ASCENSION| A Winston Hills Novel #3 C.M. Barnes

We tried to find a appropriate quote…we couldn't.
Enter at your own risk..

A novel of dominance, surrender, and the quiet chaos of becoming, where Power isn’t given. It’s taken—and sometimes, it’s surrendered.

By day, Calla Black is the elusive CEO of Black Sphere Technologies—brilliant, controlled, and completely untouchable. Her world is code and silence, order and solitude. But when night falls and her mask slips into place, she transforms into The Black Dahlia, Provocateur’s most sought-after dominatrix. In the dungeon, power isn’t a negotiation; it’s her birthright, and she owns it outright.

James Carter Jr. is no stranger to chaos. As the youngest son in a family built on secrets, shame, and betrayal, he’s spent a lifetime trying to play peacemaker and peacekeeper. Outwardly confident and disarmingly charming, he’s recently settled into Winston Hills as the town’s new Resident Engineer, but behind his easy smile lies a hunger, a need to surrender, to serve, to feel the exquisite release only submission can bring. When fate places him at the wedding of his brother’s best friend, he finally meets Calla, the enigmatic woman who avoids him like a shadow. But it’s not until he steps into Provocateur and sees her, The Black Dahlia, in full bloom, that he realizes the woman he’s been chasing and the Mistress he aches for are one and the same.

She commands.
He craves.
But dominance and submission are never just about sex; it’s about truth, trust, and the terrifying act of being seen. In a world where pain brings pleasure and masks offer safety, Calla and James will have to break every rule they’ve lived by to discover whether love can be forged in the fire of surrender.