Take a trip to the dark side with 12 books by some of the hottest names in edgy romance, including USA Today Bestselling authors CJ Roberts, Eliza Gayle, and Aleatha Romig!
Pam Godwin – Beneath the Burn
Skye Warren – Wanderlust
Claire Thompson – Enslaved
Cari Silverwood – Take Me Break Me
Annabel Joseph – Comfort Object
Aleatha Romig – Consequences
Shoshanna Evers – The Man Who Holds the Whip
Annika Martin – The Hostage Bargain
Jasmine Haynes – Take Your Pleasure
Eliza Gayle – Play With Me
Pepper Winters – Tears of Tess
CJ Roberts – Captive in the DarkThese e-books would cost over $40 if purchased separately. This set will only be available for a limited time, so order your copy now!
All of these books are 18+, some are new adult romance, some are erotic romance, but all feature dark themes.
We LOVE our dark reads – BIG Time! So this is like food for our souls! We’re so excited for everyone to get their hands on this box set because it’s just filled with flat out AWESOME books!
Check out our reviews of Beneath the Burn by Pam Godwin and Tears of Tess by Pepper Winters. These were two of the best books we read last year, we cannot recommend them enough!
from Enslaved by Claire Thompson
Sam stepped back, his eyes on her as his fingers moved down his shirt, opening the buttons. He pulled it off, revealing his broad muscular chest. He unbuckled his belt, pulling it through the loops. He folded the belt in half and flicked it in the air, creating a snapping sound that made Rae jump.
As he moved closer, Rae gasped and turned her head away, screwing her eyes tight, her hands curled into fists of fear over her head. She expected to feel the sharp sting of the leather belt against her body, but instead she felt it being pressed against her throat, just above the collar already in place. She opened her eyes in surprise, only to realize he was binding it around her neck, buckling it behind her around the wood, restraining her by the throat. The belt was thicker than the collar beneath it, the leather tight and constricting.
Rae realized she was panting, her breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps. “Please,” she begged. “Let me down. I can’t do this. Please…”
Sam didn’t reply. He left her, walking across the space toward a large cabinet. Rae strained to see what he was doing, barely able to turn her head within the confines of the belt at her throat.
He returned with what looked like a small whip. He flicked it in the air near her and Rae startled, jerking in her restraints. She coughed as the belt, tight at her throat, pressed against her larynx from her sudden movement.
“Why are you being punished, Rae?”
“Please, let me down—”
The movement was sudden. He struck her cheek with his open hand, the sound sharp and explosive in her ear. “Another fucking word that isn’t a direct response to a question and I’ll gag you, got it? You aren’t going to be let down until you’re done receiving your punishment. Now answer the question. Why are you being punished?”
“I—I don’t know.” Rae’s mind was whirling, her heart beating high in her throat.
Sam leaned in close so she could feel his breath on her cheek. She tried to turn her head away, but the belt restricted the movement. She closed her eyes.
“It’s because you spoke out of turn, Rae. You can’t seem to keep your fucking mouth shut.”
He stepped back, again flicking the whip in the air, the leather braid so close she could feel the swish of air it caused near her thigh. In spite of her fear, Rae stared at the little whip, mesmerized. At last she tore her gaze away to look at Sam, who was smiling, a slow, easy smile that would have been sexy if his eyes weren’t so hard.
“You said this morning I couldn’t just tie you up and give you thirty lashes, remember?”
Was it really only this morning? Only this morning that she’d awoken, thinking about how in just another few weeks she’d finally be out of the jam she’d backed herself into? Was it only this morning she’d blithely sailed into Sam’s office, only to be blindsided by his accusations and ultimatums?
Another slap to her cheek jerked Rae back to the present. “Answer. The. Question.”
“Yes!” Rae gasped. “Yes, I remember.”
“And you were wrong, weren’t you?”
God, I fucking hate you. “Yes.”
Sam nodded, cocking an eyebrow. “Thirty days, thirty lashes. I like it. That’s what you’ll get now. Thirty lashes, one for each day you are here. You’ll count for me. Count out loud each stroke of the whip you so richly deserve.”
He flicked the tail so suddenly she didn’t even realize he’d done it until the line of fire moved over her thigh. “Ow!” she cried.
“Count!” he barked.
“One! Ow! Two!” The second stroke licked her other thigh, leaving a trail of pain.
He moved behind her, the crack of the leather against her ass making her jump in the split second before the pain registered in her brain. “Fuck!” she screamed.
“Fuck is not a number,” Sam replied, his tone amused. “So we start again at one.”
