WAKE HER SLOWLY

She stopped feeling the day she buried her brother. He promised the dead he'd stay away from her.

Elena Brooks hasn't cried, laughed, or wanted anything in eleven months. She functions. She works. She lets the world see a woman who is coping. But when her brother Theo dies, he leaves her one thing: half of the crumbling lighthouse inn on the Maine coast that was his whole dream.

The other half belongs to Gideon Hale.

Gideon was Theo's best friend for twenty years. He's a restoration contractor with a hard jaw, quiet hands, and a way of looking at her that feels like being seen through glass. He controls the majority share, the money, and every decision about the inn. He also made a promise at Theo's bedside: Keep your hands off my sister.

Gideon doesn't break promises. He doesn't lose control. He hasn't let anyone close since the night he lost the only family he ever chose.

But the inn can't be saved, or sold, unless they work side by side through one long, winter-bound season. Shared walls. One working furnace. Nights when the only heat is the kind neither will name.

Elena starts to feel again, first anger, then hunger, then something much more dangerous. Gideon starts to unravel, his possessiveness growing with every look, every touch, every time she lets him take the lead and bring her body back to life.

But Gideon is hiding what he's been doing since Theo died. And when Elena finds out how far he went to keep her safe, she'll have to decide whether his control is love or a cage.

Content note: This book contains explicit, graphic sexual content, a possessive dominant hero, grief themes, and emotional intensity. For readers 18+. Consent is present and central throughout. HEA guaranteed. No cliffhanger.

Tropes: Forbidden Love · Brother's Best Friend · Forced Proximity · Possessive Alpha · Grief & Emotional Healing · Slow Burn