Book picks similar to
Wicked Little Games by Dee Palmer


romance
arc
romantic-suspense
emotional

One is a Promise


Pam Godwin - 2017
    My dark rebel in leather. My powerhouse of passion, devastating smiles, and impulsiveness.When his job sends him overseas, he promises to return to me.A promise that’s destroyed in the most irrevocable way.Two years later, an arrogant suit invades my heartbroken loneliness.Clean-cut and stern, Trace is everything Cole wasn’t.At first, he’s a job that will rescue my dance company. But as he intrudes on my life, our hostile relationship evolves.He knows I’m still in love with Cole, but his dedication is my undoing.Then a catastrophic moment changes everything.Promises resurface.Lies entangle.And an impossible choice shatters my world.I love two men, and I can only have one.The TANGLED LIES series must be read in order.One is a PromiseTwo is a LieThree is a War

Wife Number Seven


Melissa Brown - 2014
    Bright, red lipstick. Nothing but lipstick. Even though it’s against our faith to wear a color that screams of sexual promiscuity and deviant behavior, I’m not allowed to protest. But, I want to. So badly. You see, there’s more to me than the braid that spills down my back. More to me than the layers of heavy fabric that maintain my modesty. And so much more than the oppressive wedding band that adorns my finger--the same band that each of my sister wives wear. So much more. To protest would be sinful. I must keep sweet, that is my duty. So I’ll wear the lipstick. I’ll do as I’m told. And I’ll do my best to silence the resistance within me, to push him from my mind. If only my heart would do the same.

Machiavellian


Bella Di Corte - 2020
     I hungered to be seen. There were three things I knew about Capo Macchiavello: He was gorgeous. He was reclusive. He was considered one of New York’s most savage animals. And he wanted me as his wife. A simple arrangement – you do for me, I do for you. Nothing owed, no expectations. Except for one: never leave. Life was never that simple, though. By the age of twenty-one, I was parentless, jobless, and homeless, and I had come to learn the hard way that nothing was ever free. Even kindness comes with strings. Capo might’ve been the only man to ever see me, but I had made a vow to myself: I would never owe anyone anything. Most of all, the man I called boss. I killed to stay hidden. Mariposa Flores thought she owed nothing to no one, but she owed everything…to me, the ghost the world had once called The Machiavellian Prince of New York.

Innocence


Lee Savino - 2015
    A virgin.I’m ruthless. A beast.She found me for a reason.She’ll be my queen.I’ll give her everything that her heart desires.Except for one thing.Her freedom.She’s mine to keep, and I’m never letting her go.Note: This is a dark mafia romance with dark and intense sensual scenes. It is the first in a trilogy.

Break Even


Lisa De Jong - 2015
    Every day, River gives me ten reasons to stay away, and then eleven reasons why I can't. Our relationship was to remain strictly business, or at least I tried. Four years of marriage, and everything with Cole has changed. I never knew two people who lived together could be so distant. But I’m not ready to give up on him.One man wants to break me.The other is just trying to get even. Both are lying to me.

Red Thorns


Rina Kent - 2021
    Handsome. Bastard.Everyone’s attention flocked toward him and all the girls dreamed to be with him.Not me.At least, not until he made a move on me.See, I thought I was stronger than Sebastian’s charms.I thought I could survive being his target.I thought wrong.Little did I know that he will make my most twisted fantasies come true.Fantasies I didn’t know existed...Red Thorns is a dark new adult book that contains dubious situations some readers might find offensive and/or triggering.This book is part of a duet and is not standalone.

Destruction


Jennifer Bene - 2017
    She’s beautiful, well-educated, her father is rich, powerful — and she works for him. The perfect little princess, raised to be just like daddy.But it’s all a lie.A bloody, screwed up lie, and David Gethen is about to tear it all down and destroy Lianna in the process. He wants revenge, he wants to finish the plan his father started years ago — but after he takes her, after he tortures her, he begins to realize just how wrong he may have been.Publisher's Note: This book is a dark romance that contains intense scenes, graphic language, and capture fantasy which may be disturbing for some readers. Please choose another book if this is not your cup of tea!

