Dark Desire (Book 1): A Dark Bad Boy Hitman Romance, #1

By Naomi West

This is book 1 of the A Dark Bad Boy Hitman Romance! Books 2 and 3 are available everywhere now!

I've got blood on my hands and vengeance on my mind. But taking her changed everything.

My brother was never the same after he came home from the war.

The medicine was supposed to help him. To quiet his demons.

But it only set them loose.

Now, he's on death row for a crime that never should have happened.

Bad pharmaceuticals are to blame. More specifically, the bastards who make and sell them.

So I'm gonna hunt down the people who poisoned my brother's mind.

And I'm gonna force them to pay for what they did to my family.

But I didn't expect evil to take the form of a curvy, icy woman.

Emily West is a wicked temptation and a symbol of everything wrong with the world, all at once.

My mind is whirling.

Do I take her or do I break her?

I'd better decide quick.

Because the cops are banging on the door.

And if they catch me with a gun at the head of a Fortune 500 CEO…

I'm gonna get tossed in a cell of my own.

***

Dane is a savage, filthy bad boy hitman who will stop at nothing to get the vengeance he seeks in this dark romance with sex from bestselling bad boy mob romance author Naomi West. DARK DESIRE is a new adult contemporary romance novel that will leave you gasping with its steamy intimate scenes, dark twists, and a surprise ending that you'll never see coming. So get your hands on this romance love story today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: MBK Hanson Inc.
• Release date: Nov 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393017509

Naomi West

Motorcycle club romance that will blow you away... Naomi West is a best-selling author of motorcycle romance novels that will get your heart pumping and your panties melting. Sign up for her mailing list to receive new release alerts, free giveaways, and much more! Follow this link to join:  http://bit.ly/NaomiWestMailingList

Book preview

Dark Desire: A Dark Bad Boy Hitman Romance (Book 1)

By Naomi West

I’VE GOT BLOOD ON MY hands and vengeance on my mind. But taking her changed everything.

My brother was never the same after he came home from the war.

The medicine was supposed to help him. To quiet his demons.

But it only set them loose.

Now, he’s on death row for a crime that never should have happened.

Bad pharmaceuticals are to blame. More specifically, the bastards who make and sell them.

So I’m gonna hunt down the people who poisoned my brother’s mind.

And I’m gonna force them to pay for what they did to my family.

But I didn’t expect evil to take the form of a curvy, icy woman.

Emily West is a wicked temptation and a symbol of everything wrong with the world, all at once.

My mind is whirling.

Do I take her or do I break her?

I’d better decide quick.

Because the cops are banging on the door.

And if they catch me with a gun at the head of a Fortune 500 CEO...

I’m gonna get tossed in a cell of my own.

DANE IS A SAVAGE, FILTHY bad boy hitman who will stop at nothing to get the vengeance he seeks in this dark romance with sex from bestselling bad boy mob romance author Naomi West. DARK DESIRE is a new adult contemporary romance novel that will leave you gasping with its steamy intimate scenes, dark twists, and a surprise ending that you’ll never see coming. So get your hands on this romance love story today!

Chapter One

Dane

Bottle of cheap bourbon in hand, Dane Bishop stood in the center of the disaster that his apartment had slowly become over the course of the last year. He swallowed another mouthful of Jim Beam, hoping that the brown liquor would numb him on the inside. But, as he looked around at the grave of his memories, at the photos of his twin brother Benton and his family, he knew that the liquor wasn't doing any good. It never would, either. It could cover the hurt, but it would never heal it.

Dane walked over to the wall that had become a morbid shrine to his brother's murder trial. He ran a hand over his short, spiky ginger hair as he read over the articles pinned to his wall.

Decorated Military Veteran Kills Wife and Two Children, read one. Benton Bishop, Veteran, to Plead Insanity, Defense Says, read another. Still one more read, Benton Bishop Sentenced to Death for Murder of Family.

Dane scratched a hand over his broad chest. Even as he'd descended into this morass over the last year, he'd still kept himself focused and in shape. His own military training in the Air Force wouldn't let him to do less. That's all his life had become, though. Obsession with proving his brother's innocence. The rest was just instinct. Breathe in, breathe out, exercise. Keep the mind and body in shape, no matter what you threw at it.

He brought the bottle back to his lips and took another swallow. No, it didn't help. But, he was right. It did numb the pain. It did help to lessen the hurt of the last year. Hurt that he hadn't been there for his one-minute-older brother as he suffered through the pain of his PTSD symptoms. Anger that he hadn't recognized the warning signs of what had been coming. Despair that his brother was, right now, sitting on death row, alone and friendless, as he faced the executioner's needle.

