Forbidden Bloom by Kayla Koc

Length: 7,800 words

Alabama thought her life was perfectly planted—stable marriage, quiet suburb, predictable days. But beneath the surface, something was dying.

When she joins the local garden club to fill the empty hours while her husband, Austin, works late, she never expects to meet Fernando, the commanding master gardener whose strong, soil-stained hands and dark eyes make her pulse race. What starts as innocent guidance—his fingers guiding hers through rich loam, his body heat pressing close as he teaches her to prune and propagate—soon becomes private sessions filled with lingering touches, heated whispers, and the intoxicating scent of earth and arousal.

The affair ignites fast and burns hot. Stolen afternoons in the greenhouse become fevered encounters: rough hands pinning her against glass walls, filthy praise in a low, accented growl, her body learning to crave the kind of surrender her marriage never offered. Fernando doesn’t ask—he takes, and Alabama finds herself giving everything: her secrets, her guilt, her soaked panties left behind like evidence.