The Unfortunates


Skyla Madi - 2014
    Kade Sario was supposed to vicious and cruel. He was supposed to be a monster, to hurt and chastise me for the smallest things... but he didn't. I didn't understand it... until I found out what he really wanted from me.He wants to use me. He wants to hold me high above the lion's den and wait for the strongest lion to offer him something he can use...He won't hurt me and he won't take from me, but he keeps me close... So close I can smell him on my skin even when I'm alone. Growing up it was ingrained in me that I do whatever I can to please my Fortunate. It was ingrained in me that I be loyal and faithful, and that I love my Fortunate more than I love myself. I expected that I'd want to please him. I expected that I would be loyal and faithful, just like I was taught... But I didn't expect to fall in love with him.Time is running out. Things are changing, the balance of power is shifting and if I'm going to survive in this world, I need Master Kade on my side…

Pet


Isabella Starling - 2017
    My story is going to break your heart. The first thing you should know about me, is that I'm a good girl. I follow directions. I bend at the waist. I do anything and everything my King tells me to. But King is demanding. King is dangerous. He wants to hurt me. And there is only one person who can help me run away from King... Except I don't know if I want to leave him. I don't know if I can. Good pets always obey their master... But what if I want to have two? PET is a standalone 95,000 word novel. This is a DARK romance!

Rough Edge


C.D. Reiss - 2018
    He has a surgical residency, and she has a psychiatric practice in the basement of their Manhattan brownstone.Everything is going to be fine.Caden loves his wife more than he can measure. But soon after she comes home, he starts hearing whispers. Someone else loves her. Someone else wants her. There's someone else, and though whoever's behind the whispers will move mountains to have her, Caden will move heaven and earth to keep her.Everything is going to hell.Greyson will never break her vows, even as their marriage snaps apart one piece at a time; even as the line between dreams and reality blurs. Even as Caden demands control, and Greyson cedes it, she will never, ever turn her back on him.When their marriage crumbles, love becomes the one thing holding them together.The Edge series:Cutting Edge (free prequel)Rough EdgeOn the EdgeBroken EdgeOver the Edge

Taunt Her


Caitlyn Dare - 2020
    She wants to hate him. Remi Tanner wasn’t part of the plan. But when I see my uncle doting on her, I know she’s going to help me destroy him. I’ll taunt her. Test her. In the end, I’ll break her. Ace Jagger wasn’t a good guy. But he swept into my life like a storm, and I’m caught up in the aftermath. He’s cruel. Calculating. In the end, I never stood a chance. She might be a Sterling Prep princess, and I might be the guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but one thing's for sure... I won’t stop until I get what I want. Revenge. Taunt Her is a dark high school bully romance. If possessive, tattooed, motorcycle-riding alphaholes aren't your thing, you probably won't like this book!

Menace


J.M. Darhower - 2017
    So fucking bored. Most people either annoy him or avoid him, afraid to face him. Figuratively. Literally. With his face partially disfigured, scarred, he looks every bit the monster the stories make him out to be: the notorious menace they call Scar. They say he's a sociopath. Maybe he's a psychopath. Whatever path he's on, people tend to stay far away from it.Until one day, a young woman bumps right into him--a woman just as fed up with life, but for much different reasons. With a Scarlet Letter inked on her wrist and secrets buried deep in her soul, Morgan Myers is running from something... or maybe somebody. Lorenzo isn't quite sure.You can bet your ass he's going to figure it out, though.

Beautiful Disaster


Francette Phal - 2012
    They call it the “bet” and new girl Ellie Holbrook is their latest target. Ellie is not the kind of girl Nicholas dates, but she is pretty enough to be his next conquest and so he sets out to seduce her and claim a nice little prize at the end. But her seduction proves difficult when she openly rejects his advances. In his dogged pursuit of her he slowly finds himself in her small circle of trusted friends and meets her two year old daughter, Sophie.Life takes a startling turn for Nicholas when he realizes his happiness now lies with the young mother and her daughter. Falling in love with Ellie isn’t something Nicholas ever thought could happen to him and he’s completely frightened at how fiercely she makes him feel. But before he can further examine those emotions and clearly process them, enemies from Nicholas’s personal circle of friends conspire to tear them apart and he must now decide whether their love is worth saving or allow his friends to take away the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him.

Always


Bethany-Kris - 2017
    Cross Donati defines trouble. He does what he wants because he’s never known anything different. He’s unapologetic, and he owns it. Catherine Marcello is every bit a good girl … on the outside. Her entire world is a legacy, and she lives it. She’s curious, and she’s exploring it. She chases bad things.He never learned to be good. They’re late nights, stolen cars, first times, fist fights, leather jackets, beaches, bloody smiles, and life.They’re vicious and precious, dangerous and harmless, innocence and sin. They are love. Love is killing for someone.Love is living for someone. Sometimes, you can’t keep saving your heart when it means sacrificing it, too.Sometimes, you have to learn to save yourself.Sometimes, love has to fall, crash, and burn. This is what love is like when you’re a principe and principessa della mafia.This is what love is like when you’re Cross Donati and Catherine Marcello. *** Always is a Legacy Novel, and while it is standalone, it can also act as a prequel for Revere. Each Legacy Novel stands alone from any other book, series, or collection.

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.