Book picks similar to
The Deal by Talia Ellison
mafia
romance
dark
freebie
Wicked Games
A.D. Justice - 2013
When the trail led her into a dangerous web of lies, she was forced to choose between destroying the man she loved and giving up her entire life to enter WITSEC. After three years of living as someone else, everything changed when her true identity and location were discovered. Noah “Reaper” Steele created a successful business in Steele Security, but he never fully recovered after he lost Brianna. He shared his bed with other women but they never had his heart. Noah's life solely revolved around his work. Everything changed the night he caught an intruder in his house and learned it was actually his long-dead love, Brianna. With their reunion, they discovered the passion that fueled their relationship was still alive, burning hotter than ever. However, even Noah’s love couldn’t erase the sting of her betrayal, and he wrestled with allowing her back in his life. Brianna was the only woman he’d ever loved, but he wasn’t sure he could forgive her treachery. For both to survive, Noah and Brianna had to band together, uncover the truth, and reveal the real threat before it was too late. In his fight against the wicked games that surrounded him, would he end up losing her all over again?Recommended for readers 18+ due to language, violence and sexual content.
Unleashed
Emily Kimelman - 2011
This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him. Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you never to buy a dog on impulse. They want you to be prepared for this new member of your family, to understand the responsibilities and challenges of owning a dog. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned. I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some seven-week-old Rottweiler-German shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had. The man called him a Collie mix and he was stuffed into the biggest cage they had, but he didn't fit. He was as tall as a Great Dane but much skinnier, with the snout of a collie, the markings of a Siberian husky, the ears and tail of a shepherd and the body of a wolf, with one blue eye and one brown. Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down, unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love. "He's still underweight," the man in the blue scrubs told me as we looked at Blue. "I'll tell you, lady, he's pretty but he's skittish. He sheds, and I mean sheds. I don't think you want this dog." But I knew I wanted him. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Blue cost me $108. I brought him home, and we lived together for years. He was, for most of our relationship, my only companion. But when I first met Blue, a lifetime ago now, I had family and friends. I worked at a crappy coffeehouse. I was young and lost; I was normal. Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I'd ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt.I'd never even heard the name Sydney Rye.P.S. The dog does not die.**Beware: If you can’t handle a few f-bombs, you can’t handle this series.**
Sweet Mercy
K.A. Tucker - 2019
Tucker comes the dark and steamy Empire Nightclub series.One visit to my father in prison—convicted for a murder he didn’t commit—and I’ve attracted the attention of the last man I’d ever want knowing that I exist.Gabriel Easton.Son of an infamous crime boss. Deplorable womanizer. Scoundrel to the core.Worse, he has figured out how desperate I am to protect my father from brutality behind bars. He has the power to grant that protection, and he has offered it … for a price.Me.I'll do anything for my father, including agree to Gabriel's cruel game. But I won't comply with his every whim and wish. Unfortunately for me, I think my loathing for him is what he’s enjoying most.That's fine. By the time I’m through with him, he’ll be crying my name.Mercy.
Veiled Eyes
C.L. Bevill - 2010
Thais. The trees sit on a black lake that resembles a dark Louisiana bayou with an evocative aura. The dream includes the presence of a man who seems to know Anna all too well and a group of people with strange telepathic powers, sometimes called veiled eyes. An orphan from Texas, she is on her way east to help out a friend when she encounters two terrifying things. Psychically, she begins to see and hear things through the eyes of an unknown individual, a man who knows more about her than she ever would have imagined. The second thing is that she has been kidnapped by a sociopathic trucker intent on making her his latest victim. When she is rescued by Gabriel Bergeron, a member of the elusive Lake People in Northwestern Louisiana, Anna doesn’t realize that he is her psychic counterpart and she has been inexplicably pulled to the area. She shares their strange colored gold eyes and their distinctive mental powers. They are a reclusive lot and know that Anna is one of them, but has been isolated by unknown circumstances. She is drawn into their incomparable world, something between that of the Creoles and Cajuns, and much in addition to those. There Anna finds a romantic link with Gabriel and the spine-tingling fear of not knowing who to trust. Her return has disturbed the inner workings of the group and threatens to expose secrets long concealed in the murky Louisiana bayous. There are secrets to be divulged about her past and why she was spirited away as an infant. Anna isn’t safe until she discovers the answers she so desperately requires.
