Category / Tortured Hero

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Substitute Lover by Penny Jordan

Format: E-booksubstitutelover
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Hero: Gray Chalmers
Heroine: Stephanie Chalmers
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: August 1, 1988
Started On: November 29, 2015
Finished On: November 29, 2015

To think that I was barely six years old when Substitute Lover was initially published, and I am enjoying this book after so many years have passed since then, attests to the talent that authors like Penny Jordan wielded in the romance genre. Though Penny Jordan is no more, I read her older books with the fondest of memories, memories of how her books used to spin and weave magic for me, which made me want to read more of the same. My reading did move onto other circles, especially given the fact that most Harlequin titles of today just seem lackluster in comparison, few giving a reader their worth in money spent.

Substitute Lover tells the story of 28 year old Stephanie Chalmers, a widow going 10 years, who has to force herself to return to the place of her “wedded life”, a marriage that had done a number on the innocent and naive girl that Stephanie had been back then. The one thing that should calm her in the midst of the storm that is blazing to life inside of her at the mere thought of going back should be Gray Chalmers, the man who had stood by her all these years, pushed and prodded her to move on with her life, offering her the shoulder of friendship when she had needed it the most. What she doesn’t count on this time around is for her feelings towards Gray to turn towards murkier waters, surprising her by the ferocity of what strikes her, when she has an aversion to being touched by the opposite sex after the number her brief marriage had done on her.

Gray was done being patient, standing on the sidelines and watching Stephanie remove herself from even the possibility of a shared life with another. Thus brings about the charade about Gray needing Stephanie to ward off the unwanted attentions of another woman, a task to which Stephanie takes to all too well, leaving her floundering in the wake of the emotions that being up close and personal with Gray brings about.

Substitute Lover is a novel that was full of the angst of the kind that I love and revel in. I treasure old Harlequin titles for this reason. Even though miscommunication and sheer stubbornness on the hero or heroin’s part to see the truth is not what I am talking about, there is a certain kind of lure to the kind of angst some of these books deliver and Substitute Lover managed to deliver just the right touch of it. The agony that Gray himself goes through to keep his end of the bargain, the scars and horrors of the past that Stephanie has to deal with to move on were the reasons the pages kept turning into the wee hours of the night.

Stephanie’s short lived marriage is the kind of stuff nightmares are made of. To think that she had suffered through it all alone, blaming herself for failing to be the woman her husband had required her to be was one that struck an emotional chord deep within me. Gray’s pain and the secret he has held on for so long made the story that much more delicious and I loved every single moment of this wonderful story. Reading and revisiting books by an author who made me fall in love with a genre I continue to read 15 years on is my way of giving tribute to someone who has illuminated the world of so many romance readers with the wonderful hues of bright and colorful lights of lust, angst & ever lasting love. 

Final Verdict: Penny Jordan definitely knows how to deliver on the angst. Recommended!

Favorite Quotes

A thrill of some dangerous and alien emotion raced through her. Without being aware of the provocation of what she was doing she touched her tongue-tip tentatively to the dry outline of her lips.
Someone shuddered. Herself, or Gray ? She looked up at him, and trembled beneath the expression in his eyes.
‘Do that again and I won’t be responsible for what happens next,’ he warned her in a curiously rusty, hoarse voice, that trapped her attention, focusing it on the shape of his mouth.

‘I want to see what you’re feeling when I kiss you.’
Gray. No . . . don’t…’ She struggled to free herself, squirming against the almost painful hardness of his body, until she realised the effect her frantic movements were having on him.
He watched the hot colour scorch her skin with cynical detachment, demanding acidly, ‘You’re not that naive, surely, Stephanie. Rub yourself against any normal man like that and you’d get exactly the same response.’
When her embarrassed colour deepened he smiled sardonically and bent his head to her ear and mouthed softly, ‘I’m a man, Stephanie, and not a machine, and what you’re doing to my body right now is driving me right out of my mind.’

Quite when her lips parted to the subtle persuasion of his tongue she didn’t know.
It seemed as though one moment he was kissing her as though he was comforting a hurt child and the next the touch of his mouth had aroused such a storm of passion within her that she was clinging helplessly to him, responding to every passionate movement of his mouth against her own with a responsiveness that her conscious mind could only observe with awe and disbelief.
His robe had come open and her breasts were pressed against his chest, only the thin cotton of her nightdress between them.
His hands moulded her body, caressing her back, his touch making her spine arch, making her …

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo

greatread

by mvbookreviewer

ARC Review: Time Served by Julianna Keyes

Format: E-booktimeserved
Read with: Adobe Reader for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Time Served, #1
Publisher: Carina Press
Hero: Dean Barclay
Heroine: Rachel Moser
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: March 23, 2015
Started On: November 18, 2015
Finished On: November 21, 2015

Time Served by Julianna Keyes is a book that I will treasure among the hordes of books that are published today. All because Julianna dared to write a hero that might not be well received by certain readers because he doesn’t turn into a “girl” the minute the heroine re-enters his life. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I seriously find it absurd when heroes who are described as formidable, reticent, and especially not to mention if they have a bone of contention with the heroine so to speak, that turns sappy once the heroine turns up; I feel like throwing the book at the wall when that happens. The fact that writers like Julianna Keyes are rare makes me want to treasure this gem some more. Because God knows when I would be able to read a hero like Dean Barclay.

Rachel Moser is an upcoming lawyer at one of them prestigious firms that has three names to its title. Rachel works hard, works night and day to make her dreams come true. That dream being one that doesn’t include looking back at the past that she had walked out on, the life she had left behind, including Dean, the man she had loved and who had loved her in return. While Rachel would rather cut off a body part than admit that something is amiss in her life even as she climbs the ladder of ambition one by one, there is that teeny tiny part of her that wants something more.

Dean has done his time and is trying to sort out his life. The only thing he wants when he encounters Rachel after all that time that has passed is to fuck her and this time be the one to walk away from her, no questions asked. But every touch and every kiss that burns hotter and wilder than the one before proves one thing – that Dean isn’t immune to the woman who held his heart, body and soul in her hands before she had walked away without a word or a backward glance and that she still has the power to bring him down to his very knees.

Time Served is written in first person from Rachel’s point of view. There is no part of the story that is written to show Dean’s point of view and that somehow made this book more alluring for me. To gauge Dean’s reactions through Rachel’s eyes, to see him react in ways that might seem ungentlemanly to some, were actually the bits that I loved. The bits that I found brought out honest reactions from a man that had been hurt and hurt bad when the woman he had loved with all his heart had left him. The fact that he was possessive to the extent that made me breathless from wanting, the way he could take a scene from zero to hundred just like that; those were the bits that made me fall, and fall hard for him.

Like I said at the start of the novel, Dean is not the type of hero who becomes apologetic for who he is, or does a 360 degree turn on his character, all because of the heroine. Dean is very much his own man and he proves that every single time he walks into a scene. Dean and Rachel had been born into shitty lives through no fault of their own. Rachel had had ambitions even back then which had made it possible for her to walk away. But neither Rachel nor Dean had ever gotten over each other which is evident once the ball gets rolling.

