Book picks similar to
Antidote by R.A. Steffan


sci-fi
romance
aliens
science-fiction

Vaant


Layla Nash - 2016
    When he finally does, Isla's big break turns into chaos and panic as she and all the female crew members are traded to an alien ship in exchange for the Argo's safe passage. The giant Xaravian warriors are intimidating, covered in scales, and... way too attractive. Isla and her friends won't surrender quietly, but it seems like the Xaravians are looking forward to that kind of fight...The moment Vaant sees the beautiful, sassy interpreter, he knows he can't leave her in danger. She thinks he's a pirate and a dangerous rebel - and that he bought her and her friends. Vaant must prove his honourable intentions, even as her flashing eyes and curvy figure drives him mad with desire. He'll even endanger his ship and go to the edge of the universe to keep her safe!When her former captain frames Vaant for destroying an innocent ship and murdering another crew, Isla must face that the Alliance she served so proudly is not what it seems. Starting a new life as a rebel with Vaant sounds more and more appealing, but first they'll have to fight through half the Alliance fleet, escape a crumbling space station, and find love among the stars.

Hold


Claire Kent - 2007
    Give yourself to him in return for protection. It’s the only way you’ll ever survive. Convicted of a minor crime, Riana is sentenced to a prison planet—a dark primitive hold filled with convicts vying for power. Her only chance of survival is with Cain, a mysterious loner who has won his territory in the prison through intelligence and brute strength. Sex is all she has to offer, so she uses it. She’s under no delusions here. No one is ever released, and no one ever escapes. Survival is all she can hope for—until Cain. An earlier version of this book was published under the same title and a different penname by Ellora’s Cave. It has since been substantially revised and expanded.

Pirate Nemesis


Carysa Locke - 2016
    All roads lead her to the one place she can’t return: home.

Killers. Thieves. Pirates. Family. Mercy has spent her life evading the Pirate Queen who attempted to murder her as a child. Now, living as a smuggler with the outlawed Talent of telepathy, she keeps her head down, takes jobs that keep her moving, and searches for answers about her mother’s disappearance fifteen years ago. But living outside the law has consequences. 
Tricked and captured, Mercy must choose between two rival factions: the terrorists who will do anything to exploit her gifts for themselves, and the pirates she’s been eluding since childhood. 

Her only ally is the most dangerous killer of them all, and trusting him may be her final mistake.
Star Wars meets Firefly in this space fantasy series readers compare to Ilona Andrews and Nalini Singh.

Rescued by the Alien Cop


Liz Paffel - 2020
    Seems human captives have become a hot commodity now that Earth is a breath away from extinction. Suddenly, every black market skin trader and inmate with empty pockets is after me.My owners won’t let me out of their sight. The new bodyguard I’m assigned to keep me safe is huge, with golden skin and the biggest wings I’ve ever seen. He's an alien beast and he’s up to something. He’s got a killer smile and dangerous eyes. And a secret.If I’m not careful, my alien bodyguard may become much more. If I survive.I’m undercover with the mission to rescue the small human from the prison planet and bring her to safety at the Dome of Enlaan. As a lead enforcer for Cosmic SWAT, it’s my mission to protect human life at all costs. Protect, not desire. Or touch. Or more... I don’t believe in fated mates, but I do believe in this human female's ability to distract me from my mission. If I don’t rescue her soon, everything I’ve sacrificed for will be lost. Including the one thing no one knows I’m up to.Rescued by the Alien Cop is the sexy, fast-paced extended prequel entry into the Cosmic SWAT series. Hot alien cops to the rescue? Um, how about yes?

Bridal Pact


Leora Gonzales - 2015
    Sexy, long-haired and leather-pants-wearing Wheaton.Diplomat Wheaton expected a cultured Earthling to help in his mission, not some crazy-haired woman named after a flower and whose speech baffles his translator. Pardon my French? Knock it off? But Wheaton is soon smitten and eager to turn Poppy’s good-morning kisses into an all-day affair. Doing the nasty? Bring it on!But Poppy must do battle with the slimy councilor Demascus, and an extremist group opposed to the Pact. And that’s before a glitch in the Bridal Pact program makes all existing matches invalid, and glossy Hannah, the perfect politician’s wife, arrives on board. Her match: Wheaton.Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!An adult science fiction romance from Ellora’s Cave

