Are you looking for a steamy escape from reality? Do you crave a thrilling, forbidden romance that explores the darker side of human nature? If so, you might want to check out the world of spicy dark romance books, where passion, danger, and seduction intertwine in deliciously sinful ways.
But what exactly is a dark romance book, and how does it differ from other types of romance novels? Well, while romance books in general are known for their emphasis on emotional intimacy, happy endings, and uplifting themes, dark romance books often subvert these conventions by embracing taboo subjects, complex characters, and ambiguous outcomes. In a dark romance book, you might encounter antiheroes, villains, or morally gray protagonists who struggle with addiction, trauma, or obsession. You might witness graphic violence, explicit sex, or disturbing behavior that challenges your comfort zone. You might also experience a sense of catharsis, empathy, or empowerment as you navigate the intense emotions and conflicts that drive the story.
Of course, not all dark romance books are created equal, and not everyone enjoys the same degree of darkness or spice. Some readers prefer a hint of danger and tension, while others crave a full-on plunge into the abyss of desire. Some readers are more interested in the psychological aspects of the romance, while others want a lot of physical action. Some readers like their romances to have a happy ending, while others don’t mind a tragic or bittersweet conclusion. Therefore, it’s important to choose your dark romance books carefully, based on your personal tastes and preferences.
To help you get started on your spicy journey, here are some recommendations for some steamy, dark romance books that are sure to give you impure thoughts.
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Follow Me Darkly
(Follow Me Series Book #1)
by Helen Hardt
She’s a take-charge woman. But he’s a master of control.
Skye Manning knows what she wants. Her job as assistant and photographer for a major social media influencer isn’t perfect, but it’s a rung on the ladder to bigger and better things. She’s confident she’ll one day take feature photos for National Geographic .
Self-made billionaire Braden Black didn’t get where he is by taking no for an answer. When a chance encounter with the refreshingly innocent and beautiful Skye piques his interest in more ways than one, he’s determined to make her submit.
Dating a billionaire soon has Skye in the middle of a Cinderella story…until the clock strikes midnight and Braden reveals his dark side. Heat sizzles between them, and Skye finds herself falling hard.
But Braden Black is no Prince Charming, and his dark desires are far from his only secret.
Untouchable
(Empire High Series Book #1)
by Ivy Smoak
Matthew Caldwell is as gorgeous and charming as he is wealthy. He’s untouchable. At least, that’s everyone’s nickname for him.
And it sucks because I really want to touch. Staring at him in the hallways of my new school is the only thing holding me together. Ever since losing my mom, it feels like I’m drowning. But it’s a lot easier to breathe when I stare at Matthew’s perfect smile. Even if it’s never directed at me.
I thought he didn’t notice me staring. It was just supposed to be my dirty little secret. Something to get me through my heartache.
But when he cages me against the wall in a dark auditorium, I realize that I was wrong.
He’s noticed me. I’m not as invisible as I thought. And I’m about to become his dirty little secret instead.
The Ritual
by Shantel Tessier
THE CHOSEN ONE
I vow. You vow. We vow.
Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all—the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one.
People think growing up with money is freeing, but I promise you, it’s not. My entire life has been planned out for me. I never got the chance to do what I wanted until Ryat Alexander Archer came along and gave me an option for a better life. He offered me what no one else ever had—freedom.
I chose to be his. He made me believe that anyway, but it was just another lie. A way that the Lords manipulate you into doing what they want.
After being sucked into the dark, twisted world of the Lords, I embraced my new role and allowed Ryat to parade me around like the trophy I was to him. But like all things, what started out as a game soon became a fight for survival. And the only way out was death.
Sweet Mercy
(Empire Nightclub Series Book #1)
by K.A. Tucker
One visit to my father in prison—convicted for a murder he didn’t commit—and I’ve attracted the attention of the last man I’d ever want knowing that I exist.
Gabriel Easton.
Son of an infamous crime boss. Deplorable womanizer. Scoundrel to the core.
Worse, he has figured out how desperate I am to protect my father from brutality behind bars. He has the power to grant that protection, and he has offered it … for a price.
Me.
I’ll do anything for my father, including agree to Gabriel’s cruel game. But I won’t comply with his every whim and wish.
Unfortunately for me, I think my loathing for him is what he’s enjoying most.
That’s fine. By the time I’m through with him, he’ll be crying my name.
Mercy.
Entangled In Them
(Dirty Twisted Love Series Book #1)
by Marissa Farrar
I’ve been given to three men as payment for a job… But what if they don’t want me?
The day I’m shoved into an apartment, landing at the feet of three men, my world changes.
Dillon, Kodee, and Ryan.
They’re more than just business partners… I can tell by the subtle touches, the eye contact, the way they press up against each other. The last thing they’re expecting is a woman coming into their lives.
But now they have me, and while their connection excites me, I’ve brought danger into their home.
I haven’t only been given as payment. They don’t know it yet, but they’re hiding me from the most powerful men in New York.
As the days pass, I find myself entangled in their world. I learn their secrets, their tormented pasts, and they learn mine.
I never wanted to risk their lives, but what if I don’t have a choice?
Will they sacrifice everything so we can be together…
Or am I somewhere I’ll never belong?
A Dark Reverse Harem Romance.
3 Books In Series
Promises And Pomegranates
(Monsters & Muses Series Book #1)
by Sav R. Miller
Elena
To most, Kal Anderson is a villain.
Harbinger of death, keeper of souls, frequenter of nightmares.
Doctor Death. Hades incarnate.
They say he stole me.
Usurped my fiancé and filled the cracks in my heart with empty promises.
Imprinted his crimson fingerprints on my psyche and tried to set me free.
They’re not wrong, per se.