There are multiple facets to both Rachel and Dean that makes it easy to fall for them both. They have both made mistakes – they are both human. That was the most relatable factor for me as I was reading this book. Not to mention the panty-melting variety of scorching passion that Dean brings to the picture – and man, can he bring it on! The cover on this book doesn’t cheat, let me promise you that – it delivers every ounce of what it promises and then some!

The epilogue proved to be the icing on the cake for me when it came to Time Served. After all that Rachel and Dean go through to come out victorious in the end, the epilogue made my heart smile – because they both deserved the happiness that was so evident when it all came to its ultimate conclusion.

I see that there is a second book in the series out already, and that too the lead being the nemesis of Rachel in Time Served. I am definitely going to take a look because I can’t wait to see how Julianna makes the heroine someone worthy of the reader’s time.

Most highly recommended!

And, Dear Julianna, please never stop writing characters who are true to themselves. You are a rare breed in the world of romance today. Love, me!

Final Verdict: Dark & edgy with a twist of emotion & the bite of scorching heat. Dean Barclay is the man!

Favorite Quotes

“And your life?”
“What about it?”
“You like that too?”
My eyes fly open, struggling to focus on the gleaming blades of grass in front of me. It’s unnerving how he’s managed to ask the one question I’ve been avoiding asking myself these past few months.
“Of course,” I lie.
“What do you do for fun?”
“I don’t have a lot of free time.”
“Humor me.”
I turn the question around. “What do you do for fun?”
I feel him shrug, muscles shifting against my back. “Box. Run. Hang out. Fuck.”

I knock again, just to make the trip worthwhile, and I’ve given up and taken two steps down the hall—one relieved, one disappointed—when the lock turns and the door swings open. I freeze and look over my shoulder, unable to do more than watch as Dean sticks his head out and peers around, first right and then left, spotting me.
His surprise is evident but he doesn’t speak, and I turn awkwardly, suddenly feeling as foolish and stupid as I knew I would if I came here. I open my mouth to apologize—again—or make up an excuse, but already one of those big hands is reaching out the door, gripping my wrist and yanking me inside.

“Nice,” Dean says, nipping my ass cheek briefly as he straightens behind me. “Even better in person.”
I close my eyes at the thought of him picturing me like this, skirt hoisted over my hips, shiny with arousal, anxiously awaiting his next move. He pushes one thick finger back inside, stroking roughly as his other hand kneads my ass, thrusting his cock against my back. I can feel the smooth fabric of his shorts on my heated skin and the sensation makes me moan.
“You like that?” he whispers, biting my earlobe lightly.
“Yes,” I groan.
“How about this?” Without warning, he slips his finger out of my pussy and pushes the drenched digit hard and deep into my ass.

His left hand has been alternately fondling my breasts and fisting in my hair, and now it jerks my head back to expose my throat to his teeth before sliding down my torso to the slippery place where our bodies are joined. He spreads out his fingers to feel himself fucking into me, then positions his palm so he’s rubbing my clit, hard.
I come.
I come with a sound I’ve never heard myself make before, one I cut off by slapping a hand over my mouth. My pussy clamps down on Dean’s hard length, momentarily slowing his thrusts, milking him tight enough that he buries his face in my hair and groans as if he’s in pain.

“Fuck,” he moans. “Fuck. Fuck.”
I stroke his back, his sweat-damp hair, the side of his face. He feels so different from how I remember. Not just bigger, but harder too. The planes of his face are sharper, his jaw more defined, lips made more sensual because of it. And then, without planning to, I kiss him.
Dean jerks as though I’ve shot him in the heart, yanking his head back and staring at me through wide, stunned eyes. And for once he’s not hot and cold, he’s not angry and intimidating, he’s the old Dean, the one who laid himself bare for me and lost his heart in the process.
“Fuck,” he mutters again. “No.” But he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to himself, and obviously losing the argument. His fingers tangle in my hair, holding me in place as he slants his lips over mine and dominates my mouth, forcing his tongue between my lips and teeth, tasting every inch of me.

“Dean,” I moan when I can’t take any more. I try to swat his hand away from my too-sensitive clit but he pins it down at my side and hunches over, sweat dripping from his temples onto my breasts. He hammers into me, leg still pressed over his shoulder, my body as wide open as he could possibly need.
I reach up a weak arm and wrap it around his neck, spreading my fingers over his skull like I used to do when he had long hair. Now I feel the coarse rasp of his buzz cut on my palm and look up just in time to catch the second he starts to come, eyes locked on mine, unguarded. It only lasts a moment, a split second of weakness in his impenetrable coat of armor, then he drops his head and groans, pounding into me with his vicious release.

“You wet?”
“No.”
“Come over here so I can fix that.”
Without so much as looking at me, Dean reaches over and snags my upper arm, pulling me toward him. At the same time he moves so one of his legs rests along the back of the couch, the other still on the floor, which results in my back being pressed flush to his strong chest. And his erection digging into my ass.
“Don’t play hard to get,” he whispers, biting my earlobe. “I don’t have time for games.” One of his hands strums absently along the top of the couch while the other cups my breast through the T-shirt. “I’m going to get you wet, then if you don’t mind, you’re going to turn around and sit on my cock and fuck me while I watch the movie.”
“When’d you get to be so romantic?”
He twists my nipple, hard. “In prison.”

I catch the server’s eye and signal for the check.
“Let me get this,” I say when he reaches for his wallet.
“Fuck no.” The words are flat and unyielding, cold enough to make me pause.
“Dean, it’s just dinner.”
“Don’t push on this, Rachel. I know you’re an evolved feminist and all that now—”
“What?”
“But I’m old-fashioned. I fuck you, I buy you dinner, I teach you how to beat up the coworkers who give you trouble.” I fold my arms in front of me, unimpressed but also amused.
“What do I do?”
Dean sets down a few bills and stands, looming over the table to kiss me in clear view of anyone who might bother to look. “Just show up.”

“Dean!” I cry, the word sounding hollow in my ringing ears. My pussy clamps down on his cock like a vise, holding him inside and wringing out his orgasm. He swears furiously as he spills into me, slapping a hand onto the window over my head as he jerks against my hips, my body demanding the last of his release with its final clenching pulls.
Dean collapses over me, breathing hard in my ear, one arm clasped around my stomach, squeezing us together. Sweat fuses my back to his chest and I feel his heart thunder against my spine, and even when the room grows cool and the position uncomfortable, neither one of us moves.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

fantasticread

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Mistress of the Night by Charlotte Featherstone

Format: E-bookmistressofthenight
Read with: Adobe Reader for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
Hero: Blaine Ashbourne
Heroine: Madeline Brydges
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: September 1, 2005
Started On: November 11, 2015
Finished On: November 12, 2015

Charlotte Featherstone is an author who got on my radar with her book Sinful. Her decision to not take the easy way out when she crafted the hero in the story won my wholehearted approval. Even though the books that I have read from her since then haven’t lived up to the mark, Mistress of the Night caught my eye because there was just something about the description of the story that got to me. The reclusive hero described? Yes. The heroine who wants him and no other? Oh, hell yes!

