It was like coming alive when you thought you were dead. Every skin-cell suddenly flamed into red-hot life, a kind of frantic, feverish hunger possessing her. Her response was so intense that it swallowed her alive.

Prisoner of Passion by Lynne Graham is another explosively emotive read by the highly acclaimed author of category romances. First published in January of 1996, the story delves into two vastly different characters in terms of upbringing and outlook, rendering their coming together one that is as combustive as it can get.

The story begins when 21 year old Bella Jennings, a spirited and fiercely independent artist gets into an accident with 32 year old magnate, Rico da Silva, who misunderstands Bella’s intentions and challenges her integrity from the onset. While Rico would rather die than admit how he is drawn towards the spirited nature of Bella in a way that makes him wary, it is when they are kidnapped and thrown into forced proximity with each other that their desire comes to its heady conclusion, forging emotional ties that goes beyond mere attraction.

While Bella chafes at the very notion of giving into Rico, she carries the emotional scars of abandonment, which makes her extremely wary of relationships, especially given her mother’s history with men. When Rico misjudges her, laying blame at her door for enticing him, Bella tends to give as good as she gets, until she realizes that for the very first time in her life, she wants to succumb to the wiles of a man.

Meanwhile Rico has a more well-rounded upbringing and is not cast from the usual mold of heroes that litter most category romances. However, he is a man once bitten and extremely “shy” when it comes to the opposite sex, willing to believe that every woman wants what he can give them, both in bed and as a man who is financially affluent. When Bella pushes his buttons, the ones that do not even show up with other women, Rico being the strong character that he is, pushes back.

Their relationship is one that is an uphill battle, as it is not only their own vulnerabilities that each has to contend with, but also external forces that would rather see them go their separate ways. However, fate has a way of bringing them together which defies everything else, even be it the internal struggles that both Rico and Bella go through towards the end.

I highly enjoyed this high octane number from Ms. Graham. I am always in awe of how she can turn formulaic story lines into books that demands all my emotions to be fully invested in them. I am also quite taken in with the fact that almost every Lynne Graham novel tends to touch on the vast class difference that exists in advanced societies like the United Kingdom, and this was no exception.

How the poor struggle to make ends meet often living in cycles of abject poverty until the hero swoops in and rescues them, with generations often spending their lives in servitude, while those who have the money belong to a class of their own. While most may not hone in on such details, I believe Ms. Graham brings the struggles of especially women who assume responsibilities of single motherhood for instance to life in her novels to show this dichotomy that is still very much part of society.

I loved how passionate both Rio and Bella were in their unique individual ways, and how that passion translated into a love of the kind that both were willing to fight for when all was said and done. Ms. Graham’s vivid prose is perfect for such contrasting characters, capturing the often tumultuous emotions that defines their relationship. From heated arguments to tender moments of vulnerability, each scene is crafted to best portray the emotional nuance, drawing readers into the heart of their passionate and intense love affair.

Ultimately, it was how Bella and Rico both navigate their personal demons and external pressures to go through periods of growth and introspection, to be able to accept each other and their love which made the story stand out for me.

Definitely recommended for those who love highly passionate love stories crafted with emotional depth that Ms. Graham is famous for!

Final Verdict: Prisoner of Passion is a gripping romance with its richly drawn characters, evocative prose, and poignant exploration of love amidst adversity, attesting to Graham’s mastery of the genre!

Favorite Quotes

‘Let me go… Let me go!’ she chanted wildly. ‘Please!’
‘If I don’t take you to the police I’ll take you home.’ Every muscle in his dark features rigid, he slung her a look of smouldering sexual appraisal which was flagrant enough to make her knees sag and her darkened eyes fill with an ocean of sheer shock. ‘Sí…and bed you like you’ve never been bedded before! I have never wanted anything as badly as I want you, and the knowledge that I can afford you doesn’t help. It’s a sick craving and I am not yielding to it,’ he muttered roughly, so close now that she could feel his breath on her cheek as his dark head lowered, degree by mesmerising degree. ‘And, if I did, you’d be sorry. Believe me, the police are the soft option…’

His mouth crashed down on hers. Electric shock sizzled through every skin cell. Nothing that intense had ever happened to her before. His tongue stabbed between her lips and heat surged between her thighs. She quivered, letting him splay his hands intimately to the swell of her hips, lifting her to him, melding every inch of her screamingly willing body to the hungry threat of his. It still wasn’t close enough to satisfy. A moan escaped huskily from the back of her throat—a curiously animal moan that she did not recognise as her own.

