Nineteen year old Evie Bennett comes from a strict household that translates into the kind of nightmare that a lot of kids often live through. Evie has no freedom to be who she wants to be, explore what it means to be a young adult, and make choices about her life and future as anyone at that age would want to. Life is tough, but Evie knows no other way, that is until fate comes calling.

When Evie meets Tyler Vandervoort, her whole world changes from the onset. With Tyler, the very opposite of everything that she is, Evie finds the freedom to explore her own sensuality and give free rein to the deep seated desire that he rouses in her. With every kiss that leads to unbelievably hot make-out sessions (which should be illegal because the buildup is too much to handle at times, I kid not!), Evie finds herself drawn to Tyler in a way that makes it hard to walk away from.

In the end, choices have to be made, one might say hard choices, but when it comes right down to it, I would say that it was a choice that needed to be made under the circumstances. Tyler might be the boy from the wrong side of town in the way he presents himself, but as the story continues and reaches its climax, Evie starts to realise that there is more to Tyler than meets the eye, and that they may have more in common than she initially thought.

As is the case with every Charlotte Stein story, there is not much else going apart from the sexual tension and culmination of all that desire that is between the main protagonists. Perhaps one of the reasons why this story was a bit thin in terms of characterisation and depth, which seemed to lack more so than the previous two books that I have read and loved from Ms. Stein.

But as always, Ms. Stein is able to draw you in and keep you riveted to what is unfolding in a way that few authors manage to do, especially when it comes to creating sexual tension of the kind that is all encompassing.

Recommended for fans of Ms. Stein’s work. There is a charm to her prose that is nothing short of mesmerising.

Final Verdict: Sheltered brings to readers the story of two protagonists who may seems worlds apart, but in each other finds a calling and solace that proves to be their undoing.

Favorite Quotes

He tasted like cinnamon, again, and every now and then he’d pull away, just a little—just enough to make her want to drag him back. Before giving her a teasing lick with that perfect, curling tongue of his.
It set all the nerve endings in her upper lip on fire. She had to stop herself from reaching up and rubbing something like normal feeling back into the area, before the urge to writhe against him grew too strong.

“Evie, stop,” he said between kisses. She should have been relieved. She should have, but really all she could feel was the heavy and constant ache between her legs. How warm it made her feel, how daring.
And of course it only got worse when he said, “God, baby, you’re so greedy.”
It didn’t even humiliate her. Somehow he made it sound like the sweetest, sexiest compliment, and when she pushed a hand through his hair and tried to get him to kiss her again, his lips parted. A ripple seemed to go through his body, as though it affected him as strongly as it affected her.

He lifted his shirt again—farther this time. If he’d been facing her she would have been able to see his chest hair, but as it was she had to make do with acres and acres of honey-colored skin. All of it so soft seeming she could hardly control herself.
Would he mind, if she just leaned down and kissed the almost apparent ridges of his spine? She suspected he would, but after a moment of staring and staring at the little black knot he’d had inked in the middle of his back, she stopped trying to control herself altogether.
She kissed him there, open-mouthed and wet. Tasted his warm skin, then licked when he tried to sort of shift away.

The longer she went at this, the looser and more relaxed about it he appeared to become. He even turned his head after a little while and found her mouth with his, kissing in a way that forced a fresh flood of slickness to soak through her already embarrassingly wet panties.
He did it with a lot of tongue. And he kind of moaned at the same time, though the moans didn’t stop at her mouth. They vibrated down, down through her body to her oh-so-sensitive nipples and her swollen sex, searching out that little bud that she never on pain of death touched.

“I want you to look at me,” he said, which seemed like the most unbearable thing of all. She had to rub through all of this mortifying mess, while he watched her and she watched him?
She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
“I can’t.”
“You can. Here. Here. Like this,” he said, then covered her hand with his and urged it over her slick mound. Of course, the effect was immediate. That little bud swelled beneath her fingertips, pleasure jerking upward from it too quickly. Her toes curled, her back arched, she tried to tell him no again.
But he just pushed her hand down harder, until she couldn’t stop herself from circling that stiff shape. Just a little—no one would have to know. Except for Van, of course, who seemed to be breathing far, far too hard.

Words actually wanted to come out this time, but she didn’t have the breath to lend them. Everything had seized up inside her, so tightly that for a second she panicked. This wasn’t like the orgasms she’d had prior. The orgasms prior hadn’t hurt the way this one was doing, and they hadn’t made her stop breathing, and oh God, what if a person could die of coming?
She was sure she’d heard that on the news, one time. Sure. But no matter how tense and out of control her body got—by this point, she’d practically started rutting against his mouth—he didn’t let up.

She hadn’t the first clue about how to do this thing. He’d had tricks, and ways of going about it, and the magical ability to transport her into transcendental ecstasy. She had some vague idea about maybe sucking him a bit.
The two didn’t match up. He was going to laugh at her efforts, even though he didn’t seem to be laughing now. He didn’t even crack a smile when she looked up at him—he just stared down at her with that tortured, overheated gaze. Mouth a mean line. Shoulders hunched, body still shaking.
And then he told her all the things she most needed to hear.
“Just suck me,” he said. “God, just put your mouth on me.”

She didn’t know how such a thing was possible, but it happened, even so. And all the way through, she hung on fiercely, most of her moans more like grunts. Thighs squeezing too tightly around his body. Hands grasping at parts of him she probably shouldn’t have been grasping.
And best of all—she felt herself clench down hard, on his still-working cock.
“Oh Jesus, Evie,” he panted, almost automatically. Swiftly followed by a tightening of his grip on her back, her ass. His face pressing against the side of hers, as he moaned all hot and wet right into her skin.

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