Blaine Ashbourne, even though he is part of the elite ton, is someone who keeps himself far removed from everything that goes on in those circles. He keeps close to himself a secret that he would rather die than get out, knowing that it would be one not at all well received. It is his bid to look out for his niece that lands himself in this ball and that, directly in the sight of Madeline Brydges, the woman he observes without being obvious about it, or so he thinks, his hunger for her something that shocks even himself.

Madeline has no choice but to snare herself the husband that her father insists that she find. But the only man whom she is going to get herself married to is none other than the Earl of Ashbourne, a man who is seemingly as reticent as they come. But with every encounter that proves otherwise, Blaine and Madeline seduces and get seduced by each other, while Blaine believes that a blissfully wedded future with anyone, much less Madeline is not for the likes of him.

Mistress of the Night is a story that had such potential. Charlotte’s flair for the dirty talking hero and sex scenes that practically melt you on the insides were all present in the story. But it fell short of delivering on what it could have been. I felt a tad disappointed and a wee cheated by the time I finished reading the book, though it is a testament to the writing that I finished the book in just one sitting. Perhaps my problem was with the huge differences between how the book was described in the blurb and how it actually materialized later on.

Blaine is someone who has had fear instilled in his heart by his father. A father who had been devastated that the only son he had ever had turned out to be less than perfect. Blaine’s tortured soul heals under the touch of Madeline, but he refuses to let her in too deep, for the fear that she might discover the secret that he keeps from almost everyone. Madeline’s actions towards the latter part of the novel also might be one of the reasons why I couldn’t really say I loved what happened, though I did understand that desperate times called for desperate measures. Nonetheless, Mistress of the Night turned out to be an enjoyable read, recommended for those that love this author.

Final Verdict: Delivers scrumptious scenes of passion, true to Charlotte Featherstone style!

Favorite Quotes

“I wanted that dance to be with you, Maddy. The whole time I was dancing with her I thought only of you, wishing we were the only two people in the room so that I might do this to you.”
Her pulse leapt and surged as he continued to caress her neck, his fingers, light and teasing trailed down her throat, stopping at the peak of her breast, only to travel back up the column of her throat.
“Tell me,” he said, bringing her back tight against his chest, his tongue, hot and teasing flicked along her bounding pulse. “What is it you desire?”

“God, how I want this,” he said thickly, stroking his thumb along her nipple, making it pebble hard. “And this.” he slid his hand down her bodice to the flat plane of her belly where he kneaded the small mound. “And this,” his voice was a low rumble in her ear as his fingers traced the curls of her sex through her thin gown. “I want this so much. So much so that I cannot sleep. So much that I am constantly thinking of you, of your lips, your flame red hair, the way your skin feels. So much that I lie awake, hard and aroused, torturing myself with thoughts of how you will feel beneath my hands, my lips, my body. I dream of how you will taste, Madeline. I dream of the taste of your sex, the feel of you on my tongue. Tell me, would you let me taste the desire I create within you?” A whimper caught in her throat and he tightened his hold on her while he kissed her shoulder. “Tell me what you want, Maddy.”

“Make love to me, Maddy. Show me what it is like.”
She didn’t know what he wanted, but he showed her. He sat in the chair and brought her down atop him. Cupping her bottom he showed her how to ride him and when she had the right of it, she caught his hands in hers and clutched them tight. She captured his gaze, holding it as she loved him, and she thought she saw his eyes fill with more than desire. She thought she saw love shining back at her, but then he blinked it away and reached for her and slid himself out of her body, emptying his seed on to his own belly. He clutched her to him and he held on to her like a drowning man holds on to a lifeline.
“Mine,” he whispered into her hair and she knew then that she was his lifeline in a sense. Something profound had happened.

“It’s very warm, isn’t it?” Madeline asked, fanning her bosom with her hand.
Blaine couldn’t help but watch that delicate hand as it whispered slowly back and forth and over the exposed mounds of her breasts, of which, the bodice of her French gown did little to hide. “Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”
“Huh?” The word was a strangled huff, torn from his throat when one of her fingers traced the length of him through his trousers. Thank God the table was shielding them and thank God no one but Madeline could see the reaction her boldness was having on him.
“Are you warm, too?” she asked, looking up at him through her veil of copper lashes.
Warm? Sweet Jesus, he was on fire.

“Tell me,” she whispered again, “tell me where you want to come. My belly?”
She licked him and swirled the tip of her around the head of his cock. “My breasts,” his gaze lowered to her rounded breasts that were swinging with her movements and he captured them in his hands and let go of them with a small, gentle slap, watching as they swayed faster. She purred as he repeated the motion, this time a little faster, a little harder, and his cock swelled further in her hand. “My throat?” she asked, her hot breath caressing his shaft, forcing his gaze away from her breasts only to see her tongue curl around the rimmed cap of his cock. “My mouth,” she teased in a deep, wanton whisper.
He closed his eyes and wrapped his hand in her hair. “Yes,” he said, filling her mouth with his cock. “Your pretty mouth.”

“Look at me.” She did, her beautiful eyes glazed with passion and need. “Watch.”
And then he sunk himself to the hilt inside her tight, wet sheath in one powerful stroke. Her eyes widened and her lips parted on a silent moan. “So damn beautiful, and you’re mine,” he whispered, holding her gaze, watching the tremors of pleasure flicker along her face with every one of his thrusts. “You’re all mine, aren’t you, Maddy? Just mine.”
“Yes,” she breathed against his neck, her pants matching the rhythm of his
strokes.
“Forever, Madeline?” he asked, mindless with need, careless with his words as he forced himself inside her. “Because it has to be forever.”

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N

favorableread

by mvbookreviewer

Requested ARC Review: Cold in the Shadows by Toni Anderson

Format: E-bookcoldintheshadows
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Cold Justice, #5
Publisher: Self-Published
Hero: Patrick Killion
Heroine: Audrey Lockhart
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: November 24, 2015
Started On: October 30, 2015
Finished On: November 05, 2015

CIA agent Patrick Killion is on a mission sanctioned by the President himself, well, sanctioned to the extent where the President would have room for plausible deniability if shit were to hit the fan. Killion has been meticulous in his hunt, edging slowly towards the persons responsible for devastation that had rippled through his country when their Vice President had been murdered. All clues point towards the frog scientist Audrey Lockhart, who seems to project all the characteristics of someone well versed in the art of deceiving anyone who might be looking at her too closely. Or so Killion believes until he learns otherwise.

Audrey’s life as she had known it and the work she had been doing at the Amazon Research Institute at the Colombian rainforest comes to a screeching halt when she is attacked, leaving her life hanging by a mere thread. Killion tries to look on objectively at the “criminal” that he nurses back to health in the time period that follows, until he learns that Audrey is innocent by the time which he wants to, no needs to put as much distance between her and himself. Once the realization dawns that someone has been very clever at leaving tantalizing clues that points directly towards an innocent woman, Killion swears that he would do everything that he possibly can to restore whatever semblance of normalcy that he can to Audrey’s life, a woman who seems to have gotten under his skin in between being a patient on sickbed and running for their lives afterwards.

