Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Stuck at a co-worker’s retirement party waiting to drive his co-workers home after a night of drinking, Max finds himself making eyes with the hot guy across the bar. Despite his resolution to give up one-night stands, he ends up in the bathroom seeking mutual gratification.
Karson only does one-night stands since he found his ex-boyfriend cheating on him. Determined never to fall in love again, he’s upfront and honest that it’s only one night… until he meets Max and finds himself wanting to break his own rules.
As Max and Karson struggle to sort out their non-relationship, Karson’s ex returns and is determined to win Karson back. Karson tells a little white lie – Max is his boyfriend. Forced to attend the class reunion as Karson’s “boyfriend,” Max realizes that he doesn’t want to pretend anymore, he wants Karson for real.
This has to be one of my favorite tropes – the fake boyfriend!
Max is looking for his forever man. Celibate for the last six months, he breaks his own vow when he meets Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome’s smirking grin across the bar and follows him into the bathroom. Despite knowing this is only a one-night stand, Max is determined to have Karson remember him by forcing him to watch as Max gives him a blowjob to remember. Max is the type of character that you immediately fall in love with because he is genuinely a nice person. Despite being hurt and angry with Karson, he still goes out of his way to make sure that he gets home safe and sound.
Karson is determined to protect himself from ever having a broken heart again by ensuring that his relationships these days are strictly one-night mutual gratification sessions, usually with a bad boy wearing leather and boots. Sitting at the bar, he finds himself eying Mr. Sweater Vest and Dress Pants. Ordinarily, characters like Karson anger me because they are self-centered, but for some reason I found him to be adorable as he hid his stuffed dogs and turned his DVD collection and photographs around in an effort to protect himself from divulging too much of himself to Max.
As the two navigate their non-relationship/booty call relationship, they engage in a series of miscommunications, or more aptly put, a series of non-communications that add some drama to the mix. Add in an ex-boyfriend who wants Karson back and is determined to get him any way he can, and readers have an enjoyable story where tension and conflict abound.
One place neither character has any problems communicating is in the bedroom…or wherever they manage to lose their pants. These boys sure know how to heat things up!
What I liked best about this book was that there weren’t a whole lot of secondary characters to deal with. With the exception of some minor players, there were only two real secondary characters – Max’s best friend Lydia and Karson’s ex-boyfriend Andrew. Lydia is the type of character that always manages to steal the show. She’s the best friend that everyone should have. She has Max’s back and is always standing there with a tub of ice cream and a shoulder to cry on. Andrew, on the other hand, is the type of character that typically I like to hate, except even despite his intentions of ruining Karson’s relationship with Max, he manages to wake Karson up that maybe he should look closer to home to the cause of their breakup.
Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable sexy story. I look forward to reading more from this author! Highly recommend!
I don’t much care for the lack of communication trope so I’ll put the in the maybe column. Thanks for your review!
I was looking at this one today (since it’s 30% off) but couldn’t make up my mind. Sounds good. Thanks for the review.“““““““