Cloak and Dagger
Nenia Campbell - 2012
When a hacker breaks into their computer's mainframe, they send Michael out to finish off the loose ends. But so far, there's just one lead to go on. The hacker's daughter, Christina Parker.Christina seems like any other high school senior. And she is — until she gets kidnapped by a group of people who think she's the key to the malicious code that has infected their mainframe system and she is plunged into a world where the lines between right and wrong are blurred beyond all recognition and terror knows no bounds. What do you do when the odds are against you, and the stake is your life?As she quickly learns, there are good guys and there are bad guys. Sometimes Michael's one, sometimes he's the other--but usually he's both. And right now he's the only one who can save her.Cover design by Louisa.
The Edge of Courage
Elaine Levine - 2012
. . Rocco Silas has come home to Wyoming after long years as a Red Team operative in Afghanistan. It isn't easy returning to civilian life, especially burdened as he is with a staggering case of PTSD or hunted as he is by an enemy determined to seek an eye-for-eye--neither of which can he battle until he confronts the truth of what happened one fateful day in the high mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush. . . . She alone holds the key to his sanity. Mandy Fielding's dream of opening a therapeutic riding center on her family's ranch is almost within her grasp--until she hires Rocco Silas, a dangerous ex-Spec Ops friend of her brother's. His haunted eyes and passionate touch promise a love she never dared believe possible. Can they confront the truth of his past and build a future together or will the enemy stalking him destroy them both?
One to Hold
Tia Louise - 2013
Melissa Jones is a small-town girl trying to escape her troubled past. When the two intersect in a bar in Arizona, their sexual chemistry is off the charts. But what is revealed during their "one week stand" only complicates matters. Because she'll do everything in her power to get away from the past, but he'll do everything he can to hold her. Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to strong language and sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18. (M/F)
Critical Vulnerability: A Sasha McCandless Companion Novel
Melissa F. Miller - 2014
It's convenient and efficient. And potentially deadly. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aroostine Higgins put her personal life on hold to join the Department of Justice's elite Criminal Division. Now she’s prosecuting two men accused of attempting to bribe a foreign government official. But everything's going wrong. Her pretrial motion vanishes from the federal court's electronic docketing system. Her apartment catches fire. Routine dental surgery turns into a near-death experience. When Aroostine's past comes crashing into her present, her most critical vulnerability is exploited and she finally admits she isn't simply suffering a string of bad luck. An unseen enemy is determined to destroy her—and the only man she's ever loved—unless she finds him first. Critical Vulnerability is the latest whip-smart legal thriller by USA TODAY Bestselling Author Melissa F. Miller.
Falling for the Movie Star
Jean Oram - 2014
One picture. One tabloid. Two lives changed forever. Finian Alexander is one scandalous tabloid photo away from catapulting his acting career onto the A-list. All his bad boy persona needs is an agreeable member of the paparazzi to give him a friendly boost. But vacationing out in the middle of nowhere, the only photographer he knows is way too scrupulous for her own good. Or is she? Hailey Summer is desperate for cash—so desperate that she's willing to do just about anything with her photography skills to save her family's cottage and keep her secrets hidden from her sisters. So when sexy and arrogant movie star Finian makes her an offer, Hailey can't resist. But does his proposition take things too far? And when their plans begin to unravel, will Finian and Hailey find the limelight too blinding? Previously published as Love and Rumors.This is the first book in the complete Summer Sisters series, written by New York Times bestselling romance author Jean Oram.
Liberty Begins
Leigh James - 2013
I come from nothing. I have no one but myself. Sometimes I do things I don't want to -- I do them because I have to. Stripping. That's my life in Vegas. And my boss keeps pressuring me to do more than just take my clothes off...Then John Carter Quinn crashes into my life. He's an older, gorgeous billionaire in a thousand dollar suit. He keeps coming to see me, night after night. I'm not sure what he wants -- but I know what I want. One night he pulls out his gun at my club to take down a bad guy, and I find out what type of business he's actually in. Hint: he doesn't sit at a desk, he employs a bunch of ex-Navy Seals, and it's lethal to be on his bad side. Like me, John has his share of secrets. Dark secrets, dark pain. One of his secrets involves my past. These secrets will bring us together. And then tear us apart.18+ due to mature content. Contains a cliffhanger, but the finale, Liberty At Last, is available now!
