Slow Burn Romance - Stories

Oliver's marriage ends and his job disappears on the same Tuesday. So he flies to France, straps on a pack, and starts walking. Somewhere in the French Alps he meets Julien, a man carrying his own weight, and the two of them figure out—slowly, carefully—whether they've got room for each other.

Two grown men, a lot of hills, and the slow business of letting someone in.

Noah Lindholm and Jackson Lemaire have spent six years trying to beat each other during hockey games. Now they're expected to play on the same line for the Philadelphia Bobcats, and neither is happy about it.

At first, everything is a battle: practices, power plays, stubborn personalities and a locker room determined to tease them into getting along. But somewhere between a children's hospital visit, team barbecues, delayed flights and countless hours on the ice, rivalry gives way to something quieter. Neither notices that conversations last longer, silences grow easier, or that they're becoming each other's first choice for company.

Set in April 1848, the story opens on a fog‑bound morning in San Francisco’s Wentworth Hall, where Julian Wentworth wakes before dawn in a house ruled by discipline and silence. The estate is grand but cold, shaped by the rigid expectations of his powerful father. Julian moves through his morning with practiced composure, though a quiet tension lingers beneath everything — a sense that the household is shifting in ways he cannot yet name.

Six years ago, Adam Stanton found a legendary hacker "RoyR" in the Darknet. Now, at twenty, Adam transfers to the Moscow N.E.T. cyber-police branch to work with his idol. But his ideals shatter: Royr Grigoryev is an insufferable, cynical anarchist. Forced into an alliance, the new partners face a high-stakes cyber-warfare campaign and a dark legacy secret: Project ARN.

Seventeen years ago, Tyler was Martin’s high school drama club rival, accusing him of stealing the role he deserved. Now in their 30s, Martin has no interest in reconnecting with the guy who made his school years miserable. But when their employers team up to create a theater program for underprivileged youth, Martin and Tyler are forced to work together. It doesn’t help that Tyler is still cute as hell.

As old rivalries give way to some kind of friendship, Martin is plagued by painful memories of the past—and increasingly aggressive fantasies about his former nemesis. Have these theater nerds grown up at all?

Nearly divorced and miserable, twenty-five-year-old Wyatt Whitaker is a self-destructive force to be reckoned with. Fresh out of vet school, he’s already stretched thin between building his practice, helping his little brother cope with PTSD, and an inability to say no to anything that needs saving.

Taking in a gay nineteen-year-old-runaway he nearly ran over in a rainstorm shouldn’t complicate any of that.

Right?

Sugar, butter, flour. Love.

After losing their parents, 20 year-old Chase Hollow juggles odd jobs and late-night baking to care for his little sister, Prunella. He dreams of more — but dreams don’t pay bills.

When a job opens up as a bakery assistant at the upscale Keysbridge Inn, Chase applies on a whim… and finds himself clashing with the grumpy, polished Assistant Manager with a sharp tongue and colder stare.

But cookies and time have a way of softening edges.

Original story based on characters in “Cinderella Boy“ by Punko.

Betrayed and exiled, Aethan Valorian, heir to the throne of the Cathesan Empire finds himself exiled on Kharon-IV, an inhospitable planet that holds many secrets beneath its shifting sands. Incarcerated in an industrial prison and forced to fight in arena matches, Aethan meets the volatile Bhal-Ghor, a gladiator who has been imprisoned for over two centuries. As secrets about the planet's past are unearthed, Aethan and Ghor must learn to set aside their differences and learn to trust one another in order to survive...assuming they don't kill each other first.

When Matteo Romano, a straight Italian guy, convinces his best friend Adrian to pretend to be his boyfriend to keep his ex away, things get complicated fast. What starts as a harmless favor turns into late nights, lingering touches, and the kind of tension neither of them can keep pretending about.