Book picks similar to
Scorched by R. Holmes


virgin-heroine
virgin-hero
military
contemporary-romance

Dare You to Hate Me


B. Celeste - 2021
    Lindon U’s star tight end.⁣⁣Still as attractive. Still as dedicated.⁣⁣With rumors of him being drafted to the NFL coming to fruition, I know it’s only a matter of time before we have to say goodbye again.⁣⁣But he can’t seem to let me go no matter what I say, and I don’t think I want him to.⁣

Fighting Absolution


Kate McCarthy - 2019
    Until she does.Bear is the boy behind the fence, the one who was there for her when no one else was. Until he's not.Left with nothing, Jamie joins the army hoping it will give her purpose. The last thing she expects is the best friend from her past to reappear in the dusty plains of a war-torn country. No longer the boy she once knew, Bear is now a man: big, bearded, and SAS—one of the army’s elite.Soon Jamie finds herself not only fighting against her enemies, but her feelings for a man who left her once before. Can she risk losing him all over again?Fighting Absolution is a 130k friends to lovers romance. It features characters from Fighting Redemption, but is written as a standalone.

Obsessed


R.J. Lewis - 2016
    He became my addiction the moment I met him at 10 years old. He was my best friend from childhood. He protected me and guided me. I loved him fiercely long before I really understood what love was. We were inseparable. He knew how I felt, and sometimes he would stare at me in ways that made me breathless. But there were boundaries. Lines that couldn't be crossed. Looks that shouldn't be exchanged. Lips that shouldn't be kissed. We weren't supposed to love each other. Not in **that** way. Because, you see, Aston was also my adopted brother... Aston Elise was off-limits, a temptation that cursed my existence with this visceral hunger to have her, possess her, and taste her like she was made for me. I was tormented and on the brink of falling. If I stepped over that boundary, if I gave into my want, I wasn’t sure I could survive the disappointment of my adopted parents. We would all be affected. Our lives wouldn’t be the way it was. That change was irreversible, and the damage would be permanent. It was a scary thought, destroying a foundation and rebuilding it without knowing what it might end up looking like. But my want for her…it sat in the core of me, growing and growing. And want is a dangerous fucking thing. It clouds your judgment, it makes you weak, and I knew…I knew without a doubt, it was only a matter of time before I cracked. Obsession was devotion. Obsession was mania and need. It was a compulsive urge to self-gratify by wanting, and wanting, and wanting ‘til it hurt, ‘til you could feel it there in your bones, gnawing its way deeper within you. Obsession was my craze for Elise. She was my impulse. My…pulse itself. It wasn’t healthy. I knew that. I didn’t fucking care either.

A Lover's Lament


K.L. Grayson - 2015
    I hoped in writing it I’d find some peace from the nightmare I was living, some solace in my anger.I didn’t expect him to write back. I wasn’t prepared for his words, and I certainly wasn’t ready for the impact this soldier would have on my life. A deep-rooted hate transformed into friendship, and then molded into a love like I’d never known before.Sergeant Devin Ulysses Clay did what I couldn’t: he put the shattered pieces of my heart back together, restoring my faith in humanity and teaching me how to live again.But now that I’m whole, I have a decision to make. Do I return to my life as I knew it and the fiancé I left behind, or do I walk away from it all for the only man to ever break my heart?***I’ve been living in hell, but you won’t hear me complain.These men depend on me, as I do them, and this brotherhood is the only family I’ve ever known.The Army saved me from a callous mother and a life on the wrong side of the tracks that was quickly spiraling out of control. So unlike most of the men in my platoon, going home wasn’t something I longed for.I was content overseas, spending my days defending this country that gave me my life back. Fighting became my new normal … until her.A letter from Katie Devora—a letter that I almost didn’t open. Her words put a fire back inside of me that I didn’t know I’d lost. She gave me hope during a time when I was fighting every day just to stay alive, and now it’s time I fight for her.

His Sunshine


Cameron Hart - 2019
    Just as I'm grumbling about the... less than desirable accommodations offered by the NYC public transit system, I see her. My sunshine. She’s standing on the platform wearing beat up converse and a light pink, lacy dress that hugs her tiny frame and generous curves. She has porcelain skin, pouty lips, green eyes, and a frizz of blonde hair that’s just begging me to wrap it around my fist while I... well, while I have my way with her. It's not just her stunning looks though. She’s got this innocence and warmth about her. I want to wrap her up in my arms and let her goodness seep into my bones while I protect her from the world. I never saw my little sunshine coming, but now that I have her, I'm never letting go. HAILEY: I never expected to meet the man of my dreams while riding the train into work. Yet, here he is. He can't possibly want anything to do with me though, right? I'm just a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, barely scraping by at the bakery I work at to pay off my father's many debts. But Parker keeps showing up, keeps talking to me, keeps making me go crazy with want. HIS SUNSHINE is insta-love at its best. An alpha male who knows what he wants as soon as he sees it, and a wallflower waiting for someone to notice her and break her out of her shell. WARNING: This book contains some scenes that might be difficult for some readers. If you are triggered easily, proceed with caution. As always, there is a guaranteed HEA and no cheating!

Selling Her Virtue


Dani Wyatt - 2022
    Turns out, he's way more than I bargained for. He makes me feel safe and treasured and before you know it, I'm the one begging him to take what he dropped a half-mil to secure.Only, when he shows up the day after the auction sitting at my parents' dinner table, I realize just who the man who claimed my first time really is.Spoiler alert...things are about to get complicated. Author's Note: The last place this brooding, possessive hero wants to be is at a virgin auction. He's about to bail when he spies something he can't live without. Get comfortable and watch these two go from zero to sixty as soon as the auctioneer bangs his gavel. Safe, no cheating, and a HEA of course.

