Category / Mischief

by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Professor by Charlotte Stein

Format: E-Book
Read with: Kindle Paperwhite
Length: Novel
Genre: Erotic Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Mischief
Hero: Lukas Halstrom
Heroine: Esther Hayridge
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: September 24, 2015
Started On: May 26, 2020
Finished On: May 27, 2020

The Professor by Charlotte Stein is probably one of the sexiest novels I have read in the entirety of my reading life. I don’t say that lightly. Being the lover of good smut that is delivered right, I am quite particular about what I like. But, there is an edge to Ms. Stein’s writing that is evocative in a way that is indescribable. Unless one has experienced the range of emotions that Ms. Stein makes you feel with the turn of every page, I do not think a mere review can do justice to the magic that happens when Ms. Stein puts pen to paper.

Taking on one of my favorite tropes, i.e. the professor hero versus the student heroine, which brings its own forbidden variety of deliciousness to the story, The Professor features 31 year old Lukas Halstrom and 22 year old Esther Hayridge.

Esther is not a student of the brilliant variety. She barely scrapes by and most would just term her as average, that is until she mistakenly submits what she wrote for her own eyes; an erotic fantasy of her own which she mistakenly submits as an assignment for Professor Halstrom’s class. Bracing herself for the humiliation that would most definitely follow, none is more surprised than Esther when Lukas instead offers to tutor her in private, to hone her writing skills.

One may think that Lukas has intentions of the carnal variety from the onset. Perhaps to an extent, his baser instincts were roused by what Esther submits as an assignment requirement, but he is exemplary in his behavior and attitude towards her from the get go. It is only the content which they discuss that is thought provoking which borders on indecency, especially when it comes to Esther’s reaction to the discussions.

One thing leads to another, and before they both know it, they have crossed a line, the consequence of which comes in the form of Lukas upping and leaving the university altogether. It is only then the story truly begins, with the bout of heartache that follows, and the hope that comes in the form of a sealed letter that bares open the very heart of the formidable Professor.

Ms. Stein does a remarkable job in peeling back the layers of Lukas’ character through the eyes of Esther. I have yet to come across a hero in control and command of his needs and emotions as Lukas, and believe you me, I felt exhausted at points in time from how he holds himself back. But one cannot complain too much given how Lukas manages to leave not only Esther a hot mess when all is said and done.

However, at a certain point, I felt that the control he exerted was a bit too much, even when I understood that what Lukas wanted with Esther wasn’t the usual tawdry affair that he tends to have with the fairer sex. It is his way of showing that Esther matters to him in a way that no woman has before, and that he does not want physical aspects of their relationship to affect what could possibly bloom to life between them.

In the end, the fact that it was Lukas who came back for her perhaps made all of that worthwhile, especially after the roller coaster of emotions that the last couple of chapters puts the reader through. In my opinion, even though Lukas resists the effect Esther has on him at every turn, they are two halves of one soul who found their way to one another. There is no stopping what springs to life between them, to the point where neither time nor distance seemed to matter in the long run.

Recommended for fans of Charlotte Stein and fans of erotic romance that makes you feel in spades. I would recommend turning on the fan at full speed before you turn that first page and get lost in the midst of the red hot tide of desire between the two!

Final Verdict: Emotion that is tightly wound with exquisitely delivered smut makes The Professor hard to put down. It is no mean feat to strike the right balance between the two and Ms. Stein proves her worth with every word in the book!

Favorite Quotes

I say it as it is: my cunt, my clit, my slick little slit. I work them all until my thighs tremble and my head goes back and I know, I know I’m going to come. I’m going to do it all over my hand right here, while imaginary people stand and watch. Those cool, bright, amazing people that surround me every day, bored to tears by everything I am, suddenly open-mouthed and horrified and just dying to ask what drove me to it.
And when they do, I think, as my orgasm crests…
When they do I will tell them truly:
Because my Professor talks dirty to me.

My mouth is crushed against his, but it isn’t him doing the crushing. It’s me, pressing and pressing as if I could somehow get beneath his skin if I only did it hard enough.
At the very least I could burn the memory of this into me. I want to always know every inch of it, from the warm whiskey taste of him to the sense of being so completely surrounded by someone. The insides of his arms, the push of his chest, his great height curling over me…all of it, I need all of it. But only when he finally pulls away do I get why it was so important. I feel how he wrenches himself from me, and see his horrified expression, and I utterly understand what made me so desperate to feel all of this to the utmost.
He is never, ever going to do it again.