Rage edged its way past fear at that moment. If she could have, she would have strangled him. Instead, as the whip curled cruelly around her left thigh, she cried, “One!”
Ten more blows, five on each ass cheek, though the order was random. Each time the leather struck, Rae jerked against her restraints and cried out, the belt at her throat choking her. Desperately she tried to keep count, calling out the numbers, tears of impotent fury coursing down her cheeks.
He returned to face her. This time the lash caught the underside of one of her breasts, snaking over the skin. Rae screamed.
“Count,” Sam hissed.
“Twelve,” Rae cried quickly, terrified he’d make her start over. “Please,” she entreated. The whip struck, finding her other breast. She screamed, unable to help it, but she managed to gasp, “Thirteen.”
He struck her thighs, a stripe of fire on each leg before again moving behind her. For a while he concentrated on her ass, which was easier to tolerate than anywhere else, though it still stung plenty. At twenty-eight he returned to stand in front of her. She was breathing hard, dizzy with pain and fear, her body slicked with sweat.
“The last two,” Sam said. “And then you’ll thank me for taking the time to correct you.”
The flick was sudden, the pain excruciating as the tip of the whip made contact with Rae’s right nipple. She howled, forgetting to count, forgetting language altogether. Then her left nipple exploded with pain.
Her heart was thundering in her ears, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Count,” she heard him admonish, as if from a distance, though his mouth was close to her ear.
Somehow she forced her lips to comply, desperate for this to be over. “Twenty-nine,” she whispered. “Thirty.”
from Comfort Object by Annabel Joseph
I was huddled beside my things on the stairs when he found me. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t acknowledge him. He leaned down to pick up the eviction notice, holding it between his perfect fingers and scanning it with a frown.
“I’m sorry, Nell. Think of it as tough love.”
“You’re a sociopath.”
He sat down beside me, taking off his sunglasses and holding them loosely in his hand. “I’m not a sociopath, just desperate. I’m supposed to leave in four days. And I really, really want you to come with me.”
I breathed deeply, considering my next step. Punch him? Call the police? Gouge out his eyeballs? Listen to what he has to say…
“There are a million girls in L.A.” I said, hugging my knees more tightly to my chest. “A million girls who would probably jump at this opportunity. So why me?”
“Because I want you. There may be a million girls, but I want you. Kyle told me…” His voice trailed off as he thought better of it. “I heard that you were different. That you were smarter, deeper. That you were tough. That you were petite and beautiful. When I met you, I saw it was all true. I want you, not anyone else. If there’s someone better out there, I don’t know where she is and I don’t care. My mind’s made up.”
“I’m a person, Jeremy. I have a life. I have the right to self-determination.”
“I do too. If I want you, I can do whatever is in my power to attain you, within the law.”
“Within the law? You used slander and entrapment to get me fired from my job. Then you had me wrongfully evicted from my apartment. Now I’m homeless, and I can’t even… I can’t even…”
God, I needed my mom, but we hadn’t spoken in years. I was estranged from my whole family. I could call my friends, but they wouldn’t believe the story of what was going on with me, even if I could make it make sense in the retelling. And I’d signed his stupid confidentiality contract, on top of everything else. I hugged myself, feeling powerless and confused. Why was I even sitting with him? Why, even now, did some part of me want to insinuate myself into his arms?
“The thing is,” Jeremy said, “I really want to help you. I think you and I could have a lot of fun together. I think this could be mutually beneficial, this arrangement I’m proposing. The only reason you can’t see that is because you’re so angry and afraid of how I went about making it happen.”
“It’s not happening. I hate you so much, I can’t even explain how much I hate you right now.”
“It’s okay to hate me, to be afraid of me, to despise me. I don’t care. Just know that I would never do anything to hurt you, really hurt you, no matter what it seems like. Come with me, and belong to me for a while. Relax into it. Don’t think about it so much.”
“You’re a psycho,” I muttered, burying my head in my knees.
We sat there for a few moments, and then he reached over and put his hand on the back of my neck. He threaded his fingers into the wavy curls of my shoulder-length hair and started to rub my scalp and nape. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t. It felt so good, so comforting. My mother used to caress me that way to soothe me when I was tired or afraid.
“Listen, what do you want more than anything else in the world?” he asked quietly, when I was reduced to putty in his hands.
I didn’t answer.
“Because you know what I want? I want you to come traveling with me these next four months. That’s all I want. A partnership with you. Simple and erotic and enjoyable and exciting and fun. That’s what I want most on earth. Now, what do you want more than anything else? Something I can do for you. Tell me.”
