexual agreements found in Sara Cate’s Keep Me or Nikki Sloane’s The Initiation, this story of power exchange and ultimate surrender will leave you breathless.

Tropes Included: Virgin Heroine (Former Nun), Forbidden Boss/Employee Romance, Age Gap / Alpha Hero, Forced Proximity & Power Exchange, Explicit BDSM & High-Stakes Consent, Guaranteed Happily Ever After.

Welcome to Binding Agreements—where contracts are seductive, control is currency, and desire always comes with a price.

My Review

Katie is a former nun. She left the church when her sister got sick and needed cancer treatments that their mother couldn't pay for. Katie is smart so it was no big deal to get her lawyer's license and get a job at a large firm. 

Stephan has been a lawyer for 20 years, people know he's intimidating, organized and thorough. His orderly life is thrown for a loop when he interviews Katie for a position at his firm and he gives her the job. 

The pull Stephan feels towards Katie is instantaneous. They work closely together on a huge case that they cannot afford to lose. But there are things about the case that are getting them into hot water if anyone finds out about it. As they work together for the case, it becomes harder and harder for them to not act on their feelings. They both make some decisions that are very questionable. Decisions that would ruin their lives if anyone found out but they do it anyway? It just wasn't very smart or believable to me that they just decided to risk it all for the reasons they came up with. 

Stephan was not the hero that I wanted. He has some emotional damage that makes him a bit strange. So instead of just falling for Katie and having a normal relationship with Katie when they admit their feelings for each other, he brings out a contract he's been working on for them. It's a Dom/sub contract. If she signs it, she agrees to be his submissive for 12 months and she'll get paid One Million dollars, which is more than enough to pay for her sister's cancer treatments. 

Stephan thinks he's saving her, protecting her or something. He could have just told her that he likes a little BDSM in the bedroom instead of drawing up this contract because at first, she was hurt by it, but she did agree, which I seriously doubt a former nun would do. But what do I know. 

The funny thing is, there isn't a whole lot of BDSM in the book, sure there's a little bit but it wasn't anything over the top like I was expecting. They don't even act on their feelings until almost half way through the book. The first half of the book was a bit slow but it does pick up a bit. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC copy of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"Happy Unicorn/donut day. Did you know that if you combine glitter with cheese, you'll get sparkle farts?"

"Got caught stealing cheese"

*All pictures are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #416

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 27 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

Life Update: 

My daughter had to quit her job on Wednesday. It's right next door but she was shaky, out of breath, in pain and having a hard time breathing when she walked over there to let them know she was quitting so I had to hold her arm on the walk home because she was so unsteady on her feet. There's no way she can stand for a job even for 4 hours, part time right now. The doctor is talking about putting her on oxygen anytime she has to stand up because her blood pressure gets low when she stands up.

My shoulders are much better. My knee is still quite swollen but I'm sure in time I will be back to normal.  (Not that I'm normal, in any way. 🤣)

I told you a few weeks ago that we had no address or building numbers on any of the buildings. Delivery drivers couldn't find where to deliver, first responders couldn't find people who were calling for help. So I emailed the manager and told her that. They put up temporary address numbers that blew away in the wind. But last week they finally put up new building numbers and address signs.

They even put the building numbers for the buildings in the back where people coming into the courtyard to make a delivery, can see them. 

They even put apartment numbers with the building number next to each door! This should help a lot. Let's just hope the glue they used will hold during the hot, hot Summer temps.  

---

Tuesday evening the police were across the street, arrested a lady and put all of the stuff she had in her large purse into evidence bags. 

I watched as they tested something, probably drugs and held the baggie up to her in the back of the squad car. I'm guessing she's going away for having drugs on her too. I couldn't see who it was in the back seat.

---

Monday night I walk out to the path with Falcor that I always do. They were by the water boxes that I told you about last week.  And there's 2 people smoking drugs out of a meth pipe. I just walk by and mind my business. 

