Book picks similar to
Combative by Jay McLean


romance
new-adult
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cliffhanger

By Any Other Name


J.M. Darhower - 2015
    Two families at war. Nobody is safe, not even the innocent. Especially the innocent. Blood will be spilled. Genevieve "Genna" Galante knows a thing or two about causing trouble. After all, it's engrained in her DNA. As the only daughter of Primo Galante, notorious boss of the Galante crime family, her life is dictated by a certain set of rules… rules Genna was never very good at following. Matteo "Matty" Barsanti never wanted anything to do with the family business, but as the first-born Barsanti son, certain things are expected of him. It's his duty, according to his father, to help take down the enemy... even if that enemy means something to him. A chance encounter on an elevator changes the course of lives, causing the biggest trouble of Genna's young life. The only good Barsanti is a dead Barsanti. She's heard it said time and time again. So what happens when she falls in love with one of them? The story of star-crossed lovers caught in the middle of the biggest rivalry New York has ever seen, determined to make it… if only they can survive their parents' feud.

Sugar Daddy


Sawyer Bennett - 2016
    Sela Halstead lost her innocence in a way that no sixteen-year-old should ever have to endure. She’s spent years trying to forget that night even while wondering about the identities of the monsters who brutalized her—until a telltale tattoo flashes across Sela’s TV screen. The incriminating ink belongs to Jonathon Townsend, the millionaire founder of The Sugar Bowl, a website that matches rich older men with impressionable young women. Obsessed with revenge, Sela infiltrates Townsend’s world, only to come face-to-face with a tantalizing complication: Beckett North, his charismatic business partner. The tech mastermind behind The Sugar Bowl, Beck always gets what he wants, in business and in bed. And yet, for a man who’s done every dirty thing imaginable, there’s something about the naïve, fresh-faced Sela that sparks his hottest fantasies. Because with her, it’s not just about sex. Beck opens up to her in ways he never has with other girls. So why does he get the feeling that she’s hiding something? In a world of pleasure and power, the shocking truth could turn them against each other—or bind them forever. Note: Sugar Daddy ends on a cliffhanger. Sela and Beck’s story continues in Sugar Rush and Sugar Free!

Carter Reed


Tijan - 2013
    It was the last easy decision she made because she found her roommate being raped by her boyfriend. She had two choices. Call the cops and be killed by his family’s mafia connections or kill him first and hope to survive. There was no choice to her. She killed the bastard first and went to the one person who could protect her. Carter Reed. He’s a weapon for the rivaling mafia family, but he’s also Emma’s secret. Not only was he best friends with her brother, but she’s the reason he became that weapon in the first place.

Sins & Needles


Karina Halle - 2013
    The daughter of a grifting team, Ellie spent her childhood being used as a pawn in her parents' latest scam. Now she’s much older, wiser and ready to give her con artist life a rest. But returning to the dry desert town of Palm Valley, California means one more temptation than she bargained for – Camden McQueen. Once known as the high school weirdo, Camden is bigger and badder than the boy he used to be and a talented tattoo artist with his own thriving business. Ellie’s counting on Camden still being in love with her but what she’s not counting on is how easily unrequited love can turn into obsession over time. When Camden discovers Ellie’s plan to con him, he makes her a deal she doesn’t dare refuse, but her freedom comes with a price and it’s one that takes both Ellie and Camden down a dangerous road.

Dirty


Callie Hart - 2018
    Body of a god. And a mouth so dirty he could make the devil blush… Fix Marcosa’s time can be bought with money, but he isn’t selling sex. Murderers, rapists, criminals: if you’re on the wrong side of Fix’s moral code, you’re in trouble. The kind of trouble that winds up getting you killed. As a hitman for hire, Fix is no stranger to violence. He’s merciless. Relentless. A true savage, down to the roots of his very soul. You can beg. You can plead. You can pray, but it won’t do you any good. Once the tall, dark stranger arrives at your doorstep, it’s already too late to repent. Sera Lafferty’s no stranger to heartbreak. With an abusive father and a dependant sister, her life has been one of sacrifice and compromise. As soon as she sets eyes on Felix ‘Fix’ Marcosa, she recognizes the darkness in him and makes a vow: she will not get involved. But trapped inside a motel room with the sexiest man to ever walk the earth? Throw in some tequila and the storm to end all storms, and Sera finds herself worshipping at the altar of Marcosa. She knows she made a mistake. She knows she needs to run. But when she witnesses the assassin at work first hand, she knows it’s far too late. Thrown into the back of his sleek black ride, Sera finds herself trapped, and in more way than one. Fix is deadly. He’s demanding, he’s dirty, and he’s determined to claim her for his own.

Dirty Ties


Pam Godwin - 2015
    I race to finance it. I evade to protect it. I kill to attain it. I planned everything. Except her. The alluring, curvaceous blonde at the finish line. With sapphire eyes that cheat and lie. Whose powerful family murdered mine. I hate her. I want her. I know she’s hiding something. But so am I.

Better When He's Bad


Jay Crownover - 2014
    . . meet Shane Baxter. Sexy, dark, and dangerous, Bax isn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, he is the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the master of bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Bax is out and looking for answers, and he doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to hurt to get them. But there’s a new player in the game, and she’s much too innocent, much too soft…and standing directly in his way. Dovie Pryce knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. She’s always tried to be good, tried to help others, and tried not to let the darkness pull her down. But the streets are fighting back, things have gone from bad to worse, and the only person who can help her is the scariest, sexiest, most complicated ex-con The Point has ever produced. Bax terrifies her, but it doesn’t take Dovie long to realize that some boys are just better when they’re bad.