With the sort of humor that I haven’t encountered in any of her books before, Toni delivers a read that bears all the trademarks of a wonderful one. Killion races against whatever forces are working against him, while Audrey herself won’t stay put without willingly painting a target on her back to lure the very people who had gone to such lengths to frame her and do away with her. The plot twists served to be what made the story stand out and I believe that Toni has done an amazing job out of creating Killion’s story.

I immensely enjoyed everything about Cold in the Shadows. The suspense part was well done. I love a novel that can surprise me, all in a good way, and Cold in the Shadows did that and more. I loved this book that much more for delivering the angst factor, something that is missing in most books these days. The reluctance on Killion’s part to be in a relationship together with his strong determination not to make himself vulnerable to his enemies is as much a part of himself as his charm and considerable good looks. But with the very first encounter and onwards, Audrey changes all that, and breaks down the walls that he had perfected in a lifetime, with every moment they spend together.

Killion the name has always held a fascination for me, ever since after reading the legendary Anne Stuart’s novel Ice Storm, a book that I positively adored. The Killion in the Cold Justice series has proved to be as alluring in his own right, a character that has intrigued me ever since I encountered him in the novels prior to this in the series. Killion has always been in the background, biding his time for his own story, and what a story this has proven to be. Sexy, smart, ruthless and protective. The man is THE package even though he infuriates you as much as he makes you want him. And that I believe is the genius behind his creation. Killion’s wicked sense of humor got to me – big time! There is just something about a man who can give as good as he gets verbally, and that was a huge turn-on for me when it came to Killion’s character.

I loved Audrey for her simplicity, the fact she wasn’t one prone to theatrics, that she was brave enough to walk away and leave it up to Killion to decide where their “relationship” was headed towards. That, in my opinion, takes guts of the kind that few of us have. Beautiful, brainy and bold; loved the fact that she was insightful enough to weather the storm that was Killion. No wonder it took someone special like Audrey to penetrate that thick skin of Killion’s. The man in my opinion deserves nothing but the best and I believe Audrey was just that.

If you are a fan of romantic suspense and haven’t been reading Toni Anderson, you haven’t been reading right. Please go rectify that, as soon as possible. Thank you.

Final Verdict: Cold in the Shadows is the best book in the series yet – and I’m hoping, it can only get better. Recommended!

Favorite Quotes

“Hey”—he hung onto the doorframe, clearly reluctant to leave—“what kind of costumes do frogs wear on Halloween?”
“You really think there’s a frog joke I haven’t heard? Jumpsuits. Ha ha.”
His eyes got a wicked gleam in them. “What did one lesbian frog say to the other?”
She shook her head. “Lesbian frog?” The guy was incorrigible. “Fine. I don’t know, what did one lesbian frog say to the other?”
His smile was pure devilry. “They’re right. We do taste like chicken.”
Oh. My. God.

Then something changed.
The air sizzled, the oxygen evaporated and it was suddenly difficult to breathe. What had started slow and languorous, exploded. He angled his mouth over hers, and started kissing her like he was starving, striving to get as close as physically possible. Her blood heated. The needy ache grew until she just wanted him inside her, right now, as fast as humanly possible. No foreplay, no teasing.

“I don’t want you to hate me.” His voice sounded rough in his throat.
“I won’t hate you—not for this anyway.” She gave a half snort, half laugh.
That made him pause for a second. He ran his hand up her body and his thumb found the center of her nipple with unerring accuracy. He scraped his nail over the sensitive flesh and her sex contracted, hard and sharp. “Might spoil you for every other man, Aud.”
God—that ego. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
His mouth dipped to hers. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She leaned over to pluck a condom off the side table, ripped it open, and slipped it carefully in place.
“Keep your hands at your sides,” she told him.
He eyed her balefully in the darkness. “But I want to touch you.”
“I want to fuck you first,” she said.
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Audrey,” he admonished.
“Don’t make this into something it isn’t.”

She increased the pace, and he rose up to meet her, his breathing changing, getting shallower and faster. She added a twist and felt him tense beneath her.
Then his grip on her changed as he gritted out. “You’re not there, yet, Aud.”
“I already came, remember?”
“Fuck that.”

She lost all control of the rhythm she’d established, she just held on as he pounded into her, destroying her from every different angle until her body convulsed and exploded around him.
“Hold on,” he warned.
He turned them so they were on the edge of the mattress and her legs were spread wide and he was driving into her, but she was coming again, over and over in endless waves that crashed through her so hard she screamed as she felt him climax inside her, sending even more waves of pleasure through her body.

He pushed inside her slick heat and wondered how the hell people stopped doing this? Why do anything else? She shifted beneath him, taking him deeper and at an angle that blew his fucking mind. Then she wrapped her legs around him, crying out, and all he could do was drive deeper and deeper until his world went white and the earth shattered and he roared out a sound as a corner of his brain realized that walking away from Audrey Lockhart was going to be the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iTunes

[xrr rating = 4.5/5]

Caliber SEAL: AMAZING READ!

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Just Kiss Me by Kathleen O’Reilly

Format: E-bookjustkissme
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Harlequin
Hero: Joseph Matthias Barrington
Heroine: Amanda Sedgewick
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: August 1, 2002
Started On: October 29, 2015
Finished On: October 29, 2015

Kathleen O’Reilly landed on my reading radar with her novel Sex, Straight Up, which I just adored. The story was just so much more than what you would usually expect from a Harlequin Blaze novel and it blew my mind enough for me to always remember that read with fond memories. I have forgotten how I stumbled upon this earlier publication from the author. But something made me hit the one-click purchase button and there I was, burning the midnight oil.

Amanda Sedgewick has been in a predicament for more than half her life, and one that has proven difficult to shake off at every turn. That is Joseph Matthias Barrington (Joe)’s brother’s affections. No matter how many times Amanda has tried telling him that she wasn’t the one for him, Dr. Avery Barrington, III wouldn’t hear of it. So desperate times calling for desperate measures, Amanda seeks the help of the rougher around the edges than Avery, the blue-collar variety brother of his to engage with her in an affair that would keep Avery away from her – for good.

Joe knows a bad idea when he hears of one and sees one. But the desperation in Amanda’s eyes makes him say yes – to playing pretend boyfriend until the very first night they get together, Amanda completely blows his mind. From that moment on, Joe, who has given up trying to measure up to the brilliance that is his brother, turns over a new leaf. For him, becoming the sort of man that “deserves” a woman like Amanda is the goal that he hopes to attain.

For some reason, this story made confusing  turns that made it difficult for me to follow. One minute, Amanda was willing to indulge in the hottest affair of her life with Joe, the next she was busy trying to prove her worth in her career. Joe was the only one who made any kind of sense to me. And boy, was he deliciousness itself!

The simmering tension between Joe and Amanda is pretty low key until wham, with just one scene Kathleen O’Reilly literally blew my mind to smithereens! You’ve got to read this book, if only to experience the heat that that particular scene alone generated. Whew! Let me just say this. Joe was decadent!

Recommended, if you are up for a confusing story line, but one that nevertheless made me burn the midnight oil.

Final Verdict: Joe’s decadent nature makes this book worth a look!