[Letter from Hetty to Lukas] I think yes; I think underneath the layers of tweed you are as louche and debauched as a lord from some story about swooning on a moor. That if you were given the chance you would indulge appetites even I can barely guess at – though God knows I try. My thoughts seethe with all the things you might possibly like to do. Would you like to kiss my cunt?
Or is it more than that?
Filthier than that?
Are you debased, my Lukas, in ways I am far too innocent to ever imagine? Would you get me on my knees and fill my mouth with your cock and your come? Or perhaps your proclivities run a different way. Maybe you lie in bed at night with your hand around a dick I cream at the thought of, and think of fucking my arse. Oh, God, I get close to coming, just thinking of you doing something like that. Something reckless, and greedy.
Be greedy for me. Hold nothing back.
If we must live like this then hold nothing back.

And it gets worse when his mouth moves back to mine. This time his kisses are deep, and wet, and hot. His tongue eases in and out of my mouth, in a way I could never mistake. He wants me to think of his cock doing that exact same thing. He wants to show me how he would take me – so slow and easy, until my whole body is boneless. Until I come all over him, shuddering and gasping and oh, God, God, God, the thought alone is almost enough to make me do it. At the very least I know I’m moaning, and possibly shaking.

He eases those fingers through my insanely slick folds, and his lips actually part. A sound comes out of him – one that might be a sigh but could be a moan. It definitely feels like a moan. My clit jumps at the sound of it, and I know I make an even bigger mess of myself down there. I know I do, because he rubs through it. He eases it over my plump lips and around and around my eager hole, almost slipping inside but not quite, oh, not quite.
Though it hardly matters.
How could it, when he follows that with a stroke around my clit? No teasing, no preamble, no watching me squirm like a fish on a hook. He just starts rubbing me there, fast and firm and so sure it stops my breath.

The hand he spreads over my back is much too firm and far too eager – as are the fingers that start tugging my knickers down my legs. He almost snaps the elastic several times, and above that sound is another, deeper, sweeter one.
His harsh, desperate breathing. Like he can hardly contain the urge to take his pleasure. He can’t wait to fuck me, I think, and come close to groaning in arousal and disbelief. My pussy is creaming over the very idea, every inch of it so ready for that cock of his. I can feel it clenching just at the thought. The moment he slides in I’m going to do it all over him – and that much is true. I do come almost the second I feel him against me, hard and long and oh so juicily.
But it’s his face that he puts between my legs.

He grasps my hips and holds me there, while he works me over again.
And when I say works me over, I mean works me over. He does it like the night before, insistent and firm and nearly forcing me towards orgasm. No teasing – quite clearly he thinks I’ve had enough of that. No, no, he just rubs the flat of his tongue right over my over-sensitised clit, until I’m almost screaming with the sensation. It’s far too thick and far too hot, like a kind of branding. I want to pull away, but he won’t let me. His grip is so firm I can scarcely move. I can’t even close my legs, because his knee is between them.
And then, oh, then he starts flicking at my swollen bud with the tip of his tongue. Right on the underside, right where it’s sweetest, so quick and firm I can only go limp against the window.

‘I don’t have heavy-lidded eyes the colour of an ocean at the end of the world. Or a brow so expressive it could probably take to the London stage. Or a cleft in my chin that looks like someone kissed you there too long and left a little imprint,’ I say, and immediately want to take it back. I can see him straightening in his chair, and I know, I know, I know he’s going to go hard.
I just don’t realise how hard.
‘Yes, but you do regularly look at me with that gaze as black and bright as midnight and make me want to throw away every bit of restraint I spent my life carefully cultivating. There are no lips I have longed more to kiss; no hair so wild and dark that I see it in my dreams. Whatever you might say about how I look, you are lovelier. I see worlds in your face, and spend nearly all of my time desperately wanting to go to them.’

