Showing results by narrator "Desiree Ketchum" in All Categories

He enters the car accompanied by a chill from the evening wind and the car rocks gently, until he’s seated behind me and the door is shut. His scent fills my lungs first and as it does, I remember that I’ve been told that smell is the sense that holds the most memory. Maybe I read it somewhere, but I’ve never known something to be truer than that fact is now. 

Not every love story begins in the light...Sometimes, the prince isn't charming. The damsel causes more distress than she's in. Sometimes, the danger doesn't come from a magic spell. It comes from each other. Welcome to dark romance.

I had a plan to escape the friend zone. Step one: sneak into Reed’s room. Step two: sleep with him. But when the lights turned on, it wasn’t familiar blue eyes I saw. These were dark, angry, and full of demons. And they belonged to Reed’s much-older brother. Four years later, Nash Prescott is no longer the help’s angry son. I’m no longer the town’s prized princess. At 22, I’m broke, in need of a job. At 32, he’s a billionaire, in need of revenge.

We were best friends, then we were enemies. Loved. Protected. Cherished. There was a time when Ranieri Andretti made me feel those things. That was before his family came after mine. He was supposed to forget me. We went our separate ways. It should have stayed like that. But now he's back in my life, and he's my new boss. I want to hate him. He's my ex-best friend. My tormentor. The head of the Andretti family. But no matter how hard I try...I can't stay away.

For Cooper Miles, life used to be an endless party. He worked hard and played harder - as often as possible. But things change - people change - and lately, the party life isn’t doing it for him. Enter Amelia Hale. Cooper doesn’t see her coming. But it isn’t every day you meet a girl in a wedding dress in a bar - a girl whose life just took a sharp left turn she wasn’t expecting. Kissing her is totally no big deal. She’s had one hell of a day, and a little kissing lesson by Cooper is bound to make her feel better. But he wasn't expecting the invitation back to her hotel....

Grace doesn’t know much about anything beyond her town’s limits, but she does know this: She is falling in love with the hottest guy in Sheridan U. And when you play with fire - you ought to get burned. 

My husband. My villain. We started with death and blood. We started with games and carnal pleasure. Adrian and I shouldn’t have been together. He’s wrong. I’m wrong. What we have is the epitome of disaster. Yet, it’s impossible to stop. My husband will either destroy me or I’ll destroy him.

Ten years ago, I crushed Damiano De Luca’s heart, vowing false promises I never delivered. The revenge? Didn’t happen. The destruction? As if I could. Betrayal? Not. A. Chance. We were 18 when I left, taking my secrets with me. Now at 28, there’s no trace of the jaded mafia prince with the protective streak. He’s crueler. Colder. More calculated than ever. And he’s glaring at me from a funeral pew, looking at me and my wedding ring like we should be the ones buried six feet under. The war is back on, but I’m not that teenage girl anymore. This time, there will be blood.

Cameron Whitbury is used to engineering her way out of any problem. But someone is after her, and she doesn’t know who or why. Throw in the threat of a sex scandal and the frustrating antics of the entitled son of her company’s founder, and she might be in over her head. But sacrifice her privacy to an overprotective bodyguard? No thanks. She doesn’t need a six-foot-five, motorcycle-riding, square-jawed, hazel-eyed man-beast shadowing her every move.

Some love stories are a slow burn. Others are quick to ignite, scorching, and branding your very soul before you’ve taken that first breath. You’re never given a chance to run from it. That’s how I’d describe what happened to us. Everything around me blurred, and all that existed were his lips, his touch. The chase and the heat between us became addictive.

Those were the words used to describe Eve Thorton’s exhibition. Not even a fine-arts degree from Yale or her daddy’s bank account could save her from the scathing reviews. And failure was a word Eve would never be comfortable with - not even close. Plotting the demise of every critic who’d written her off was her first instinct. But that would come later. Instead, she would show them that she wasn’t a bored socialite with more money than talent. She would prove everyone wrong, and she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.

While both Kitty and Dallas were at the top of their game professionally - she, a high-powered executive assistant, and he, one of the best tattooists in the city - their personal lives had become a dumpster fire. No one in their right mind would have suggested they join forces to help each other wade through the crazy. Surely that’d be a recipe for disaster? But without reason, logic, or even sanity on their side, they decided to do it anyway.

They say you never forget your first. Jagger Cruz, the popular, gorgeous, athletic heartbreaker, was my introduction to college flings. Over the years, I’ve tried to pay no attention to every wicked rumor I heard about him, even though deep down I knew they weren’t just rumors. Unable to face the consequences of what we’d done, if we were ever in close quarters, I ran in the other direction. If we were coincidentally put in the same class, I dropped it. Avoidance was the name of the game and so far I was winning. That is, until we’re assigned the same apartment. 

Jude "Lucky" Lucketti wasn't just a sexy, brooding construction worker. He was my own personal hero, showing up in all the right places at the right times. Like when my car broke down and I needed a ride home, and when I face-planted on the sidewalk right in front of him and had to be taken to the emergency room. We became friends, and it didn't matter that he was 16 years older than me. We had a lot in common - like our love of old rock music and vintage fast cars and our aversion to relationships.  

This is my last chance to ditch my playboy reputation and finally fulfill my potential. So I’ve made three rules for our biggest season yet: no boozing, no women, and no scandals. Especially that last thing. So who do I befriend on the very first day back at the rink? An amazing female hockey player. I want Sylvie in a way that’s more than just friendly. I crave her. But I have a championship to win, and so does she.

My husband. My tormentor. The most notorious man in the city offers me a job. Act as his dead wife. Adrian Volkov isn’t the type of person who takes no for an answer. He commands with an iron fist and all his orders are met. When he approaches me with the offer, I have two options. Go to prison or put myself under his wrath. I choose to have a roof over my head. What’s so hard about acting, right? Wrong. The moment I step into his wife’s shoes, everything spirals out of control. My only way of survival is through Adrian. Or is it?

My husband. My monster. The truth isn’t always what it seems. Lia doesn’t realize that, but she will. Soon. I chose this life. This road. This twisted arrangement. For her, I made a deal with the devil. For her, I toyed with fate and death. There’s no going back. I stole her and like any thief, I won’t return her. Lia is my addiction. My obsession. My love. Mine.

I'm the whispers in the dark you can't ignore. The bully you can't run away from. I'm the tormentor who makes your life a living hell. The villain you love to hate. I'm the vicious monster sleeping in the next room. The one who knows all your secrets. And I'll stop at nothing to make you pay.

The world can be a scary place. At least, that's what Andi Lockley's anxiety wants her to believe. It doesn't help that she narrowly escaped a dangerous man years ago or that every relationship since has been colored with that lingering fear. But things are better now. She's channeling everything into her career as a horror novelist and true-crime podcaster, and her next book may be the breakthrough she needs - if only her grumpy new neighbor would stop stomping around at all hours of the night. 

Damiano De Luca: a curse with no cure. Before he ruled the De Luca family, before he became the man everyone feared, before he scoured an empire in search of me, he chose me to ruin. I was innocent. An untainted princess. The heiress to the Vitali mafia throne. And I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I met the wrong boy. My name is Renata Vitali...and this is not a love story.