Favorite Quotes

“We don’t have to pretend, Joe.”
“Yes. We do.”
She flashed him a gentle, comforting smile. “No. We don’t.”
“Yes. We do.”
Amanda moved in closer. “We could do torrid, you know.”
“No.”
“Hot.” She licked her lips, getting into this femme fatale persona. The courtroom had never been this exciting.
“No.” The denial sounded a little strained.
“I could make you forget your name.”
“You’re Avery’s girl. That’s all I need to remember.”

Amanda held his arm. “Stay, just a little bit longer.”
“Can’t. Look, I’ve got a few hours off on Saturday. I’ll call you and we’ll do something then.”
“Have sex?”
Just for that, he kissed her again. “Amanda. I’m shocked.” He tried to keep his tone light, but if he sounded like he was completely turned-on, well, there it was.
Her cool blue eyes flashed at him. Damn, she looked good when she was angry. “I don’t want you shocked, I want you aroused.”
Like lightning, he had her pressed against the wall. Locked together from breasts to thighs, he made sure she felt every tortured inch of him. “You don’t think I want you? You think I’ve been killing myself to keep from touching you—” he laughed “—God, I can’t even do that right.”

He cradled her body with his own, grazing his lips over her neck. She rubbed against him, and gentleman that he was, he locked his hands on her hips and pushed against her. His erection was hard and insistent, and she licked her lips, her eyes drifting shut.
Her legs started to shake, threatening collapse, but he held her tight. There was something incredible about the way he smelled. All musky and male. Each time she moved, he answered. Each time he moved, she moaned.

He kissed her neck, whispering in her ear, in slow, exquisite detail exactly what he was going to do to her. What he wanted to do with her right here. Right under the watchful eyes of everyone around them.
Oh.
She chewed on her lip, ready to scream. When his thumb brushed against her, she felt her muscles shake and spasm. He covered her mouth with his own. That was all she could take. She closed her eyes, and watched the world shatter.
And he kissed away her cries.

One. Two. He was back. “I can’t wait,” he said, taking her lips in a quick kiss.
She fumbled with his briefs. “Now.”
He sheathed himself with shaking fingers. “I wanted this to be slow,” he said, lifting her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, needing to feel him inside her. “Later.”
He took one step forward, braced her against the door, she locked her hands around his nape.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | HQ

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Love Bites by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-booklovebites
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Self-Published
Hero: Trevor d’Laine
Heroine: Kay Erickson
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: September 27, 2014
Started On: October 24, 2015
Finished On: October 28, 2015

My fascination to do with Maggie Osborne is something that I would never deny. From the moment I picked up her novel Silver Lining, there was no looking back for me. To me, Maggie Osborne is synonymous with novels that takes you to places where authors normally don’t. Her unusual heroines with their inner core of strength, and very real faults; they make for the kind of characters that you root for, from the very bottom of your heart. Every review I have done of a book by Maggie Osborne has always ended with me bemoaning about the fact that she stopped writing. So imagine my delighted surprise when I found that this book was released on Smashwords late September of last year!

Love Bites is Maggie Osborne’s first foray into romance of the paranormal variety if I am not mistaken. Because I have not read her complete set of novels, I might have missed out on other genres that she ventured into way before. That being said, Trevor d’Laine is the vampire in this novel, a vampire with his own talk show, delivered at night of course. His advertisement for a live-in assistant, a Renfield to his vampire, is what brings Kay Erickson to his doorstep and into his life.

Trevor is determined that he would never ever fall in love again. Years of loneliness that has passed since the bleakness that is his past makes him wary of taking that step. And there is that secret that he carries around in his heart, of why he became a vampire in the first place that would never make him want to take a step to reverse all of it. But all that changes when Kay begins to get under his skin in a way he didn’t think it was possible, and makes him lose perspective on what he has believed to be true ever since he turned into a vampire.

Kay lives in a bubble of her own making until meeting Trevor changes everything. Every single thing she has believed about life, love and lust takes a hike upon meeting Trevor. And that proves to be a game changer for someone as steady, dependable and perhaps a bit boring like Kay, but someone who yearns for adventure, love and passion of the kind that would blow her mind. In Trevor she finds all those things, but the danger that becomes all too real when it comes to the mission they embark upon makes the situation doubly precarious.

While I liked Love Bites, I can’t say that I fully loved the story or could accept where it eventually led me to. Perhaps it has got something to do with Maggie Osborne’s take on the vampire lifestyle. Vampires are made out to be characters who cannot stay true to what they are, because there are so many drawbacks to their lives, the soul deep loneliness and inability to love for one? I just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just stay the way they were and still be able to love, feel and whatnot.

The other thing was the gravity of the sacrifice Trevor makes to be with Kay. Obviously with all the “negativity” with which Maggie Osborne paints the life of a vampire, Kay didn’t or wouldn’t have wanted to become one. Why become one when the love that made you want to take that step withers away after centuries of being together? Revealing Trevor’s sacrifice would mean giving away a huge spoiler, but let me just say this – I cannot help but question whether or not Trevor would regret the sacrifice he made somewhere down the line. I just cannot help but sigh a little bit with regret over what could have been if otherwise.

I would say Love Bites has a “happy ending” depending on the way you look at it. Well, it was a happy ending in one sense. But in another, it just seemed an uneven happy ending to me! While Trevor was an absolute darling, I couldn’t bring myself to love Kay wholeheartedly. But Maggie Osborne’s writing? Absolutely magical in places where it mattered.

Recommended for fans of vampire romances. This one definitely has a unique take to it!

Final Verdict: Maggie Osborne’s take on vampirism. Definitely worth a look!

Favorite Quotes

Kay’s heart stopped as she stared up at him. He no longer reminded her of an impish boy wearing plastic teeth. This was a man. An aroused man staring at her throat, listening to her blood accelerate in her veins. His shoulders swelled, and his expression was sexy and dangerous and wildly exciting.
A great thrill of weakness spread through her limbs and she couldn’t catch her breath. As if her body had become heavier, her hips sank in the water and her toes found the bottom of the pool. She stood on shaking legs, breathless and unable to move, and gazed helplessly into his glowing eyes.
The desire she saw there set a match to her trembling body and lit her on fire.

The cool touch of his hands on her burning skin, the feel of his hard full thrust straining the thin material of her swimming suit, the mesmerizing smolder in his flaming eyes, the touch of his hand stroking her breast, all combined to render her frantic and helpless. Dizzy erotic hungers whirled in her mind, scalded her thoughts.
Gasping for breath, blood pounding, all she could think about was the desire that knifed through her like a hot blade. She wanted him to rip aside her swimsuit and plunge inside of her, wanted him to sink his teeth into her bared throat and take from her whatever he needed. She wanted… oh God, she wanted!