‘When I see myself together with you, when I allow myself to fully picture it, the things I see are not typically sexual in nature. More commonly I am accosted by an image of us walking together – we are always walking together, and perhaps it is raining. Perhaps we stop beneath the awning of a shop that sells beautiful cakes, and you turn your lovely face up to mine, and look at me with the same eyes I see gazing at me now. They are full of mischief and tenderness together, as though I mean something as wonderful to you as you do to me. And then you take my hand, in a way no other person has. And I let you, in a way I have never let anyone before. And for the first time in my long and very tiring life, I know that I am at peace.’

I feel the slipperiness sliding over one sensitive nipple, and taste it sharp and tangy on my tongue, and everything just starts to go.
I even tell him so.
‘Oh, God, I’m coming,’ I say.
I’m coming.
And maybe it’s me moaning that aloud. Maybe it’s the sight of me, striped with his come and still on my knees. But either way, he has one final treat just for me. He waits, it seems, until I’m shuddering with pleasure. Waits until I’m calling his name. And then he hauls me to my feet with one hand and kisses me.
He kisses my come-covered mouth, as I lose myself in this bliss.

His prick is leaking copiously, all down the shaft and over my hands, and it gets messier the more I go at him. The greedier I get the clearer the response, until finally I think he might be bucking into my grip. He’s definitely making noise, because he does it right in my ear. He moans that I should go faster, that I should unbutton my top, that he wants to see me as I stroke him.
And just when I think he couldn’t get any filthier:
‘I want to come in your mouth again.’

He slides in as smooth as every other fuck I ever had wasn’t, opening me up in a way I can scarcely believe. It steals my breath. It makes me moan, loud and long and so full of abandonment. I don’t care that anyone can hear – but then, neither does he.
‘Good Lord, you feel sweet,’ he says, loud enough that I actually feel it deep down in my bones. I shudder at the sound of it, cunt tightening hard around the intrusion. So hard, in fact, that he struggles to move. He makes a sound like someone clicking their fingers, as soon as he attempts it. Then again, when he manages one stuttering stroke.
He can hardly blame me for it, however.
He’s the one with the gloriously, incredibly, amazingly thick cock.

People say ‘make love’. But they don’t really mean it. It’s just a pretty bow to dress up a base thing, and make it palatable to people who wouldn’t find it so otherwise.
Yet I believe it here. I feel it breaking through me – the sense that I am being made, somehow. That I am being loved. And I keep feeling it all the way to the very end, when he gasps my name against the side of my face. Our bodies so close together I should feel swamped, though I don’t.
All I want to do is hang on tight, as my orgasm stutters into life.

He groans so close to my ear I feel it vibrate all the way down me. It has this sort of chain effect on my body – starting with my too tight nipples then on down to my tensing belly and then finally, oh, finally I feel it in my clit. It circles me there like his fingers, like his tongue, until I can sense it starting to shudder through me. My pussy clenches around his cock, so fiercely I fear I might be hurting him.
But if I do, it is the delicious sort of pain. The sort that makes him twist on top of me, teeth bared and eyes dark with pleasure, every inch of his body going into a desperate attempt at really fucking me. He wants to do it hard, I can tell. He wants to hammer into me until my teeth rattle. Only the more he succeeds the tighter my cunt tightens around him, until all we can both manage is a sort of desperate push-pull.

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Sweet Agony Charlotte Stein

Format: E-Book
Read with: Kindle Paperwhite
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Mischief
Hero: Cyrian Harcroft
Heroine: Molly Parker
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: August 1992
Started On: April 11, 2020
Finished On: April 15, 2020

My deep abiding desire to read something different, something that would sweep me off my feet (because these days it is really, really, really hard to find a book that does this to you), is the reason I ended up reading my very first book by Charlotte Stein. Reading Sweet Agony made me wonder why I had not come across a book by Ms. Stein prior to this. Maybe I have and never thought much of it or thought it wasn’t for me (which seems highly unlikely). Either way, I am glad I came across this delectable, delicious, and angst ridden (in the best way possible) read that I would forever hold close to my heart.

Sweet Agony begins when 22 year old Molly Parker answers an advert seeking a housekeeper and finds herself hired after the most invigorating job interview that I have ever come across in a book, and all that without Molly even laying eyes on the man who hires her, aka 34 year old Cyrian Harcroft.

Cyrian is the quintessential definition of a loner, preferring to hole himself up in a house that is as forbidding and closed off to the world as he is. However, from the onset, there is something about Molly that sets a fire blazing inside him as he does in her, and there is no stopping the tidal wave of lust, love, tenderness, and other emotions that comes gushing forth between the two.