I shouldn’t have answered, but I did.
“I want to go to college. I want to finish my degree.”
“Finish?” he asked in surprise. “What degree have you already started? Medical school? Law school?”
“Comparative cultural mythology.”
He laughed. “I see now why you turned to waitressing and sex work.”
I pulled away from him and didn’t reply.
“Well, listen, if you stay with me for the term of the contract and work for me, then when you’re no longer in my employ, I’ll pay your way through college. Any university, any degree you want—bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate, whatever. If you can’t get into the university you want, I’ll pay your way into it. Anywhere you like. That’s in addition to the salary I’m already prepared to pay you, the salary I quoted you before. That’s what I can offer you. Maybe it sweetens the deal.”
And damn it, I guess it did.
A little-known fact about me—I attended Harvard University for two years following a stellar high school career and a perfect score on my SATs, and began what I hoped would be a lifelong career in the study and publication of papers on mythological tales and documents. But I had to leave because of my fucked-up family; a father sent to jail, a suicidal mother spiraling out of control, siblings with their heads up their asses. I did what I could, then finally washed my hands of the whole morass, but it was far too late to return to my studies, and the money was gone.
The money. Why was life about money? I’d been trying to save, but it was hard. University tuition was steep, and scholarships were hard to win when your application essay detailed your adventures as a submissive for hire. I put away what I could each month by cutting corners where I was able. I quit the gym to save money and exercised at home with workout DVDs from the public library. I stayed out of the pricier lingerie boutiques and shopped the end-of-season sales at Victoria’s Secret. I turned down dinner invitations, bowed out of barhopping with friends to put money away for the future. Still, after five years of determined saving, I barely had enough saved to cover one semester at Harvard, much less an entire degree.
But now, after a short stint of indentured servitude, I could get my life back on track. Maybe he was some twisted gift from the universe, this horrible man. He was the money, the influence I needed to move forward.
I crossed my arms over my chest, still refusing to look at him.
“I don’t know you at all,” I said. “I don’t think this is completely safe.”
“That’s what all the paperwork is for. You know how this works. If you would have looked over the papers completely, I think you would have felt better about everything. Jesus, I paid a lot of money to have them drawn up. Fortunately my lawyer is very discreet.”
“And perverted. To write up contracts like that.”
“Yes. Sure. The contract is perverse, and by no stretch of the imagination admissible in court. But it’s a job, Nell, a job that I think you’d enjoy very much. You live the lifestyle. It’s in your heart, it’s in your blood, it’s in your will. I think that’s why this is so hard for you. You want to be my submissive, but I think you’re ashamed.”
It was true. I despised myself for secretly craving the arrangement he suggested. “You hide too,” I pointed out. “You hide the way you are. From the public, from your fans.”
“Only as much as I have to. I do have a public persona to uphold. But I’m not ashamed of it. I think power exchange is beautiful. I think you are too. I think everything about you is beautiful.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Not yet. But if I get my way, I’ll know you very well.”
I rubbed my eyes. I was too tired to come up with any more protests or recriminations. Deep inside, I knew I’d already made up my mind. He knew it too.
“Finished sulking?”
“For now.” I looked over at my things, then back at Jeremy Gray sitting beside me. “But what do I do? What now?”
Jeremy pulled out his phone.
“I’m going to call someone to pick up your things, and we’re going to go to my place. We’re going to sit down with my lawyer and go over the paperwork page by page. When we’re done, I think you’ll agree to start a relationship with me, but if you decide not to, I’ll get your eviction reversed.”
“And if I do agree to this ‘relationship’?”
“We’ll go to dinner tonight and tip off the paparazzi. Our first date.” He turned away from me to bark into his phone. “Kyle, come over. She’s ready now.”
Thank you for considering MAKE ME: Twelve tales of dark desire. We hope you enjoy your trip! Please check out the contributing authors to find out more about their books and upcoming events.
Aleatha Romig – Consequences
Skye Warren – Wanderlust
Eliza Gayle – Play With Me
Cari Silverwood – Take Me, Break Me
Jasmine Haynes – Take Your Pleasure
Pam Godwin – Beneath the Burn
Annabel Joseph – Comfort Object
Claire Thompson – Enslaved
Annika Martin – The Hostage Bargain
Shoshanna Evers – The Man Who Holds the Whip
Pepper Winters – Tears of Tess
CJ Roberts – Captive in the Dark
Shannon says
Good luck everyone. Have a nice day and may the odds be ever in your favor.