He closed his eyes and thought back to a time before all this. A time when Benton was happy with his family, and Dane wasn't obsessed with proving his innocence. Benton and his wife, Marianne, had thrown a birthday party for Landon, their youngest son. They'd grilled out in the backyard while the kids had run in the sprinklers. Dane could remember the smell of the hotdogs and burgers as they cooked on the open flame; he could even feel the warmth of the sun on his neck.

The sound of the children laughing filled his ears, even now. They were so carefree, so full of life. Now, they didn't have any worries, but neither did they have any breath.

Memories of the funerals crowded his thoughts. Memories, as clear as if they had happened yesterday, of the news reporters hounding him, of the cable channels parking outside his front door. Thoughts about all those days in courts, sitting on the family's side behind his brother. Dane glanced over at his old Air Force officer's uniform, where it hung, perfectly dry-cleaned and pressed, from the closet door. All those days were gone, never to return.

No birthday parties. No having a beer with his brother on the back porch as they watched his niece and nephew run and play in the grass and sprinklers, not a worry in their little heads. No laughing with Marianne, his sister-in-law and the best thing that had ever happened to Benton.

Gone. Gone and buried.

He tipped the bottle of bourbon back, upending it for a good, long, mouth-burning pull.

Benton's doctor said the medication would make him better. He'd said it would fix the depression and the PTSD symptoms, that it would just take time for the effects to kick in, and that the side-effects would go away.

They'd been wrong. So wrong.

Dane took another drink and dismissed the memory of the police's call that night with a shake of his head. He didn't want to remember. He couldn't.

He flared his nostrils and clenched his fist around the bourbon bottle's neck as he looked at the glass coffee table in front of the couch, pictures of his brother and dead family strewn across it. They were testaments to Dane's own failure at helping his brother, both before and after the murders.

He'd tried, too. He'd tried so hard to defend his brother, both in the courts and in the press. But no one would believe him that Hymalete, the medication his brother had just started before the murders, was the cause. He tried to talk to the manufacturer of the medication, BioSphere, but they wouldn't have any of it. They referred him to their public relations department, but all they did was give him the runaround.

Not a single person was willing to listen.

I tried, Dane whispered, his voice the voice of a wounded man. God, I fucking tried so hard.

From those pictures, all his family's eyes stared out at him, suddenly alive, suddenly questioning.

Why didn't you help us, Dane? Marianne's image asked. Why didn't you help him? Why couldn't you get him free? Why is he the one to pay for their mistakes?

The loss bloomed inside him like some disgusting night rose, a flower that could only come in the darkest hours and grew only in the pits of despair.

But rage soon replaced the loss. Rage at his failure, rage at the company, rage at the whole fucking system that had come down on his brother. Sent to a war zone, Benton had come back a broken man. The doctors and the VA couldn't help him, so they gave him a pill. And the pill had just made things worse. Then the company responsible had washed their hands clean of any wrong-doing. Dane kicked the table over, upending and sending it into the couch. The glass crashed and shattered, sending crystalline shards and printed pictorial memories everywhere.

What had he become? How had he fallen so far? He just blinked in surprise at his outburst, at the mess he'd made. He went into the filthy kitchen, with its piles of empty takeout containers and pizza boxes, and set the bottle of bourbon on the counter. He grabbed a glass out of the dishwasher, filled it with water, and took a long, cleansing drink. When he was finished with it, he drew another glass and drank it down.

I need to get my head straight, he said to the empty kitchen. I need to take a break. I'm going fucking crazy here.

He left the whiskey in the kitchen and went into his bedroom, stepping over the piles of clothes on the floor. He grabbed the TV remote and laid back on the bed, turning on the television.

Dane was hoping he could find something soothing and mind-numbing. The Three Stooges, maybe, or old Warner Brothers cartoons. He and Benton had always loved those as kid, especially Bugs' antics.

What he found, though, wasn't soothing. Or mind-numbing.

Instead, what he found was the exact opposite. He perked up and rose to a sitting position on the bed as his eyes bored into the TV.

Emily West, new CEO of BioSphere, was being interviewed. She had long, wavy, butterscotch hair that flowed loose behind her and caring, almond-shaped blue eyes that seemed deep and welcoming. Understanding, even.

Well, Cheryl, Emily said to the interviewer, "I'd like to think I have a very open-door policy when it comes to my management style. And I