Format: E-Book
Read with: Kindle Paperwhite
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Graham Edwards
Hero: Quentin Savage
Heroine: Violet May Moore
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: October 10, 2019
Started On: October 10, 2019
Finished On: October 13, 2019

Dreams of 18 by Saffron A. Kent is her latest novel, published on October of this year. This was a much awaited novel on my part, like every other fan of Saffron I believe, because that is just how it is when it comes to books by an author who literally and figuratively takes your breath away. What Saffron does with her characters is priceless, the boundaries she pushes in the genre makes her books stand out, and the wealth of emotions her books carry are second to none.

Dreams of 18 brings to readers 18 year old Violet May Moore and 36 year old Graham Edwards, whose story begins when Graham moves next door to Violet’s home in Cherryville, Connecticut. Violet had been just 16 years old then, and Graham’s son Brian had quickly become a close friend. But from the moment Violet had laid eyes on Graham from the very first day they had moved in, there had been no other man for her, even though she knows that nothing would ever come to fruition from her harmless crush on her someone who would never give her the time of day.

However, the night she turns 18 is the night all hell breaks loose. One kiss, and everything unravels, Graham leaves town and Violet is left to pick up the pieces. The story continues ten months later, when Violet seeks Graham, largely to ask his forgiveness and to right the wrong she had done by initiating a kiss that had destroyed Graham’s life and forced him to leave.

The Graham she finds is one who unravels her even more than before, and the more time Graham and Violet forcibly spends together, increasingly she comes to the realization that Graham is not as unaffected by Violet as he pretends and would like to be. The battle of wills between the two heightens until of course there is nothing left but to give in, and give in they do, oh so gloriously!

I loved Graham and Violet, because its hard not to fall in love with two characters who are as lost and lonely as they are. But I have to admit that I loved the first half of the book more than the latter. Graham, having grown up with an absentee mother, and a father who had mourned the fact every single day to the point where Graham had never known love or affection. Violet’s childhood had been just as bad. Her mother who had never really wanted her had left its mark, and Violet had learnt to keep herself occupied so that the loneliness would be kept at bay. The very first time Graham wishes Violet a happy birthday was a scene so full of gut punching emotions that it nearly undid me.

The yearning that hits Violet at such a deeply intrinsic level is one that is echoed in Graham, even though he berates himself every single day for the way he feels about someone so young. There is just something about heroes who are larger than life and heroines who are dainty and beautiful, and the way these heroines basically have the hero wrapped around their little finger.

Graham who tenderly cares for his roses, and Violet who sees through to what it actually represents. Graham who sees and understands the wealth of accumulated hurt in Violet, and eases them with every kiss he lays on her with carnal intention or otherwise. Violet, who understands the grouchiness that is at times Graham, but loves him for it regardless because the more grouchy and possessive he is, the harder she loves him all the more. Graham who would have walked away in a heartbeat if it would have ensured her Violet’s happiness at the risk of damning his own soul. That is in essence what Graham and Violet are about, and the beauty that Saffron delivers to readers.

The other thing that struck me the most is the premise upon which the plot of the story is based. Saffron is famous for writing on taboo tropes, undoubtedly. In Dreams of 18, she navigates perhaps one of the trickiest topics of present times, especially when discussions such as #MeToo, pedophilia, and child grooming are hotly debated. The ingenuity in Dreams of 18 lies in the way Saffron skates the very edge and somehow makes it all work and entices the reader to fall in love.

Dreams of 18 may perhaps not be for everyone. And that is fine. But for readers like myself who loves authors who push the conventional norms when it comes to romance, Saffron Kent is like hitting jackpot! I just wish there were more authors like her out there, and that Saffron had an extensive back-list of books I could gorge on until the date of her next publication.

Definitely recommended!

Final Verdict: Dreams of 18 is an overload of emotions and sensations tied up in a neat bow presented to readers. Let the unraveling begin!

Favorite Quotes

“What do you think she wanted me to do to her?” he asks.
With every question that he asks me, the answers become more and more difficult. I should really put a stop to it.
Mostly because it’s none of my business. But also because I don’t wanna talk about her. I don’t wanna talk about what that woman wanted from him and what he wanted from her.
And yet, I can’t help it when my lips part and my answer slips out. “Keep kissing her and never stop.”

“What if I bring my hand forward, slide it down her stomach? Would she like that?”
My eyes go down to his hands. They’re clenched into fists by his sides, mimicking my own.
His stance is wide, and his body sprung tight, completely in conflict with his low, lazy, almost sleepy voice. And I realize that maybe this is how he looks when he’s aroused.
Oh Jesus, is he aroused? Did she get him going that much?
It makes me wanna sob.
Instead, I whisper, “Yeah. Yeah, she’d like that. Very much.”

But before I go, before I become a puddle on his couch, I ask, “Are you saying that I’m… visible?”
“No, Violet, I’m not saying that you’re visible. I’m saying that you’re the only thing that a man sees. I’m saying that you’re a thing that drives a man to distraction. You make him forget what’s right and what’s wrong. You’re a thing so terrible and beautiful and fucking breathtaking that he can’t escape you. He can’t think of anything else, not about his job, his responsibilities, his promises, his family, nothing but you. You undo him. You make him helpless. You turn him into an animal who wants to rut. You’re a girl who makes a man go bad.”