He yearned to taste her life, her soul, to drink her into him. He craved the rapture of fulfillment that her blood could give. Swept by passion, he saw only the thin tissue of rosy skin between him and the rich red blood that roared in his ears.
As he approached climax, his mouth opened instinctively and his teeth extended a final distance, a reflex beyond his control. His body shook with an urgent need for release, driven by an almost desperate need to suck and drink.
As his body erupted, Trevor veered away from her bared throat and he buried his teeth in the pillow beside her head. Trembling violently, he collapsed on top of her, pushing the torn pillow aside. Her arms stole around him, and she held him tightly until both of them stopped shaking.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

ARC Review: So Far Into You by Lily Malone

Format: E-booksofarintoyou
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Escape Publishing
Hero: Seth Lasrey
Heroine: Eremia Hanley
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: October 1, 2015
Started On: October 16, 2015
Finished On: October 17, 2015

Set in rural Australia, So Far Into You is my first novel by author Lily Malone. Lily’s writing is fluid and comfortable to immerse oneself in. It is easy to lose yourself in the way the words flow smoothly to paint a story that made me want to keep on reading, my deadlines be damned. This is a second-chance love story, where the hero Seth Lasrey, the one in charge of steering the family business of wine making makes him as serious as they come – and that is how his mother prefers it to be.

When Seth sets eyes on Eremia Hanley (Remy) at the Margaret River Wine Festival, his interest in her is instantaneous as much as it is an unwelcome one by his mother. Seth’s flare of possessiveness about Remy proves to be detrimental when he discovers the “secret” that Remy keeps close to her heart, the secret that Seth’s mother uses to her advantage to drive the final wedge between their young and freshly blossoming romance.

Years later, Seth and Remy meet again, this time on different grounds, both more mature and wiser than they were before. It takes a while for Seth to understand what went wrong, but he does get there and eventually and these two do manage to work things out. The one thing that was memorable for me about this book was the fact that this book made me want to read! And keep on reading. And it has been a while since that has happened to me with a book. Sometimes each book seems just like the next one you would have the fortune of picking up and it tends to make me sort of a “jaded” reader at times.

I would consider So Far into You to be a good read, though not a great one. I just felt that the spark between Remy and Seth that should’ve been capitalized on during the latter part of the story never truly materialized. Lily Malone writes well, there’s no doubt about that. Both Remy and Seth and the possibilities of what could’ve been and what could potentially happen kept me on tenterhooks, so much so that I decided that my deadlines could go take a hike and I was just gonna enjoy reading till I was done with their story. Perhaps the fact that what I expected and wanted never materialized was why I didn’t love the story as much as I could have.

The most alluring character for me in the story was that of Remy’s. She’s beautiful, charming & one with a big heart that you can feel all throughout the story. Her ability to look past a lot of things, the way her past had shaped her up to be a woman capable of owning up to her own mistakes and her ability to be upfront of honest about things that mattered really went a long long way. I thought that the secret of how Remy had been forced to leave back then would play a huge part of the story. But Lily Malone surprised me by actually acknowledging the elephant in the room rather than letting the issue simmer on the back burner. That was really refreshing.

I had a bit of a tough time getting to like Seth. Perhaps because he was such a naive fool at the beginning, unable to really see through the women who seemingly on the surface meant him well. I’m just glad that everything got sorted out in the end, and that Seth didn’t beat around the bush when push came to shove. Somewhere along the way, Seth proves to Remy that they belong together and a happy ending is all anyone can ask for in a romance of the kind.

Recommended for fans who love second chance romances.

Final Verdict: Rural Australia and a story of the good variety that keeps the pages turning.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Behind the Mask by Carolyn Crane

Format: E-bookbehindthemask
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Series: The Associates, #4
Publisher: Self-Published
Hero: Hugo Martinez
Heroine: Zelda
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: May 18, 2015
Started On: October 01, 2015
Finished On: October 12, 2015

Ever since I saw a tweet from Carolyn Crane about the release of the 4th installment in The Associates series, I’d been hankering to read it. Behind the Mask is written using one of my favorite tropes, a hero who is dark and edgy, living in isolation and the heroine who comes along, understands him for all that he is & shakes up his life while she is at it. Carolyn Crane is not an author who writes fluffy romances, well at least the books in this series aren’t for the fainthearted. There is only so much of the lighthearted variety of romances that I can take. With the romance genre becoming increasingly filled with fluffy reads, an author like Carolyn Crane who can still stand firm in delivering a read of the sort is a heaven-send for a reader like myself.

Zelda the heroine is actually the silent founding partner of The Associates. A forensic botanist who had served in the CIA, Zelda had retired from the field given how her last mission had gone awry. She returns to the field by her own volition, given that it is her twin sister who would take the fall if otherwise. But things don’t go exactly according to plan and Zelda finds herself confronted with the image of the very man she had spent a better part of her career at CIA tracking down – the infamous Kabakas; a near mythical assassin whose prowess had been legendary.

Hugo Martinez lives up on the crumbling mountaintop villa with the beautiful blood red savinca flowers around his property, with the young boy Paolo that he’d rescued on a mission for companionship. Hugo is a hard man, driven to lead the life he lives after he had been “forced” into retirement. But Hugo is prepared to protect his precious mountaintop villa and surrounding village at any cost, even if it means the infamous Kabakas has to make a comeback.

Taking Zelda as the “captive” who would cook for them might not have been one of his brightest ideas, but then again, the way his soul recognized Zelda from the very first moment is one that he cannot turn away from. Zelda has her mission’s agenda which needs to be fulfilled, but the very thought of turning traitor to Hugo makes her want to hurt someone. The slow awakening of Zelda and Hugo’s awareness for one another, the events that propel Hugo to claim her – those were aspects of the novel that I absolutely could not get enough of.

Romance writing has become such a competitive genre that authors seldom write on those tropes that actually made readers like myself fall in love with the genre in the first place. Everyone wants something modern, something relevant to the current times, something with an edge to be the book they come out with. But there is nothing wrong with using a trope that droves of readers love and adding a twist to it that would make it relevant in today’s circles. In my opinion, the best of romances are those that are able to withstand the test of time. And I wish there were more authors who actually wrote romances as such.

Behind the Mask was a novel that I immensely enjoyed; if you can’t tell that already from the gushy bits and pieces you’ve already read from the review, I’m just putting it out there – I loved Behind the Mask! Carolyn Crane is an author who writes well. Her books are highly readable, her heroes are of the dark and tortured variety and her heroines are ones who can take all that darkness and then some. Hugo and Zelda’s journey towards the happily ever after was filled with dark and horrific moments that most readers might like to forget – but that is in essence what gives this book the edge that makes it the awesome read it is!

I loved, loved, loved Hugo. He is so lovingly crafted that it’s almost as if I could feel the proverbial key strokes that created and wrote him down for this book. Fanciful, I know. Yet, that’s how Hugo’s character came off to me. Beautiful. Lonely. Lost. Hungry. Lethal. And even all those words barely does him justice.

When Zelda was first introduced in the book, I thought that I wouldn’t like her overly much. I like strong heroines, but not the kind that tends to overshadow the hero in her attempt to appear as his equal or more. I was totally wrong in my line of thinking because Zelda turned out to be just perfect. In her vulnerabilities, the way she couldn’t help but be affected by Hugo, the way she actually wanted to and needed to make a difference in Hugo’s life. All that spoke to me on a level that had me rooting for her in a big way.

I simply love the fact that Carolyn’s books are dark. The dark of the variety that I adore. Loved the moments of cocooned intimacy between Hugo and Zelda, the time that gave them the opportunity to be drawn towards one another. Hugo’s bewilderment about feeling so deeply about her was adorable. The way he couldn’t keep his hands off of her just outright hot. And as the reader, I just couldn’t get enough.