Chosen


Denise Grover Swank - 2011
    She and Jake, her five year old son who can see the future, are running from the men intent on taking him. Emma will do anything to protect him even when it means accepting the help of a stranger named Will. Jake insists she needs Will, but Emma's never needed help before. And even though she's learned to trust her son, it doesn't mean she trusts Will. Mercenary Will Davenport lives in the moment. Hauling Emma to South Dakota should have been an easy job, but his employer neglected to tell him about Emma's freaky son and the gunmen hot on her trail. Instinct tells him this job is trouble, but nothing can prepare him for Jake's proclamation that Will is The Chosen One, who must protect Emma from the men hunting her power. A power she doesn't know she has. Will protects Emma and Jake on a cross-country chase from the men pursuing them, while struggling with memories from his past, his apprehension of Jake, and his growing attraction to Emma. Will's overwhelming urge to protect Emma surprises him, especially since it has nothing to do with his paycheck and possibly everything to do with the tattoo Jake branded on his arm. Rich and powerful men are desperate to capture Emma, and Will must discover why before it's too late.

Mama and the Alien Warrior


Honey Phillips - 2019
    But she certainly never expected to find herself and her girls abducted by aliens who intend to sell them as breeders. When they are rescued by a massive alien and his crew, desires she has long suppressed start to surface. She finds herself unexpectedly drawn to the captain who treats both her and her daughter with unwavering devotion. Until his ship intercepts an illegal Vedeckian trader, Captain Hrebec is resigned to spending his life alone. The Cires lost their females to a plague many years ago. Now for the first time, this luscious human female has him longing for a mate and a family. But Abby has to get her girls back to Earth, and Hrebec may have one last chance to save his race. Will their duties force them apart? Or will they finally find a family of their own? Mama and the Alien Warrior is a standalone science fiction romance. This sweet and steamy HEA is intended for adults only.

Forbidden Planet


Rinelle Grey - 2013
    Due to the noxious gas covering the planet, she can’t conceive a child, and the Council, determined to repopulate the planet, have ended her third—and most precious—relationship. They insist she pick a new mate and try again, but she’s sworn off love and the possibility of ever having a real family.When a ship from the thriving planet of Urslat crashes on Zerris, Marlee rescues the ship’s daring captain, Tyris. His ship is grounded, winter is setting in, and he won’t survive without help. She offers him a deal…he can live with her if he pretends to be her mate so the Council will leave her alone.Tyris agrees and a hungry desire sparks between them as they battle the harsh winter and primitive conditions. Their attraction grows, and soon, keeping their distance becomes impossible, even more challenging than the snow, the Council, and, for Marlee, the risks of a real relationship.Will she risk her heart one last time for a chance at her dream? Or will Tyris be her undoing?

Torkel's Chosen


Michelle Howard - 2015
    Placing all her hope in a new government program, she seizes the opportunity that offers a chance for the women of Earth to find love among the stars, on a world beyond the one they know.How many times can one man risk rejection?Would you give up on your dreams?Torkel Alonson has had enough of being ignored and looked over by females on his adopted home world of Enotia. His pride has suffered and he must accept the painful truth. Females will never choose a male with his evil lineage despite his honorable service to his government’s military.Can two people looking for the same thing find not just what they want but what they need in one another?

Starstruck


Brenda Hiatt - 2013
    Orphaned as an infant and reluctantly raised by an overly-strict "aunt," she's not even sure who she is. M's dream of someday escaping tiny Jewel, Indiana and making her mark in the world seems impossibly distant until hot new quarterback Rigel inexplicably befriends her. As Rigel turns his back on fawning cheerleaders to spend time with M, strange things start to happen: her acne clears up, her eyesight improves to the point she can ditch her thick glasses, and when they touch, sparks fly--literally! When M digs for a reason, she discovers deep secrets that will change her formerly mundane life forever... and expose her to perils she never dreamed of.  Book 1 of the award-winning Starstruck series, where teen romance blends with science fiction to open a whole new world of action, adventure and discovery.

Born of Darkness


Lara Adrian - 2018
    Now, twenty years after his escape from those hellish origins, Asher is a loner whose heart is as cold as his skills are merciless. But when he thwarts a killing under way in the middle of the desert outside Las Vegas, Asher meets a beautiful woman who draws him into a deadly game against powerful enemies . . . Orphaned as a child after her mother's murder, Naomi Fallon didn't survive twenty-six years on the street without using up most of her nine lives. But when her latest caper lands her in the Mojave against a Vegas gangster's henchmen, she's certain her number is up. Then he appears--immense, brutal, and far from human. Naomi's never needed anyone's help, least of all one of the Breed. But after one risk too many, only a man with Asher's skills can keep her safe. Yet the solitary, seductively handsome vampire has enemies of his own, and a secret that will not only shatter her faith in him but her heart, proving what she's feared all along--that trust is only an illusion and love may be the sharpest weapon of all. Contains mature themes.