‘Don’t be disgusting! Let me go!’
He gave vent to something rough and charged in Spanish and moved with an abruptness that took her completely by surprise. Suddenly she was flipped onto her back and Rico was lying above her instead, their positions reversed without warning. Before she could open her startled lips to demand an explanation he took her mouth in a surge of angry passion.
And what happened next she definitely wasn’t prepared to deal with. As his tongue drove into the moist interior she had already accidentally opened to him she was seized by an explosive wave of excitement. It left her dizzy and stripped of every coherent thought. The intensity of her own response electrified her, opening up another world that was full of unbearable physical temptation. She returned the kiss with a kind of wondering innocence, arching her head back to deepen the pressure, involuntarily greedy and inviting more.

He wasn’t listening. He muttered something rough and yet soft in Spanish, and just as suddenly reached for her. As possessed by that terrifying strong need to physically connect as he was, Bella made no demur. Lost in the slumbrous demand of his golden gaze, she was mindless. He took her mouth with a hunger that burned like flames of fire over her unprotected skin.
And yet she craved that fire, needed that fire as she needed oxygen to live. Her hands gripped his broad shoulders, loving the heat of his flesh through the fine shirt. She pushed against him as he crushed her to him, her breasts flattened to the hard wall of his chest, already heavy with a sensitivity and an anticipation which he alone had taught her to feel. Her body remembered him with every newly awakened sense.

He shifted over her then, ravishing her swollen lips one more time, and then, abruptly, he drew her up to him with impatient hands and plunged inside her. She hadn’t expected the pain that tore at her as he entered her. Her shocked eyes flew wide and she bit her tongue so hard that she tasted blood in her mouth.
‘Madre de Dios!’ Shattered golden eyes held hers, and then his teeth clenched as the momentum of his own desire made him drive deeper still, his swollen shaft forging a path through the tender tissue that had sought to deny him.

She was at screaming-point when he moved over her, every shred of physical awareness centred on the ache of emptiness between her thighs. And then he thrust into her and she moaned and arched in one taut movement, her body clenching on a pleasure so intense that she was utterly possessed by it. Her fingers raked down his back in reaction and her teeth nipped at the strong brown column of his throat in instinctive revenge for the ragged laugh he gave vent to.
After that there was nothing but the long, pulsing drive for satisfaction. It went on and on and on. She hit the heights fast, unable to rein back the flood of release, but he didn’t stop. She had barely hit ground level again before the frantic climb back up began, and in all her life she had never felt so controlled, never dreamt she could enjoy that reality so much. And when the second climax whooshed up inside her she was wiped out.

He kissed her and the world fell away and everything else soared to an ungovernable height of excitement. He closed his arms around her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t want to breathe. Dizzy and disorientated, she clung to him, lost in the devastating plunge into passion, her heart racing, her pulses throbbing, every muscle taut with a hunger that dominated and controlled. Heat surged into her loins, making her thighs tremble against the aroused thrust of his manhood. He swept her up in his arms and then dropped her on the ancient feather mattress from a height.
‘You’re a pushover, querida.’ He stared down at her, his hard-boned features grim and derisive. ‘And you will crawl for that month’s trial before I am finished with you!’ he stated chillingly.

‘Would you like me to show you around?’ Standing there in the stray patch of sunlight arrowing through a tall sash-window, he looked so good that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Six feet four inches of spectacular masculinity. Visually she adored every extravagantly gorgeous inch of him, her heart accelerating like a racing car screeching round a bend at a hundred-plus miles an hour. She felt her breasts stir and swell inside the cups of her bra, helplessly struggled to fight the electric tension that was wantonly taking her over.
‘Bella…’ he murmured unsteadily, his shimmering golden eyes suddenly hotly pinned to her.
Emboldened by the discovery that he could look helpless too, Bella smiled, all female. ‘Turned very coy all of a sudden, haven’t you?’

She pulled his jacket off, tore at his tie, and as he fought his way out of his shirt let her palms smooth up over the warm, hard wall of his muscular chest, her fingertips teasing at the dark whorls of hair in her path. With an earthy growl he brushed her hands away, thrust her T-shirt up and found her breasts.
It was her turn to gasp and quiver as his expert fingers pushed up her bra and tugged at her engorged nipples. Her back arched in a blinding wave of intolerable excitement.

She burned and panted for breath as he tugged the briefs away and discovered the damp, hot secret of her desire. Intolerable excitement held her in its grip. Suddenly he was pushing her back, shifting over her, unexpectedly stilling when she was poised with anticipation on the furthest edge, every nerve ready to scream with frustration.
‘Don’t stop!’ she gasped.
She felt his hands, roughly impatient on her thighs, and then, with a suddenness that stole her breath away, he thrust into her hard and deeply. An ecstatic cry escaped her, wanton in the depth of need it expressed. She stretched up, kissing his throat, licking the salt from his skin, adoring him. But he pushed her back, arching over her like a primitive god, demanding absolute control, thrusting harder and faster, filling her again and again with the driving force of his manhood.

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