Except it was my choice to stay.
Kal
To most, Elena Ricci is an innocent.
Goddess of springtime, lover of poetry, angel of my nightmares.
Little one. Persephone personified.
They say I ruined her.
Shattered her virtue and devoured her soul like a succulent pomegranate.
Embedded my evil as deep as I could possibly get and tried to set her free.
They’re not wrong, per se.
Except it was she who ruined me.
Buttons & Lace
(Buttons Series Book #1)
by Penelope Sky
I owe him a debt.
A big one.
The payment can’t be settled with money or favors.
He only wants one thing.
Me.
Every action gets a reward. A button. Once I fill his jar with three hundred and sixty-five buttons, he’ll let me go.
He’ll let me walk away.
But I have to earn every single one.
By submitting to the darkest, cruelest, and most beautiful man I’ve ever known.
Trigger Warning: Not for the faint of heart.
Burning Depravity
by Mia Fury
Dory
She was supposed to be mine. She was made for me, and I’d planned to breed her that night at long last. Six months of watching her, and following her… six months of planning and anticipation, and thanks to him, I had to leave without having her.
Now my biggest problem is how to get the girl without him taking what he wants too.
Gray
Fire makes the world go round, or some shit like that. It definitely brought me what I’d always wanted. A sweet, repressed man for me to own and find pleasure in, whether he wants that or not. If only his obsession with her hadn’t put her right in my way.
Wilma
He was planning to ‘impregnate me’. I’d never met him before, but apparently he knew more about me than anyone should. Now I’m trapped with both of them, and my only chance of surviving this is to play them off against each other, and try to break them before they break me.
Dory wants Wilma, Gray wants Dory, and Wilma just wants them to leave her alone. Can any of them get what they want? And if any of them do, who’ll come out on top?
Or will they just keep breaking each other until the damage can never be undone?
The Never King
(Vicious Lost Boys Series Book #1)
by Nikki St. Crowe
The stories were all wrong — Hook was never the villain.
For two centuries, all of the Darling women have disappeared on their 18th birthday. Sometimes they’re gone for only a day, some a week or a month. But they always return broken.
Now, on the afternoon of my 18th birthday, my mother is running around the house making sure all the windows are barred and the doors locked.
But it’s pointless.
Because when night falls, he comes for me. And this time, the Never King and the Lost Boys aren’t willing to let me go.
The Final Fling
by JH Simon
There’s something about Jordan, something intriguing. Something off , something that tells Jasmin he could be the key.
Weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday, Jasmin Johnson is dumped. Thomas was supposed to be her soulmate, but after nine drama-filled years, she feels only relief. In front of her is an opening, a chance to spread her wings and reconnect with what she lost — and do the forbidden things her relationship held her back from.
Her chance arrives quicker than she imagined. Knowing what her girl needs, Jasmin’s best friend tempts her with an unexpected palate cleanser: an underground kink party in Berlin — a place where anything goes, and with any number of people. Awaiting Jasmin in this hedonistic world of excess and lust is the arrogant yet gorgeous Jordan; heir to a fortune and king of Berlin’s kink scene. A man with the power to satisfy Jasmin’s every need, and the darkness to shatter her heart into pieces.
Yet as Jasmin prepares to take off on her wild journey of self-discovery, Thomas comes crawling back. She’s faced with a choice. Will she return to the dysfunctional security of her past, or risk it all by leaping into the unknown and discovering where her dark temptation takes her?
Helfyre
by Mariel Pomeroy
This is a dark romance high fantasy novel.
Two immortal creatures. One dangerous bargain.
After the death of her mother, Aheia finds herself stained by more blood than she can hide in the perpetual daylight of her home of Keloseros. She escapes the realm but pays the giving up her immortality and her powers–once a Mithra with light at her fingertips, she becomes near-mortal. Her desperate search for asylum leads her to the doorstep of the only place out of her abusive family’s reach—a realm that deals in death and darkness unapologetically—Aljira
But nothing in this world is free, and to buy her way to dubious safety, she’s forced to give up the only thing she has left to barter. Her soul in exchange for seven days in the devil’s realm. Arioch, the ruler of the Nephilim, is eager to dangle his new little pet in front of the Mithra who have caused irreparable damage in his life, but he doesn’t expect the effect Aheia’s soul has on both of them once it’s stamped on his arm. The pull between them is all-consuming– they crave each other, between sharp words and angry exchanges in an increasingly passionate bond that threatens to shatter the delicate balance of everything. Arioch and Aheia… Keloseros and Aljira… Even life and death.
“Helfyre” is an adult fantasy romance that contains graphic violence, general dark themes, swearing, and sex scenes– some of which include dubious consent– and should in no way be misconstrued as a depiction of a healthy relationship.
Off The Clock
(Pleasure Principle Series Book #1)
by Roni Loren
Overtime has never felt so good…
Marin Rush loves studying sex. Doing it? That’s another story. In the research lab, Marin’s lack of practical knowledge didn’t matter, but now that she’s landed a job at The Grove, a high-end, experimental sex therapy institute, she can’t ignore the fact that the person most in need of sexual healing may be her.
Dr. Donovan West, her new hotshot colleague, couldn’t agree more. Donovan knows that Marin’s clients are going to eat her alive unless she gets some hands-on experience. And if she fails at the job, he can say goodbye to a promotion, so he assigns her a list of R-rated tasks to prepare her for the wild clientele of The Grove’s X-wing.
But some of those tasks are built for two, and when he finds Marin searching for a candidate to help her check off her list, Donovan decides there’s only one man for the job—him. As long as they keep their erotic, off-the-clock activities strictly confidential and without strings, no one will get fired—or worse, get attached…