With every word that Cyrian speaks or writes to Molly, to her it is as if someone is reading out the verses of a book of poetry written specifically for her. And even though Molly knows that it is the height of impropriety to lust after her boss, she does just that, even when she knows that Cyrian is not for the likes of her.

One thing leads to another and Ms. Stein delivers so spectacularly on the build up of the sexual tension that wraps around you so tight. It is almost as if you cannot breath through certain parts of the book; yes, Ms. Stein’s play with the words is nothing short of mesmerizing.

In Cyrian’s words towards the end, they are soulmates, no question about it. Both having undergone difficult childhoods in their own ways, it is only Molly who is able to bring Cyrian out of his inward shell, the one in which he believes himself to be unworthy of love.

The best thing about Sweet Agony for me were the main protagonists, specifically Cyrian. He is a hero to die for, the demanding and tender side to his character unbound layer by layer to reveal his true self as seen through Molly’s eyes. He is sexy in a way that is indescribable, a hero worth swooning over in the years to come.

I will never get over how he just sat down and started reading dirty passages from the book he was supposedly writing, and not even by the mereest flicker of an expression did he show how it affected him. That was in part one of the most glorious aspects of this book and I fell completely and head over heels in love with Cyrian without even trying.

Molly was just as wonderful, having that right touch and balance to her character which helped her gain insight into what Cyrian was about and what he needed. The fact that Cyrian thinks he is unworthy, when he already is what Molly needs and more, was the icing on the cake as the novel reached its ultimate conclusion.

The only reason that Sweet Agony did not get the five stars that the story truly deserves was because of the lack of an epilogue which was sorely felt. Having gone through that roller-coaster of a ride with Cyrian and Molly, readers deserve an epilogue, maybe something five or ten years down the line, just to show us how they were faring. In my mind, Cyrian is still that forbidding man he is to everyone else except for Molly, for whom his face lights up with the merest gaze.

I would also have loved to know more about Cyrian and Molly’s pasts – even though I know the story had enough tidbits to serve as such, just enough to make that emotional connection needed for readers to thoroughly enjoy the story.

Highly recommended, especially for those who love an erotic tale that is akin to poetry written for your soul.

Final Verdict: Sweet Agony by Charlotte Stein is beautifully crafted poetic eroticism done right. Definitely recommended!

Favorite Quotes

I know as soon as he sits down that I am in trouble. He crosses one leg over the other, in a way I would describe as louche if I could stand to. At the very least I have to admit it shows off how long his limbs are, and how much more muscular than they had initially seemed. At first glance, he always appears rail-thin.
But then you see something flex and tighten in his thigh, and all is lost.
There is no going back, after this. Whatever pretence I made of not fancying him dissolves, the moment he sits there and just looks at me. Then, just when I think it can’t get any more intense, he reaches inside his dressing gown.
And draws out a bloody book.

And then he strikes me, and I lose my mind.
It’s nothing like what I expected. Some part of me thought it would just be painful, and that people were lying when they talked about how exciting it is. But I see now that I am an idiot. The cane paints a searing stripe across my flesh, and when it does I try to climb up the nearest wall. The breath I was about to take sticks in my throat. Everything stops.
Swiftly followed by a sensation so intense I can hardly stand it. It seems to flood my body, filling me to the brim. I feel incapable of containing it, and even when I manage to cram it in there is more, hot on its heels. He doesn’t wait for me to take it in. He just does it again, this time so sharply it brings tears to my eyes. I come very close to sobbing, but, good God, I know why I hold it in.
If I let it out he may stop.

Then I feel a great wave of pleasure. I don’t even know why. His scorn should be the last thing I should want, yet somehow it only seems to take things higher. I think I hear him hiss in anger and I almost fall to my knees. I’m so bad, I think, so wicked, so completely lost to my own insatiable lust.
And that’s when it happens.
My cunt tightens around my still working fingers, so hard it almost brings everything to a standstill. So hard I have to say it out loud, no matter what the consequences. He might hate me for making it all so overt, but I don’t care. I’m coming I’m coming oh God you make me come so good, I tell him, as pleasure shudders through me. Glorious, golden pleasure, of the kind I could never regret.
Until it’s over.