Later that night I go out there again and they are still out there. They're all friendly, "how you doing tonight" I said good, how are you? 

He lifts the meth pipe and says, "better now" and laughs. 

You can't make this stuff up. Smh

----

On Wednesday a homeless lady with 2 Chihuahuas passed me on our walk. She looked at Falcor and tried to pick him up, called him Pepe. I told her not to pick my dog up and his name was Falcor. 

Her: "Are you sure his name is Falcor and not Pepe. I lost my dog last week and he looks just like yours."

Me: "Yeah, I've had him for 12 years."

Her: "Are you sure you have?"

Me: "Yeah, and I have vet records to prove it."

She then tries to pet him again and he barks at her. 

Me: "If he was Pepe, I think he wouldn't be trying to eat your face."

Her: "He was always like that."

She tries to pick him up again and I get closer and tell her to leave my dog alone. I pulled the leash behind me so she can't do it again and I'm standing right in her face. 

Her: "If you promise to give him a good home, I'll let you have him." 

Me: "Since you lost one of your dogs last week, I think you're an irresponsible pet owner and you should give me both of your other dogs. I'll give them a good home. How about that?" 

Her: "You could have just said he's not Pepe. You don't have to be a Bitch about it." 
Me: "I did." 

She walked away. 

I was getting ready to punch this woman in the face if she tried to take my dog. Don't try me. I'll put you in the trunk of a car and help the search party search for you. 🤣🤣🤪🤪

----

Falcor needed to go out right before midnight on Wednesday. As we were standing outside 2 police cars pulled up, parked their vehicles in the middle of the street and ran into the apartment complex across the street. 

They were running from courtyard to courtyard over there looking for someone. As I was getting back to my courtyard, I saw them come back out to their cars and talk for a moment and then they ran back into the apartment complex again. They were there for a while but after about 40 minutes of not seeing anything else happening, I went back to sleep. No idea what the outcome of this was. 

---

The high this week was 80F/26C

The low this week was 50F/10C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Saturday Vittles

 

I know it says mug cake but I made mine in a ramekin.

This is not a healthy dessert. Nonetheless, some days a girl needs a piece of cake! 🤣🤣

Coffee Cake Mug Cake

That's right, this is a mug cake. I perfected the best recipe for a moist, fluffy mug cake. 

Ingredients

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 1/2 TBSP brown sugar

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

 1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

1 1/2 TBSP butter, melted

Crumb Topping

1 1/2 TBSP butter, softened

2 1/2 TBSP brown sugar

1 TBSP flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

What to do:

In a mug (or ramekin), combine all ingredients for the mug cake. Stir until well combined and smooth.

In a separate bowl, combine ingredients for the crumb topping and mix together with a fork until it has a crumb-like texture. I mixed it with my fingers until it was crumbly, it was just easier.

 Top with crumb topping.

Microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Serve warm.

Just take a look at that moist cake! Omg this is the best mug cake I've made so far. That crumb topping is so good. If you like coffee cake, give this one a try. 

It's better to make one piece of cake because if I made a whole cake, I will end up eating the entire thing over a few days. I have no self control with cake! 🤣🤣🤣 There's a reason I'm fat, and that reason is cake!

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full-sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things.  I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received: 

A Healthy Snack Box

A box of Macy's perfume samples

A box from Temptations Cat Treats

I won a $5 Amazon gift card in a FB group

The Healthy Snack box is always great. There were popcorn, pretzels, Nature Valley Granola bars, NutriGrain bar, peach tea, lemon cookie and gummi bears. 

I liked most of the perfume in this box. 

I gave the cat treats to a friend who has a cat.

A pretty good week. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

I took sunrise pictures last week so how about a couple of sunset pictures this week. I was walking Falcor on the quiet path next to the sound wall that I usually walk and it was very cloudy. That's also the Mexican Market that I've been able to walk to and get a little grocery shopping done. It's right next door. I haven't been able to go anywhere else because of the Agoraphobia but at least I can walk over there now. 