Unloved


Katy Regnery - 2017
    My name is Cassidy Porter...My father, Paul Isaac Porter, was executed twenty years ago for the brutal murder of twelve innocent girls.Though I was only eight-years-old at the time, I am aware - every day of my life - that I am his child, his only son.To protect the world from the poison in my veins, I live a quiet life, off the grid, away from humanity.I promised myself, and my mother, not to infect innocent lives with the darkness that swirls within me, waiting to make itself known.It's a promise I would have kept...if Brynn Cadogan hadn't stumbled into my life.Now I exist between heaven and hell: falling for a woman who wants to love me, while all along reminding myself that I must remain...Unloved.**NOTE: This book is intended for readers 18+**

Outside the Ropes


Ashley Claudy - 2015
    Outside the ropes, she fights to survive.Regan Sommers spent her life fighting. Fighting foster parents, kids in the group home, and classmates. But the night she has to fight for her life changes everything. Now, she's fighting for money in the ring, and from the first punch she's addicted. Every addiction has a price though, and this one is the gym's star boxer, Gage Lawson. He may come in an enticing tattooed package, but his demands are more than she can handle. The responding officer from that night, Anthony Fields, comes with no demands. He wants whatever she's willing to give, and Regan can handle that. She can definitely handle him. But no help comes string free, and Regan's not the only one with a hard past and scars to cover. The life she was trying to escape is nothing compared to the danger she's in the middle of now, and she can't fight her way out.***Reader please be aware: Story contains mature content such as: Drugs, sex, abuse, and explicit language that may be upsetting for some.****

Dangerous Beauty


J.T. Geissinger - 2019
    A hot bodyguard. A high-stakes game of temptation.For Nasir, former Special Ops military man and bodyguard, his new job seems like an easy-money gig: trail a Russian mobster’s runaway wife in Mexico, enjoy the sun, observe, and report. Just one rule: don’t get too close. But it’s all Naz can do not to watch the alluring dancer’s every move. A closer look is irresistible—especially when she’s in trouble.Evalina escaped to the island getaway to live an untraceable life—as far away from the past as she can get. But Eva can’t ignore the dark, muscled stud who rescues her from a drug gang. He says he’s an ex-cop on vacation. When providence throws them together time and again, Eva thinks it’s all a beautiful coincidence. Now she’s giving in to a strange new sensation: trust.But Naz has a mission to accomplish and a secret to keep. Eva has her share of secrets, too. And as the heat flares between them, Naz knows that trust could become the most dangerous impulse of all.***Part one of a three part series.***

Deathless & Divided


Bethany-Kris - 2015
    This is how a war starts.A life for a life. That’s the mafia way. Damian Rossi owes his life to a man who is ready to collect. That payment comes in the form of an arranged marriage to the daughter of another leading family in the Chicago Outfit. He’s ready to follow through, even if that means making sure Lily knows she’s his.Lily DeLuca isn’t being given a choice. Forced home to marry a man she doesn’t know and back into a life she’d rather forget, her world is full of half-truths, buried pain, and uncertainty. But Damian is nothing like she expects. His motives aren’t clear. Her beliefs are being tested.When it comes to this world, no man can be trusted. Someone is ready to flip the Chicago Outfit on its side all for the promise of something better. But no one runs a clean game and these men play for keeps. When blood begins to paint Chicago red, four families will be divided by loyalty, hatred, and revenge. There is no hiding. There is no safety.No one is deathless.No one.

Beat


Amity Cross - 2014
    Then one day they lose the battle and she’s all alone.Now twenty-two, Ren reluctantly goes to find her estranged father. He owns the down and out boxing studio, Beat, and Ren finds herself drawn to the ring. She thrives on learning a new way of fighting a life that kept kicking her down…instead of struggling against the current, she kicks it right between the legs.Then one day, Ash Fuller, her Dad's star fighter comes back to town. Mysterious, handsome… Dangerous… Everything Ren doesn't need.But he's got other ideas……and so does she.

The Strongest Steel


Scarlett Cole - 2015
    She's determined to forget her old life and is looking for an artist who can tattoo over the scars on her back.Trent Andrews, local legend and owner of the Second Circle tattoo studio, has his own reasons for specializing in inking over scars. And in spite of her mysterious past and the difficult road ahead, he quickly realizes that Harper is funny, smart, and--under her ridiculously oversized clothing and SPF 100 sunscreen--totally hot. He's happy to take on the challenge of designing a meaningful and deadly full-back tattoo for her.But when cryptic messages start appearing on Harper's phone, strange deliveries arrive at her door, and Second Circle is vandalized, Harper is convinced that her ex-boyfriend has tracked her down, and worse, that he knows about Trent. Running was the only thing that saved her last time, but now that she's started to put down roots in Miami, she'll have to decide if she can finally fight back instead.

Dirty English


Ilsa Madden-Mills - 2015
    She’s learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end.But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex.A tattooed British street fighter, he’s the campus bad boy she’s supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.She gives him one night of unbridled passion, but he longs for more. With only a cardboard-thin wall separating their bedrooms, he dreams of possessing the vulnerable girl next door forever.One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime. *A modern love story inspired by Pride and Prejudice*

The Missing Link


J.M. Sevilla - 2013
    It's intended to be read by mature audiences. Part one of a two part series. There are three things Lily Evans immediately notices about her new neighbor, Jay Lincoln. The first is his monstrous size, the second is the malicious way he glares at her, and thirdly, but most importantly, the three scars that mark his right eye. She knows the smart thing to do is stay away, but she has never met or seen anyone like him. The more time she spends with this frightening yet captivating man, the harder it becomes. He can make her hairs stand on end but he also has a sweetness to him that tugs at her heart. Soon she finds herself merged into his world full of murder, revenge, and deceit.New Adult Romance