My breaths are louder. Louder than his hand jerking off his cock.
God, he’s jacking off and I don’t know what to do.
How to simply stand here and not go to him.
I’m salivating for it. My mouth is full of saliva and I’m biting my lip and licking it.
I’m gasping and probably rolling my hips in the air and that’s how he knows I’m here.
He catches me perving over him while I’m making noises.
Yikes.
As soon as his eyes hit me, his face goes from flushed to furious in a split second and he whips around, his shaft hard and pointing toward me. “What… What the… What the fuck?”

He goes for my panties.

He hooks his fingers in my waistband and yanks them down. He keeps yanking until they are off and somewhere on the floor where he throws them before coming back to me.
Before coming back and lying down on his stomach, as sprawled as I am on the bed.
My legs are all open now, almost in a split and his shoulders are jammed between them. His face is at my open, bare core that he’s breathing over, fanning my steamy folds with the air within his lungs.
He stares at it, burning my most intimate flesh with his eyes, as his thumbs run in circles at the juncture where my thighs meet my hips.
He stares at it and stares at it, getting lost for a second like he did when he looked at my breasts, and I have to call his name again. “Graham?”
He looks up, then.
“What’s my special kiss?”
Finally, he growls, “This.”
With that, he licks me.

“Graham,” I whimper, my hands going to his chest, my fingers burying in his chest hair.
He lets go of my nipple and moves further up. He kisses my pulse and I bend my neck to the side to give him more access. Then, he’s at my lips. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes up and up and finds my forehead.
Closing my sleepy eyes, I nuzzle my nose at his stubbled throat as I feel him kiss me there, at my sweaty forehead, and whisper, “Happy birthday, baby.”

“You gonna grip me hard, Violet? You’re gonna keep me here, huh?”
To emphasize here, he massages my entire core again and I can feel that I’ve practically drenched my pajamas. I can feel the wetness on my thighs. I can feel him rubbing that wetness back into my pussy and I’m almost there. Almost.
And then, he edges me over with these erotic, filthy words that he rasps just below my ear while he licks me there, rubs his jaw and beard over my soft skin.
“Your mommy should’ve tied you to the bed, Jailbait. Barred your windows. Hidden you from the world. It was only a matter of time before you ended up on the wrong side of a bad man’s cock.”

I dig my nails in his biceps, making him groan and making myself whimper.
But more than that, I make myself move and rock and twist against his length. I’m sliding back and forth on his cock, humping against it when suddenly, my eyes pop wide open.
Because holy shit, he’s inside of me.
Just like that.
He’s just pushed himself in on a groan and a grimace, his eyes still on me but so much foggier now. So much brighter and covered in a sheen that wasn’t there before. Not when I closed my eyes a few seconds ago.
Just that look of his, all panting and drugged, makes me come.

“Do you think I’m bleeding?”
He jerks slightly, his fingers digging into my flesh. Not a lot but enough that I feel the movement ricocheting in my swollen cunt.
“Jesus Christ, virgins,” he mutters to himself like he forgot about the bleeding part, panic laced in those words. To me, he grits out, his eyes concerned, “I hope to fuck that you’re not.”
I wind my arms around his neck and shake my head. “No, no. Don’t hope that.”
“What?”
“I like that. I wanna bleed.” He shudders over me; I feel the muscles of his shoulders quaking. “Because I’m… I’m a woman now. You made me one. I’m all grown up.”
His cock lurches inside me as he curses, and comes down on his elbows, as if he doesn’t wanna be away from me. As if he wants our skin to touch and slip against each other.

A second later, he pops the candy out of my mouth and throws it away before kissing the fuck out of me.
Before fusing our bodies together and slamming his cock into me. Pounding and ramming and beating up my horny channel as he fucks me. Plows into me like a beast.
It’s even more intense than last night. The way he’s riding my pussy.
His strokes are harder and more powerful. More possessive. Like his need for me only increased after he had one taste of me.
Like he wants me even more now. Like he needs me more.

I clench around his cock and his drives become rough and haphazard.
He jerks and twitches, his body slipping over mine with the sweat, the friction we’ve created. And then, he comes too.
He does it still looking at me.
He doesn’t close his eyes. He doesn’t get lost in his climax alone.
He gets lost in it with me.
The girl he can’t love but looks like he does.
The girl who’s thinking, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
I can’t lose that look. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell him the truth.
I love him.

While his truck is shaking and rocking with us and the windows fog up.
But more than anything, I wanna do this all day and for the rest of my life because I want to make all my secrets with him. Secrets like this one. So dirty and sacred at the same time.
It’s us: him and me. The new us that we’ve created together.
I told him that night when I wore the red dress for him, that I want us to be us, just him and me.
This is us.
Wild and savage and filthy and beautiful. Beauty and The Beast.

“When I saw you, Violet, it felt like someone stabbed me in the chest,” he rasps.
My eyes go wide. “What?”
He chuckles; it’s brittle and thin. “Or at least, it felt like it. I saw you up on the roof, with your thick, gorgeous hair and your arms open wide, something got lodged inside my chest, just under my heart and for the longest time, it felt like a knife of some sort. Something that made me… different. It wasn’t that, though.”
“W-what was it?”
“My soul,” he whispers. “It was my soul waking up. The thing that keeps a man alive, came alive in me when I saw you. You woke up my soul, Violet.”

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