Another sunset this week. 

If this cloud had been closer on Monday, we would have gotten some rain. Oh well. 

Book Review: Pain, Dreams and Desire by Ann Han

 

Book Description

Nessa's life is shattered in a single night-her father is murdered, and she is left traumatized by an act of brutal violence that changes her forever. Desperate to escape the ghosts of her past, she leaves England for Boston, determined to reclaim her life-and perhaps herself.

Her new boss, Nathaniel, is a man who thrives on control. At work and beyond, he keeps his emotions tightly guarded, believing relationships are distractions he can't afford. But when a high-stakes business trip takes them to New York, the tension simmering between them becomes impossible to ignore.

Haunted by fear yet longing to feel alive again, Nessa asks Nathaniel for something she has never known-how to experience pleasure without terror. As their connection deepens and desire ignites, both are forced to confront the walls they've built to protect themselves.

In surrendering control and trust, they must decide whether healing, intimacy, and love are risks worth taking.

Pure Desire is an emotionally intense, sensual romance about trauma, recovery, and the courage it takes to want again.

My Review

This book starts off with a very traumatic event where Vanessa's/Nessa father is killed and she is assaulted. After a while, when things start to get back to some kind of normal, Nessa gets a job opportunity in the US. She wants a new beginning, so with the encouragement of her friends and mother, she takes the job and moves away from England. 

Nathaniel is Nessa's new boss. He's known for being a playboy who isn't the settling down type. But being around his new PA, Nessa is making him feel things he hasn't let himself feel since his mother died. Not wanting to experience the kind of pain his father did when his mother died, Nathaniel has locked away his heart so that he never feels the kind of pain his father did, even if he's done so unconsciously.

Nessa has a lot of trauma to get through before she's ready to go on with her life and have a relationship with anyone. This was a slow burn romance, where we see two people trying to get their lives back together with the help of friends and family. 

Both of these characters have sadness in their pasts and it's going to take some time for them to finally take a chance and find true love. 

While this isn't my usual type of book, I really liked getting to know these characters and seeing how they could get past all the heartbreak and make a loving life for themselves with each other. 

This book starts off with a bang, then slows down a bit in the middle as the entire story unfolds, but I'm glad I kept reading because the storyline picks up again towards the end. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures this week are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #415

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 27 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

Life Update: 

My right shoulder is better, my left one is still very painful and I still can't raise it above my arm. My daughter is still in pain. She's seen a couple of doctors and is waiting for referrals for Cardiology and Pulmonology. So we are still in a wait and see situation. Thank you to everyone who donated/shared the fundraiser her friend made for her. Thank you for all the well wishes too, we really appreciate it. 

---

I was hoping for a quiet week, but of course not.

I took a really short video of the police on my street again this week. When I first took Falcor out I saw 2 guys in the middle of the street punching the crap out of each other. But then one of them had the other on the ground and was going crazy punching him. People came out of the apartment complex on the corner and stopped the fight. A woman was screaming, "He didn't even hurt me. There are no marks on my face." Then she called him dad and I knew right away what happened. The father of the woman found out that her boyfriend hit her and dad decided to teach him a lesson and boy did he ever.

The thing that really got me was that when I was coming back from our walk, this cop speeds past me on the damn sidewalk. There are yellow, metal poles to stop people *and cops* from driving on this sidewalk, but the cops drive on it anyway. If I hadn't quickly pulled Falcor over into the rocks where I'm standing, this idiot cop would have run him over. He sped past me really fast. 

Look in front of the cop, there are at least 5 other cop cars there. He could have slowed down a little. Idiot.

This is the sidewalk that we were walking down just to give you a better perspective. 

Someone called the police and a bunch of them showed up as you can see in the video and first picture. The boyfriend was arrested and probably had to see the jail nurse. I didn't see if the dad was arrested too but probably. 