‘God, you greedy little slut,’ he says, those words alone enough to get me. However, it’s the admiration in his voice that really finishes the job. I hear it and I just respond without even thinking about it.
‘Oh, fuck, yes, say that again,’ I tell him.
But I’m glad I do. He apparently feels the same way too.
‘I should get you by the hair,’ he says.
‘Yes, yes, yes, you should, yes, please.’

As he eases his fingers beneath the material – so skin-to-skin it scorches me – and slides one elegant finger through my soaking slit. All these rude things, I think, all these rude things and with someone right there. Though that makes no difference. In fact, if anything it gets worse when the man suddenly leaves, because that’s when Cyrian decides to murmur the worst thing in the world to me.
‘Do you think he is leaving so he can come with the thought of you being fingered still fresh in his mind?’ he asks, as though he’s suddenly become a completely different person. Gone is that sense of defeat I saw all over his face. He seems barely bothered by our closeness. His lips are so close to my cheek he could be kissing me.

I forget about giving him space, about being restrained.
I just buck and rub myself against his hand until I come, and come, and come. And I’m glad I do, too. I would have felt a hundred times more stupid if I’d carried on pretending I could be a celibate nun with no feelings, when he says what he does in the aftermath. He turns back to his paper as I sit there slumped and panting, pink-faced and unable to speak. And then, just as regret starts to rise in me, just as I wonder if I somehow forced him into that or caused him intense agony by responding at all, he says this:
‘You might not mind never doing anything sexual again. But I bloody well do.’

He is mere centimetres from me. It would take almost no effort to stick out my tongue and get a taste. And it would feel good to him, too, God knows it would. He’s never had someone lick him there, which seems like a crying shame to me in this moment.
But I want to resist. Despite the heat and the hand in my hair near dragging me closer, despite the sense that he would like me to, I want to resist. I want to show him that he can trust me always to respect his boundaries, and be as patient as he needs, and am I glad I do.
If I had licked he might have pulled back, instead of doing what he does:
He groans my name like some sinful prayer as he fills my open mouth.

And then he speaks, and I wonder why I ever did.
‘I have no boundaries now. You burned them all. I have no walls around myself; you have reduced each one to rubble. You have undone me in every conceivable way and yet still you hesitate, and I adore you for it. Sometimes I wish I did not; God knows it would be easier for me. But if an easy life must be paid for with the absence of you then I find the price too steep to so much as contemplate. I am your creature now, wholly and completely – so do with me what you will. I shall not turn you away,’ he says, so low and calm you could almost imagine it meant nothing.

I hear him gasp that he’s going to come and feel the flood of it in my mouth, and then my whole body simply seizes up. It lights a spark that was already on the verge of burning, and I go up like a bonfire. I groan and buck just as he’s doing, nearly choking on the liquid ribbons spilling over my tongue but loving every second of it.
Loving every second of him giving in. Giving it all up to me, in one great glorious burst that leaves us both gasping and flailing and only really understanding in the aftermath. I come around from an orgasm so intense it almost knocks me out, to find myself sprawled halfway over him. My body is all over his body, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
In fact, when I start to sit up he stops me.
And his arm goes over mine.

And then his eyes drift closed.
Ahhhh, yes, the way his eyes drift closed. It reminds me of everything I’ve been able to feel since he first took that cane to my backside, so simple I took it for granted. I found it easy, but I see in this one look how hard it has been for him. I understand in a way I never fully did before, always assuming that he not only couldn’t but didn’t really want to. Not completely, not wholly – maybe not even on the train or in his bed.
But I get it now.
All this time, and he was just longing for this. Everything was theory, nothing was lived. None of it known the way he clearly knows it now, so blissful that his face fills with warm contentment.

He fills me so completely I can spark sensation through my belly just by tightening around him – and apparently it’s the same for him.
I do it and he jerks as though slapped.
‘Stop, no,’ he says, and oh, it’s the best to hear him do it. It’s the best because he doesn’t mean it in the bad way. He means it in the good way, the I’m-going-to-come way and the second I register that, I just can’t help clenching again. It almost happens on its own, like an involuntary spasm.
And it has the greatest effect. He punches the hay by the side of my head, his gasp so loud and heated it sends me insane. I buck as soon as I hear it, and after that things just snowball. He grabs my arse and takes me hard, pounding relentlessly until I can hardly stand it.

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