To finish up, Dax seems like a fine piece of work to contend with. Can’t wait to see what Carolyn puts his dark and tormented soul through to give him a happily ever after!

Final Verdict: Beautifully savage in its rendition. Spoke right to my heart!

Favorite Quotes

“You’re okay,” she whispered, dipping two fingers into the cool salve. Gently she slicked it onto the pinkest, most inflamed-looking skin.
Much to her surprise, he allowed it. Maybe the pain outweighed everything else. He turned back to the fire, breath ragged, as she stroked the salve across his tormented flesh.
She’d thought of Kabakas as many things over the years, but never as a suffering being. Never as an old friend. So human, so compelling.
So fucking beautiful.

“Shhhh,” he said.
She gasped as he pushed his fingers inside her now, thumb stroking her taut nub. He would not take her; he would make her feel good. It was all he wanted now—just that.
He stroked her to a rhythm that matched her soft breath. He could always feel when a woman’s body became his, control switching over, pleasure building.
Mercilessly he drew his rough fingers through her tender folds. She felt like molten silk, and his touch was a tide, pulling her out to sea.

He grumbled about it being a long day, but seeing Paolo play in front of the fire, being a boy in a way that Hugo never had, it made him want to hold him, to care for him.
It was Paolo he wanted to hold, yes, but maybe, just a little bit, it was Hugo’s younger self.
Hugo left, holding his boy to his breaking heart. All these years. It would’ve been so easy to play with him.
So easy to call him by his name.

“He pumped into her slowly, breathing her secrets with his cock. “I’m here,” he whispered as he shoved into her, devouring her. She squeezed her pussy as he thrust, trying to make herself feel extra tight, trying to take over. But he wouldn’t go on autopilot. He wouldn’t get lost. He would stay with her. Keep her there, present and gasping.
“Corazón,” he groaned. He kissed her all over her face and neck as he fucked her.
He fucked her like he cared. Like he was fucking her instead of just fucking. Like a waterfall of dangerous feeling crashing right through her.

“Your hands. At the end.” She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss.
Desire surged through him. He’d never wanted anybody more. He flattened her against the wall and kissed her, probing at the seam of her lips with his tongue, knife flat between them.
“Say it again,” she said.
“Zelda,” he grated out. “Zelda.”
He would say it forever, because she was no longer Liza. She was a warrior, his equal, and his enemy.
He kissed the side of her neck and pressed his killer’s body into her.
“Yes,” she said.
And he was lost.

This man, he was so beautiful. Her quarry for so long. “Kabakas,” she gasped, feeling the rising swell of pleasure.
With a wild, tortured look carved onto his harsh features, he pressed his thumbs into her windpipe, cutting off speech, breath. She tried to suck in a breath but it wouldn’t come. She coughed and fought, instinct taking over at last. He tightened his hold on her as he fucked her and choked her, thrusting on and on. The edges of her vision went hazy as she began to come. The orgasm swept through her like fire, filling her head with stars and shattering her mind. She was plummeting, spinning, dissolving into pure pleasure and darkness—perfectly blameless, perfectly free.

“Hugo—”
“Quiet, or I will gag you again. All day I have imagined taking you, making you come over and over and over.” Her blood raced as he pushed her head to the other side, working symmetrically. “When you sucked in my fingers, I imagined them inside you.”
He turned off the water and pulled her up by her hair.
She opened her eyes to see him behind her in the mirror, holding her wet hair, focused down on her with a level of intensity that felt frighteningly primal.
“And I imagined that I would make you come screaming. After that I would take you.” His words came out in gusts. “I can wait no longer.” The furrow between his eyes looked deeper, his cheekbones more sharp-cut, more ruthless somehow. Her killer, her lover.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | SmashWords | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

ARC Review: Seducing Seven by M.K. Meredith

Format: E-bookseducingseven
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: What Happens in Vegas, #9
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Hero: Blake Turner
Heroine: Sevannah Michaels
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: October 12, 2015
Started On: October 06, 2015
Finished On: October 12, 2015

The 9th installment in the What Happens in Vegas series from Entangled Publishing features Seducing Seven from the new-to-me author MK Meredith. Sevannah Michaels is a romance author who is in Vegas for the Romance Lover’s Convention when she runs into Blake Turner, someone who is as ambitious as they come. Fate throws Blake in Sevannah’s way, at a time when she needs help to get out from an awkward situation. The sizzle that is felt on both their parts towards one another is one that is inconvenient at best, given that Blake shuns the very idea of romance and happily ever after and that just sets Sevannah’s teeth on edge.

A bet is reached, that Sevannah would make Blake fall for her before the weekend is through. For Blake, an easier bet could not have happened along, but if he were to be honest with himself, the way he is tempted to give in to Sevannah is one that has him questioning everything that he has believed up till now. So thus Blake resists with every fiber of his being from giving in, afraid to even face the prospect that he might be having feelings for Sevannah. For Sevannah, the dilemma is even greater. She has to face the harsh truth of who is actually seducing whom and who was winning, because from where she is sitting, it looks like she was losing, and what a way to lose!

Seducing Seven is a romance that features a likable hero and a heroine who grows on you as the story goes on. At first I was of the mind that Sevannah was just a tad too sure of herself. I sensed a bit of arrogance in the way she thought about herself and that didn’t sit well with me. Well, that lasted for a very short period of time because once I started seeing Sevannah through Blake’s eyes, I saw someone entirely different. Someone sweet, someone who gives as good as she gets, someone who is simply true to who she is and has the courage to face her fears – even be it she might end up with a tattered and broken heart.

Blake makes for a delicious hero. He is handsome, a tad arrogant about how good looking he is, but beneath all that lies a vulnerable core that makes itself known by the time the story is done. What I found a trifle bit odd was the character of the old woman who resided on the same floor of the hotel as Sevannah and Blake. I just couldn’t understand the significance of her role in the story.

Recommended for those that love a lighthearted contemporary romance.

Final Verdict: A romance author who dares a cynic to fall in love; light & fluffy with just the right touch of angst!

Favorite Quotes

He pressed her up against the wall, grinding into her, hoping to relieve the pressure, his dick swelling thicker still, and he growled low in his throat.
The twin thumps of her shoes hitting the floor sounded, and Seven slid her tongue along his lower lip and sucked it into her mouth.
His knees buckled, and he pressed into her more fully to gain some stability. “Fuck.”
“I’m trying.” She smiled against his mouth, then trailed her lips along his neck to his earlobe, biting with a gentle tug, sending shivers down his spine.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Baiting the Maid of Honor by Tessa Bailey

Format: E-bookbaitingthemaidofhonor.jpg
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Wedding Dare, #2
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Hero: Reed Lawson
Heroine: Julie Piper
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: June 9, 2014
Started On: September 28, 2015
Finished On: October 01, 2015

Baiting the Maid of Honor is book 2 in the Wedding Dare series. Written by Tessa Baily, my go to author for smut of the kind that delivers, and by delivers I mean truly she does; Baiting the Maid of Honor is a novel that had the classic Tessa Bailey in it. From a larger than life hero to a heroine you can root for, not to mention the out-of-this-world variety of scorching sex scenes, Baiting the Maid of Honor is a novel that delivers on many fronts.

