Bound At Dusk

Award-winning student-teacher BDSM dark romance set in modern-day Edinburgh.

Winner of the All Filthy Details podcast Star Book Award.

Welcome to Edinburgh

Edinburgh, the capital of duality. This Queen of Scotland’s cities lures visitors with her enchanting beauty, but underneath her skirts, she hides her dark underbelly. The splendid lines of her form draw the eye away from the dank patch between her clenched thighs.

And so, too, of her people. Here, image is everything.

The wealthy wear their gilded masks and close stout doors on their secrets, while the impoverished project strength to paper over the cracks that fracture them.

The opulent residences of Morningside may be far flung from the poverty of Muirhouse but, on the streets, in alleyways and on corners, the two worlds collide, repel and collide again, like two pendulums on converging trajectories.

Repulsion powers attraction, and vice versa. This is the city’s story. And it is also our story.

Behind the facade of the Royal Balmoral Hotel, in an opulent suite, over the course of a single night, utter depravity holds the field. A young university student offers herself on the altar of her Professor’s twisted desires, a fatal bargain struck to save her from the consequences of her own reckless choices. But, as their fatal bargain unfolds, both find themselves entangled in a web of passion that ensnares them forever.

Meet Toni Amahle

Amahle (Zulu): “beautiful one”

Toni didn’t have it easy growing up. Being the sole mixed-race child of a single mother in a small rural community was hard enough without her mother’s serial sexual dalliances with local married men. It was a tough start but Toni’s determination drove her to excel.

She won a prestigious scholarship to study at the illustrious Edinburgh University and left her small town upbringing for good, vowing never to look back.

In Edinburgh, she embraced the student lifestyle, discovering partying, drinking, and boyfriends. Now in her final year, she’s secured a coveted position at a prestigious London talent agency. Her future is set; all she has to do is submit her final dissertation, and her new life can begin.

But Fate has other plans. An unfortunate event and a poor choice leaves Toni’s fate at the mercy of her Professor. Her infraction has been discovered. She’s summoned to a meeting, strangely not in the academic offices on campus but in a luxury suite in Edinburgh’s most opulent hotel on a weekend evening. Toni has no choice but to attend. Little does she know that Prof. David Charles is in thrall to his own personal demon: an all- consuming obsession-with her.

Confronted with her misconduct, with no way out, Toni bargains, using the only real asset she has ever possessed: herself.

She makes a daring proposal: overlook her mistakes in exchange for one night, her body at his disposal. How could the Professor possibly deny such a tantalizing offer, especially when Toni agrees to accommodate his most lascivious desires?

And with that, it begins. From dusk until dawn, Toni submits to her Professor’s demands, a dark and dangerous excursion into the realms of debauchery.

Unbeknownst to both, those twelve hours will interweave the threads of their destinies in ways neither could have imagined.

Meet Professor David Charles

A 50-year-old Edinburgh University professor, embracing his personal demons.

David Charles should have been content with his life. He had everything he had ever aspired to: a prestigious academic position, social stature, and a luxurious home in one of Edinburgh’s most coveted suburbs. But he is blind to the cost.

His dedication to his professional advancement has left his marriage careening on the rocks. When he discovers his wife’s affair with her tennis coach, it comes as a blow. Even greater the wound when, after being confronted with it, his wife elects to leave him for her lover. To add insult to injury, her lover’s name is Damien. And he is the physical embodiment of bronzed perfection, everything the plump, balding Professor is not.

David’s world shrivels into a sour existence. Work no longer satisfies. And home is just a roosting space for regrets. And so it crawls, until one day, he sees Toni, walking in The Meadows, heading to her lecture, headphones on, eyes half-closed, skin glistening in the sunshine, dreads swaying softly to the beat. Suddenly, David is consumed by desire, and the universe seems studded with possibility.

At first, David attempts to suffocate his obsession with the young student with other more conventional indulgences. But he soon discovers that burying things just encourages seed to sprout. And weeds grow faster than flowers.

David begins to change so that when the opportunity presents itself, the Professor is poised to exploit it. When a colleague raises suspicion of Toni’s academic misconduct, Professor Charles takes charge of it, with a singular purpose in mind: to possess Toni Amahle once and for all. Not to extinguish his demons, but to embrace them.

In the confines of an opulent hotel suite one Saturday evening, the offer is made and a bargain struck. Now, all that remains is for Professor Charles to take possession of Toni’s body in any way he chooses, as often as he chooses, from dusk till dawn, for one night only.

Both Toni and the Professor rationalise it as a singular, beneficial transaction but neither anticipates the true outcome.

The collision of two worlds must end with fragments. And so will this.