Seven Days of Friday
Alex A. King - 2014
They’re picking apart her sanity, one stitch at a time. She’s crawling along rock bottom when the arrival of a mysterious package opens a new door to a new country. A desperate Vivi dives headfirst into the quicksand that is Greece—her parents’ birthplace.But it’s a paradise far from perfect, and instead of the new beginning she covets, Vivi discovers trouble is determined to keep her in its pocket. Soon she’s fighting for her daughter’s life in a Greek hospital, clashing with her Greek relatives, and cobbling together an inadequate cage around her heart, lest she fall for an unavailable man.Before this story ends, somebody will be dead. And if some people are to be believed, this particular death is a good thing. A blessing, of sorts . . . .
Finding Pride
Jill Sanders - 2012
Now she can finally start a new life and figure out just who she really is. When her brother Matt dies suddenly, she takes a big risk and moves cross country to live in his house and take over his new business. This could be the chance she’s needed. There’s only one problem now. She can’t seem to escape the irresistible charm of her departed brother’s best friend. Todd Jordan just lost his best friend and business partner. Watching Matt’s sister move into town, his attraction to her is instant. Can he prove to her that all men are not the same, and resist his own desires as she learns to trust again? Overcoming the odds is just part of their journey. The two must first survive a fateful visit from Megan’s ex to have any chance at happiness.
Bellamy and The Brute
Alicia Michaels - 2017
After all, everyone in town knows about the mysterious happenings at the mansion on the hill—including the sudden disappearance of the Baldwin’s eldest son, Tate. The former football star and Golden Boy of Wellhollow Springs became a hermit at the age of sixteen, and no one has seen or heard from him since. Rumors abound as to why, with whisperings about a strange illness that has caused deformity…turned him into a real-life monster. Bellamy wants to dismiss these rumors as gossip, but when she’s told that if she takes the job she must promise to never, ever visit the 3rd floor of the mansion, she begins to wonder if there really is some dark truth being hidden there.Tate’s condition may not be the only secret being kept at Baldwin House. There are gaps in the family’s financial history that don’t add up, and surprising connections with unscrupulous characters. At night there are strange noises, unexplained cold drafts, and the electricity cuts out. And then there are the rose petals on the staircase. The rose petals that no one but Bellamy seems to be able to see. The rose petals that form a trail leading right up to the 3rd floor, past the portrait of a handsome young man, and down a dark hallway where she promised she would never, ever go…As Bellamy works to unravel the mysteries of Baldwin House and uncover the truth about Tate, she realizes that she is in way over her head, in more ways than one. Can her bravery and determination help to right the wrongs of the past and free the young man whose story has captured her heart?
Last Chance to Run
Dianna Love - 2005
He’s interested. Escaping the compound of a deadly international felon--with a fortune in rare, stolen coins hidden on her body--elite athlete Angel Farentino has to make the most important run of her life. Literally. With her father in prison, where he belongs, and a prior undeserved conviction hanging over her head, she has nowhere to turn and no one to trust. Definitely not law enforcement who railroaded her through a judicial nightmare. One step ahead of lethal men and dogs on her trail, she runs into the arms of a dark stranger willing to help her if she’d let him. But that would only get the sexy pilot killed. Between figuring out who’s sabotaging his undercover work for the DEA and trying to save his baby sister from herself, Zane Jackson has enough on his plate. The last thing he needs is to get entangled with a woman who’s treading on the wrong side of the law. But when the long-legged distraction races into the middle of his operation and stows away on his plane, a primal need to protect forces Zane to risk everything, starting with his heart.Note - This book was originally released as Worth Every Risk. When Dianna received the rights back she revised the story to the much larger romantic thriller version she'd always envisioned, which includes more romance and plenty of action.
Honeymoon for One
Lily Zante - 2014
Dumped by her fiancé six weeks before their Valentine's Day wedding, a jilted bride goes on her honeymoon alone.She was looking to heal and find peace.But in visiting Verona, the City of Love, her life takes on a completely different direction, especially when she meets the mysterious and handsome Nico Cazale.Will her adventure give her the clarity she’s looking for or lead to more heartbreak?Honeymoon For One is a second chance romance, feel-good inspirational romance featuring hot millionaire bachelor with a heart of gold, and a jilted bride.** This is Book 1 of a 5 part romance series about the same couple **