Julie Piper is the type of person who defines people pleasing behavior, not in a bad way mind you. Julie is the kind that is enthusiastic over wedding planning, making people feel better, perhaps because there is a loneliness inside of her that people, those that are even closest to her don’t realize. When Julie encounters the big, bad and brazen Reed Lawson, the antithesis of everything that she looks for in a man, it is not just her hackles that are raised but her desire levels to be taken, possessed and taken yet again.

A SWAT commander by profession, Reed knows what its like to be looked down on as  bug that crawled from under a rock. It had never bothered him prior to this, thick skinned from growing up on the wrong side of the town. But when Julie looks at him that way, something inside of him wants to roar, the beast inside of him wanting to claim her as his and only his. The thought itself frightens him, the concept of being vulnerable to anyone, but even that doesn’t stop him from seeking Julie out, and the more he does, the more he falls for everything about her, not to mention the mind blowing variety of sex that they both have which keeps him coming back for more.

Four stories happen simultaneously in the Wedding Dare series. Julie’s story is one that is entwined with the other stories as well. I would love to pick up the novel written by Samanthe Beck, Best Man with Benefits. Perhaps one of these days I will. While Baiting the Maid of Honor worked for me on so many levels, I did wish that the backstories of the characters were a bit lengthier. I would have loved to see Julie deal with her family issues – those sounded deep and like ones that would tend to leave emotional scars of the kind that cannot be just shrugged off. However, maybe, the length of the novel didn’t actually give the time to indulge in those issues which definitely was a lacking factor for me.

The rest of the aspects of the story worked, and boy did they work well. A SWAT commander with tattoos over his over the top delicious bod was enough to make this reader go crazy! Reed’s take charge attitude was a definite turn on, not to mention the dirty talking he does, and oh so well. Julie, being the direct opposite to his roughness, feels like the tall and cool glass of water that soothes your parched throat on an especially humid day. She is that to Reed in more ways than one and I loved her for all of it. If there was anything that I would wish to change about the sex scenes, its the way Reed tends to call Julie “baby”. I think almost all of Tessa Bailey’s heroes have a tendency of doing that, and perhaps its just me, but it is kind of off putting.

Recommended for everyone who loves the good variety of smut with the emotional wallop!

Final Verdict: Hot enough to singe your sheets off. Tessa Bailey delivers dirty of one of a kind!

Favorite Quotes

“Help with what?” The sound of wind whispering through the trees nearly swallowed her husky question. “My hair?”
Damn. It hadn’t been his imagination. If she hadn’t turned tail and traipsed her way back inside by now, this instant attraction didn’t end with him. Was it possible a hot-to-trot sex kitten existed under that silk-and-pearls ensemble? Only one way to find out. Settling his hands on either side of her, he brought his body within inches of hers. “I don’t do hair, pixie,” he rasped against her ear. “Unless you’d like it pulled.”

“Aren’t you going to at least kiss me first?” No answer. “I’m not playing coy or anything, mind you…I just reckon, well, that it’s the decent, honest thing to do is all. Under the circumstances.”
He sighed loudly and she felt him rise to his feet. His larger frame crowded her against the door, fitting them together in a way that was blatantly indecent. She felt his arousal, thick at her belly. Her breasts flattened against his chest in a way that felt sinful and divine simultaneously. Warm breath puffed out against the top of her head.
“Kissed where?” His voice was a rough, almost inaudible whisper that bathed her in blistering heat. “Your mouth? Or the slick little pussy you’re hiding from me?”

“Both.” She swallowed hard, unable to keep the image of Reed at bay this time. His mouth. His tongue. She wanted them so bad it pained her. “Kiss me in both places.”
She felt a ripple of shock go through him, and her body answered it. With a loud groan, his mouth came down on hers, hard and punishing. He kissed her almost angrily, forcing her lips apart and sweeping his tongue inside in a way meant to provoke her. Incite her. Julie couldn’t get enough of his hard mouth moving like a brand over hers. She dug her fingers into the collar of his shirt and tugged him down as she pushed higher on her toes to meet him. They kissed furiously until breath ran scarce, pausing to draw air and bite at each other’s lips.

She squeezed his hips between her legs and rode out her orgasm, his hands digging into the flesh of her bottom to help her get as close as humanly possible while her hips bucked.
His hard mouth worked over hers, swallowing her strangled cries, growling and thrusting his tongue deep with each of her frantic movements. When she came down from her climax, breath racing in and out past her lips, she heard his muffled whisper at her ear. “Oh baby, I could have come, just like this. With your fuck-me thighs opened up wide for me on the door. Now?” He laughed darkly. “Nothing will satisfy me unless I taste all that heat first.”

“Would you like me to take off my pants now so you can really be impressed?”
His gruff question jolted Julie out of man-candy fantasyland and she dragged her gaze up from the large swell behind his fly, trying desperately to ignore the needy tightening in her belly. It enraged her that she could still feel desire for him after the stunt he’d pulled. “By all means, take the pants off. It’ll make it much easier when I castrate you.”
Julie ignored the fluttering in her chest when his full lips tilted at the ends, his amusement vanishing just as quickly. “Now that would be one hell of a shame.” He took a measured step in her direction. She refused to give up any ground when he stopped a breath away and dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, eyes tracking over her heaving breasts. “You were enjoying it so much a minute ago. When you rode it like you owned it.”

“Reed. I’m…I’m going to fall.”
“No. You will not fall. You will stay right there until I’m finished.” His thumb found the sensitive area again and smoothed over it, once, twice, as if coaxing it to life. Then he began to stroke it rapidly with the pad of his thumb. Julie couldn’t form a single thought as the orgasm came hurtling through her system, blasting her with such blissful heat she became unaware of anything but the place Reed made contact with her body. Her head fell forward as she rambled unintelligently, eyes blind as the area between her legs contracted and released over and over again. She felt his teeth sink into the flesh of her ass, then his tongue lick over the spot to soothe the sting.

With one powerful drive, Reed finally entered her. The pressure was so great, so delicious, that Julie bit her lip and screamed, hands scrambling for purchase on the wood bureau top. Through partially blind eyes, she looked up at Reed’s reflection to find an expression of undiluted pleasure on his face. But it quickly transformed into a need for more, as he wrapped her hair around his fist and jerked it back.
“You will never dance like that again. You will never hike your skirt up again. Never.” He pulled out slightly, then thrust back into her hard. “Not unless it’s for me. Is that understood?”
Julie cried out. “Yes.”

“Hiked your skirt up for me, is that right? Did you think you’d get away with that?”
“No.” Her chest shuddered. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Julie leaned down and tried to kiss him, but he jerked back, wanting an explanation. She finally answered on a breath. “I didn’t want to get away with it.”
He groaned his pleasure. “That’s what I thought. Mine from the beginning.” Jerking the robe off her shoulders, Reed grasped her buttocks and sat her down on his erection, filling her to the hilt.

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