Enemy Within


Marcella Burnard - 2010
     After a stint in an alien prison, Captain Ari Rose wonders why she even bothered to survive. Stripped of her command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a Ph.D. she doesn't want, Ari never planned to languish quietly behind a desk. She wasn't built for it, either. But when pirates commandeer her father's ship, Ari once again becomes a prisoner. As far as pirate leader Cullin is concerned, Ari's past imprisonment puts her dead center in Cullin's sights. If she hasn't been brainwashed and returned as a spy, then he's convinced she must be part of a traitorous alliance endangering billions of lives. Cullin can't afford the desire she fires within him and he'll stop at nothing, including destroying her, to uncover the truth.

The Starlight Rite


Cherise Sinclair - 2010
    Desperate to survive, she picks the wrong target--Dain, the head of planetary security.Dain is amused by the attempted theft, and when Mella is sentenced to serve time indentured as a bedroom slave, he buys her contract. As he introduces the repressed Earther to the pleasures of sex with a dominating warrior, he slowly comes to realize that the little thief has stolen his heart.When the monster arrives on Nexus and has lunch with Dain, Mella is panic-stricken. Her owner must be part of the conspiracy to kill her, and it will only be a matter of time before the monster discovers that she’s still alive. She attempts to escape. She fails. Embittered by her lies and mistrust, Dain returns her to Indenture Hall to be sold again.Now the monster has found her. And she has nowhere left to run...

Taken to Voraxia


Elizabeth Stephens - 2020
    Here's what I don't know: why the king of them is here this time, and why his black, glittering eyes are trained on me.A hybrid with red alien skin and brown human eyes, I'm not pretty. I've got no family and no plans to ever have one – least of all with this monster of a male. I'm an inventor, a mechanic, a tinkerer. The alien king wants me for reasons I can only guess at, but I'm not about to be taken for a slave and his response to me is something I know I can engineer my way out of.He plans to come back for me when I'm of age, but he'll have to find me first. Our little colony is a scary, desperate place and I'm less afraid to face it, than to face him or the strange, alien sensations he stirs...RakuShe is my Xiveri mate, yet she runs from me – straight into the horrors of her small, savage moon colony. Slaughtering in her defense is easy, while gaining her trust will be the true challenge.She fears my kind and the horrors my treacherous general has inflicted on her humans. Does she not know that it is my blood rite to keep her safe against him and his even more dangerous off-world allies? No, she thinks herself my slave and in place of acceptance, offers me only pacts and bargains. Shamed by her pacts, I still take them all gluttonously, because though she knows only hate, I know only need.Eventually, we will need more than just these pacts between us if I am to convince her that she is my Xiveri mate and if she is to take her place at my side, not as my slave, but as Voraxia's queen.Taken to Voraxia is a full-length, standalone, interracial, SciFi romance complete with an alpha alien overlord, warrior heroine, fated mates who are also enemies-to-lovers, world building and extra steamy bits. All Xiveri Mates books can be read as standalones, each one with a guaranteed HEA. NO cheating, harem or love triangles. Some dark themes, illusions to abuse, and debatable consent due to intergalactic cultural misunderstandings may be trigger warnings.

Saving Askara


J.M. Link - 2018
    Such is the life of an emergency medicine specialist in the age of "post-discovery". Sure, she had always dreamed of interacting with intelligent extraterrestrial life- the real thing, not those microbes on distant moons. Who wouldn't? She was still happy with her career, however mundane and demanding it might be. That's what it took to run a ship the size of a small city smoothly. Monotony. But all that changes one morning, and suddenly she's not so sure she didn't stick her foot in it... Be careful what you wish for. *** Escape had been their only drive, and even death was preferable to the alternative. But they never thought their flight for freedom would put them in an uncharted system. Forced to interact with an isolated world and its inferior, albeit curious people. When it affords them an unforseen and unprecedented opportunity to take back their world from those who seek to destroy them, however, Aderus begins to wonder if it wasn't fate. Earth's proposal is shocking and uncomfortable for a fierce, independent race that relishes in their solitude. But the more he learns of humans, the more he comes to admire and respect them. One, in particular. *Saving Askara is a Part I of II* Book II coming Summer 2018 WARNING: Not intended for readers under 18. Contains explicit sexual content.