trouble with trevorRating: 3.75 stars
Buy Links: 
 Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


After his brother died in college from alcohol abuse, Trevor’s parents were afraid to let him out of their sight. When he got accepted to Harvard, they decided the only way Trevor could go would be if he lived with his godfather, Grady, a friend of his father’s from the military. Grady is gorgeous and Trevor can’t help but have fantasies about him, even though Trevor is older and his temporary guardian.

Grady has very clear rules about curfew and Trevor picking up after himself and has expectations for Trevor’s behavior. When Trevor breaks his curfew, Grady feels like physical punishment is a good solution — something like doing pushups. But instead, Trevor suggests spankings, having had fantasies about that very thing. When Trevor says that his father spanks him as well, Grady decides it is ok to inflict a little corporal punishment. Part of Trevor finds it all incredibly sexy, while the other part of him is a little freaked out by the spankings. Yet, despite this, he can’t help himself from continuing to push boundaries with Grady in order to continue getting spanked.

As time passes, Trevor find himself drawn even more to Grady and looking for ways to have contact with him.  For his part, Grady can’t stop himself from thinking about Trevor. He knows it’s not appropriate given their age difference and their relationship, yet he can’t stop himself. No matter how many other people he gets together with, Grady can’t get Trevor out of his head, and when Trevor continues to push Grady for more spanking, they both reach the point where they realize there may just be more between them than previously thought.

The Trouble with Trevor is the first book from Cin Forrester, the erotic pen name of author K.A. Mitchell. I’m a huge fan of Mitchell’s writing and I was really excited to find her starting this second line of stories with a more erotic twist. This book definitely has not just a strong sexual component, but also a more erotica-based storyline, rather than a traditional romance ark. Although there are eventually romantic feelings between the guys, the story really focuses on the erotic component of the spanking and Trevor exploring his feelings of both wanting the punishment and being afraid of it.

So I definitely thought there was a sexiness to this story and enjoyed the kink and the exploration of the age difference and the taboo of the relationship. I also liked seeing Trevor do a little bit of self exploration about what turns him on and what he wants, as he is just getting his first glimmers of understanding about his kinky side. I did find some of it a little awkward in that the spanking was really being used as discipline in the corporal punishment sense for a lot of the book. I’m totally behind the idea of some kinky spanking, as well as spanking as punishment in a domestic discipline sense where there is a relationship between two partners and it’s a negotiated part of the dynamic between them. But in this case, it didn’t quite feel like that since although Trevor was seeking out a little bit of fantasy fulfillment, from Grady’s end it is purely about punishing Trevor for what Grady sees as his misbehavior. Eventually this morphs into something more sexual as time passes, but in the beginning this is a way of punishing a 17-year-old by spanking him, which I had trouble really getting my head around. First off, for me seventeen is way too old to be spanking as punishment and even as his temporary guardian, the fact that Grady didn’t discuss this at all with Trevor’s parents seems odd. There’s also the fact that the transgressions seemed so minor and Grady’s reaction seems so severe. I mean, a 10 o’clock curfew for a college student, even one who they think needs close watching, just seems crazy rigid. And things like leaving a backpack on the floor or not putting away a carton of juice don’t seem severe enough to warrant smacking somebody. So the whole scenario made me a little bit uncomfortable at the beginning and I had trouble to some degree making the migration from the spanking as pure punishment, to then something emotional and sexual on both their parts.

I also wish we got a little bit of a better sense of Trevor. We are told that he got into Harvard early admission and with numerous scholarships, which makes him potentially one of the brightest students in the country, and yet this is not at all explored. I wanted to know more about the type of person he would be growing up under the shadow of his brother’s death and being the stellar student he is now. We never really see him in an academic environment of any intensity, which again seemed odd given the fact that he is supposed to be this brilliant kid. I do think we get a little bit of a better sense of Grady and his background and we can see that his military experience colors the way that he looks at discipline, so I think that his dynamic is a little bit better explored.

One last note here is that this story is actually only the first half, or at least the first part, of the larger story. There’s a second book coming that continues of the story of Trevor and Grady and, while I’m not gonna say this ends on a cliffhanger, it definitely ends with the full relationship between them still unexplored. We do get a teaser of the second story here at the very end of this book and it seems clear that it starts moments after this one ends, so these definitely are two interconnected books. Oh, and I’ll also note that both guys have sex with others over the course of the story. This makes perfect sense given their relationship and the story line, but I’ll throw it out there for folks who like their guys only with one another.

Overall I enjoyed this one and liked getting this taste of a different side to one of my favorite author’s writing. I did like the dynamic between Grady and Trevor and as the book went on and it became a little more relationship focused, it worked a little better for me. I still have a little bit of trouble with the way the spanking is handled, but as it became more of a romantic and sexual thing for both of them, it worked better for me. I’m really excited to read the follow up story and continue the relationship between Grady and Trevor and I am particularly excited to see where else Forrester takes things in this new erotica writing line.

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