----

I call these The Power Boxes but when some of the homeless broke them open, I could see that they are most likely water boxes. The homeless people will put a tarp over the two metal boxes when it's raining or cold and set up a bed in the middle of them to keep warm because there's some kind of heat source coming from them. This time though I think they were going inside to use it as a bathroom. I saw a guy emerging from the open side pulling his pants up. 😮

I didn't get great picture on the inside because it was so dark in there but you might be able to see the wheels, I'm guessing to turn the water on and off. 

Plus there's a sticker on the outside that says, Las Vegas Valley Water District. So, water boxes. 🤣🤣

You can see how close this is to my apartment building. The orange stripe on my apartment complex now really makes my apartment stand out and not in a good way. This is where I walk Falcor most of the time because it's usually quiet and no one else is over here for the most part. 

---

The new people in Xavier's old apartment are driving a lot of people crazy around here. They let a bunch of homeless stay there, there are fights, they stay up all night making noise in front of others bedroom windows, the list goes on and on. But this guy who I'm not going to show a clear picture of his face, was walking by me to that apartment and he had his shorts partially pulled down and he was holding his genitals in his hand. I didn't see anything because he had his hand cupped over his twig and berries, but it was just weird. A few minutes later he came outside and was helping the other people from that apartment put stuff in the grocery cart to put in another car they have. They have sooo many cars, it's a little weird. 

----

Last Sunday the cops were walking up and down my street. One of them stopped and asked me where the leasing office was. I showed him. But it was the weekend and no one was there. He asked me if I had seen a guy matching a description he gave me. I said no. But I asked if the guy knew they were looking for him and he said, "Oh yeah, he knows." 

So, I said, "He might be hiding down in the tunnels."

He and his partner both turned around and said, "What tunnels?" 

So I said, "Over there where the manhole cover is off. "
They asked me to show them, so I did and he used his radio to call it in, I guess. On my way back by them, he says to me, "We're not allowed to go down there to search for someone." 

I said he could also be in the vacant houses that the homeless have been squatting in and setting fires in. 

Again, he looks at his partner and asks me where they are. I pointed down the alley and said, "Just look for the missing boards on the wooden fence, they are in that house and the one right next door where the fire was a few weeks ago."

They had no idea that the homeless were squatting in the vacant houses or anything about the tunnels.  I have no idea if they found the guy they were looking for or not.

I've now seen and talked to those two same police officers 3 days in a row. They were looking for a black, stolen Tahoe vehicle the last time they talked to me. 

---

 

There have been at least 3 different RV's parked in front of my apartment complex or out behind it like in this video. Most people around here wouldn't care if they would pick up their trash but they don't and you see what I mean in the video. In the RV's there are several homeless people coming and going from all of them. The police have stopped all of them and made them move but the next day they are right back. This isn't the first time the homeless have had RV's in the neighborhood and have been a problem. There was also this and this time. I have no idea how the homeless are getting all these RV's. Me and another neighbor were just asking ourselves that. 

This is the one parked in front of my complex. They've been leaving a bunch of trash on the sidewalk so I don't even walk the dog over there now. There are 2 more RV's that I didn't take pictures of. 

The high this week was 90F/32C

The low this week was 56F/13C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Saturday Vittles

 

My daughter and I are trying to eat healthier so I thought I would share some of the things we are eating. 

Chicken, Green Beans and Sliced Almond Casserole

Ingredients

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup uncooked rice

2-1/4 cups chicken broth

3 cups cubed cooked chicken

2 cups frozen french-style green beans, thawed

1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted

1/4 cup sliced almonds

1 jar (4 ounces) diced pimientos, drained

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

In a large saucepan, sauté onion in butter until tender. Add rice and broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Uncover; set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine chicken, green beans, soup, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Stir in rice.

Transfer to a 2-1/2-qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with diced pimentos and almonds. Cover and bake at 350° until heated through, 30-35 minutes.

Nutrition Facts

1 cup: 297 calories and 24 carbohydrates 

I love a good casserole, what about you? This was really good.