Until I Saw You


Jordan Marie - 2018
    Your smile captured me and refused to let me go.I’m too dirty to touch you; too tainted from my past. You deserve better. But you’re the one thing I can’t run from. I thought love wasn’t for me. I was prepared to walk this world alone. Until I Saw You.

Gods & Monsters


Saffron A. Kent - 2018
    She was his muse.To everyone in town, Abel Adams was the devil's spawn, a boy who never should have been born. A monster.To twelve year-old Evie Hart, he was just a boy with golden hair, soft t-shirts and a camera. A boy who loved taking her picture and sneaking her chocolates before dinner. A boy who made her feel special.Despite her family's warnings, she loved him in secret for six years. They met in empty classrooms and kissed in darkened church closets. Until they couldn't.Until the time came to choose between love and family, and Evie chose Abel.Because their love was worth the risk. Their love was the stuff of legend.But the thing about legends is that they are cautionary tales. They are made of choices and mistakes. And for Abel and Evie, the artist and the muse, those mistakes come in the form of lights, camera, sex.NOTE: This is NOT a paranormal or a priest romance.

Jealous (A Possessive Man Book 1)


Lena Little - 2021
    Always. And that starts now.I’ve found the sweetest girl in the world and now it’s my duty to protect her from harm. She is mine to guard, to keep, to marry.I’m a king and I’ve found my queen. When you know you know and a real man doesn’t waste time claiming her for the entire world to see, to know she’s off-limits to everyone but him. Forever.I’m possessive, territorial, and jealous.Her presence at my side isn’t optional. No. F'ing. Way. She’s going to be a permanent fixture in my life and me in hers.She’s my life now and I’m bringing her home.This is a short, steamy romance with some daddy talk. No OW drama and no cliffhangers. Always a sweet HEA.

Release


Aly Martinez - 2020
     Growing up, Ramsey Stewart branded my soul in ways time could never heal. At twelve, he asked me to be his girlfriend. At thirteen, he gave me my first kiss. By sixteen, we’d fallen in love, planned a future together, and had our eyes set on the horizon. Love never fails, right? But for Ramsey, it did. Love failed him. I failed him. The entire world failed him. At seventeen, Ramsey was convicted of killing the boy who assaulted me. Move on, he wrote in his first and only letter from prison. Start a new life, he urged. I don’t love you anymore, he lied. There was no such thing as giving up on Ramsey. Love may have been our curse, but he was mine—then, now, and forever. So here I am, twelve long years later, waiting for a man I don't even know to emerge from between the chain link gates.

Complicate Me


M. Robinson - 2015
    That one moment where you could have chosen a path that would lead you down a certain road. A different life. It was easier to pretend that we were still best friends, and that she was my girl and I was her boy. Pretending was better than knowing the truth...I. Ruined. Us.I had her. I lost her. I love her.All I did was complicate us.STANDALONE series. New Adult Contemporary Romance: Strong language and sexual content, not intended for readers under 18.

Until Harry


L.A. Casey - 2016
    Hard because Harry, her beloved uncle, has died suddenly, but also because of him. Kale.Kale Hunt has been her best friend since childhood. But it was never that simple. He was Lane’s reason for leaving home and moving to New York. Seeing him with someone else, in love with someone else, shouldn’t have hurt. But it did. It really, really did. So she upped sticks and left, started a new life and cut herself off from her past.But now she’s back, and all the feelings are right there. As if she had never left.Emotions are running high for everyone, and tragedy has a funny way of bringing people together. But is Lane reading the signs right? Are they still just friends, or is there something more?

Rebellious


Kristy Marie - 2021
    No cuddling. No blah, blah, blah. He wrote the rules onto our skin—every ink stroke tragically smeared by the lines we’d crossed. He claimed it was the only way we could be together—the only way we wouldn’t destroy our families.But there was an exception to his rules—one he never saw coming.All I needed was opportunity and a sunburn. The girl who played by his rules is gone. This girl… is not his “friend.”

Lucas


Jay McLean - 2016
    He also has an older sister, five younger brothers and a father who relies on him to make sure those brothers don’t kill each other.  His saving grace? Lois “Laney” Sanders, a girl he started to fall in like with when he was just eleven. A girl who became his best friend, his confidant, his courage.  It took only sixteen clicks and eight seconds for Lucas to realize that his like for Laney had turned into love.   Eight life-changing seconds.  It’s also the exact length of time it took to lose her.

The Wingman


Natasha Anders - 2017
    But their attraction is undeniable. Introverted Daisy McGregor is used to being a wallflower, but what she lacks in style, she makes up for with an acerbic wit, a passion for life, and a deep devotion to her family. So she’ll suffer through her sister Dahlia’s bachelorette party and accept the cloud of pity for going stag to the wedding.Out at the pub, sexy bad boy Mason Carlisle is a reluctant wingman tasked with entertaining Daisy while his brother flirts with her oldest sister, Daffodil. When the plan fails and Mason’s true intent is revealed, he feels intense guilt—and a sensual spark of desire for the unlikeliest of women.Daisy decides to use this unfortunate encounter to her advantage: to make it up to her, Mason will be another kind of wingman, playing the role of her boyfriend and wedding date. Will their ruse unravel completely—or will Mason and Daisy’s undeniable attraction ignite a scorching love affair that knows no rules?