Toni wants to be an insider.Logan just wants inside her.She’s finally ready to rock…Toni Nichols set aside her dreams to raise her little sister, but now she’s reaching for the stars as the creator of a revolutionary interactive biography about Exodus End. She’s on tour with the rock band to immerse herself in their world, but how will she ever gain the trust of four veteran superstars who’ve been burned by the media before? Nobody said this was going to be easy. Then again, good things can come in hard packages.He’s always ready to roll…Adrenaline junkie Logan Schmidt lives for the rush of playing his bass guitar before thousands of screaming fans. When he’s not performing onstage or in the bedroom, he’s looking for his next thrill in extreme sports. So why does a sweet, innocent journalist get his heart pumping and capture his full attention? Is Toni the real deal or just digging up dirt on his band? Logan’s eager to rock Toni’s world and roll her in the sack, but when she starts to get too close to his heart, she takes her insider look to a place he may never be willing to go.
“Have a seat, Toni,” Dare offered. He stood and took a gym bag from her hand. He set it on the floor next to the spot he’d vacated, making it clear that Toni should sit next to Logan on the sofa. Logan loved the guy. Such a thoughtful son of a bitch. Toni’s dark eyes, hidden behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, scanned the interior of the bus as if searching for refuge. Apparently the seat next to Logan was not it. Dare plopped himself down in the only available recliner and extended the leg rest, as if he had no intention of moving for the night.“Th-thanks,” Toni said, pushing her glasses up her nose with one trembling hand.
Logan wasn’t sure what she was so nervous about all of a sudden. She’d seemed perfectly at ease when they’d been interacting with their fans. Perhaps she’d taken his comment about a lamb in a den of wolves to heart. He’d only been teasing, but he found her skittishness endearing in a world where most women threw all inhibitions to the wind when in the presence of any member of his band, much less all four of them.
The bus rumbled as it rolled forward. They were on the road again. Toni’s hands flew out as the unexpected movement threw her off balance.
She plopped down beside Logan, perching on the edge of a cushion as if the sofa’s back was made of shards of glass. Logan was pretty sure she was looking for the emergency exit. Her gaze settled on Butch, who was standing next to their driver and running over a strict schedule detailing how to get them to their next show in time while making a promotional stop between venues. Their schedule never had an inch of give. Their manager, Sam, was a genius when it came to getting the band the most exposure, but he had the tendency to believe that because they were a metal band, they were made of iron. They didn’t require useless things like down time and rest.
“So tell us more about this book,” Dare said, which was apparently the exact right thing to say to Toni, because her unease evaporated instantly.
“Have you seen the new interactive electronic textbooks?” she asked, her eager gaze moving from Dare to Max to Steve.
Logan was very conscious of the fact that she didn’t look at him once. He’d thought their attraction was mutual, but maybe not. He scooted several inches closer to her because he saw something he wanted and wasn’t one to sacrifice his personal needs for the greater good.
“Textbooks?” Steve asked. “Like for school and shit?”
“Yeah, that’s usually where textbooks are used,” she said, a teasing grin on her lush lips. When no one laughed, her face fell. Logan forced a guffaw about five seconds too late. That got his bandmates laughing. Not at Toni’s understated joke. They were laughing at his blatant stupidity. Nothing new there.
“I can’t say I’ve even seen a textbook since high school,” Steve said.
“These new interactive ones are amazing. Each topic has videos and pictures and links. It presents the information in a way that gets students who are used to constant entertainment excited about learning.”
“So you’re writing a textbook about us?” Dare asked, brows drawn together in a confused scowl.
“What kind of textbook would that be? A manual on mayhem and debauchery?” Toni cringed when no one laughed at that joke either.
Logan guffawed five seconds too late again. He was going to have to pay really close attention to what she said to figure out when she was joking. He didn’t think she lacked a sense of humor, she just looked serious. She’d definitely fit in better at a library than at standup-comedy night.
“The publishing company I work for designs and distributes these interactive textbooks,” she said. “Samuel Baily approached us to make an interactive book about the band, the first of its kind. He’s very forward thinking.”
That got the band laughing. “You might say that,” Max said. “Sometimes he’s a bit too forward thinking. He’s got every minute of our schedules booked for the next eighteen years. He thinks we’re robots or something.”
Toni’s eyes bulged. “Eighteen years?” she muttered under her breath.
Surely she knew Max was joking, so why did she look so unsettled? Wondering if he could make her blush again, Logan scooted a few more inches closer to her. His knee brushed her thigh, and she yanked on her skirt. Other than her hands and face, not an inch of bare flesh was showing. He wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to conceal. Maybe she wasn’t open to his attempts to seduce her. Which made her a challenge. Which, like her tits, he couldn’t resist. Or maybe she had a nice boyfriend at home. His loss.
“Speaking of robots,” Steve said. “How are the prototypes of our androids coming?”
“Good until they tried to replicate my dick and ran out of materials,” Logan said.
Toni’s sudden intake of breath made him grin. That shocked her? Seriously? Too easy.
“If they ran out of materials, it had to be due to Max’s giant forehead,” Steve said.
“Or your enormous feet,” Max countered.
Toni grabbed a pad of paper out of her bag and started writing furiously. Logan leaned against her shoulder to read what had her so excited. She was writing down their conversation. In the margin, she wrote: Keep video camera close at hand when all band members are together. They’re hilarious.
He was close enough to feel her body heat and inhale the sweet fragrance of her fruity shampoo. He wondered if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.
“For the record,” Logan said in her ear as he pointed toward her notes, “I was the one with the big dick.”
Toni leaped from the sofa as if it were on fire. Her gaze darted from one guy to the next, and she pushed her glasses up her nose with the back of her wrist. God, he wanted to take those glasses off, take those clothes off, and do things to her. Naughty, devious, delicious things.
“Um . . .”
The twin bumps poking against her shapeless turtleneck drew Logan’s attention.
Hard nipples? Did his crassness turn her on? That was all the encouragement he needed to behave inappropriately. Visible nipples also meant that her bra was not padded. There was so much win in that, he should have her name engraved on a trophy.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asked. “I won’t bite. But I will nibble. And suck. And lick.”
She stared at him with her mouth agape and her eyes wide. Her nipples strained against her sweater, begging him to do all those things and more to the tips of those luscious melons.
She glanced down at her tits and immediately crossed her arms over her chest. “Is, um, there a bathroom I can use?”
“At the back of the bus,” Dare said, nodding his head toward the end of the corridor.
“Don’t take a dump in there,” Steve said. “We stop at rest areas to do that business.”
Face flaming, she sucked in a deep breath, turned, and sprinted to the back of the bus. She fumbled with the closet door and when it popped open, a stack of towels that had shifted during transit tumbled out and pummeled her in the face.
Logan climbed to his feet to rescue her. He decided to take it easy on her for the moment. He wouldn’t want to traumatize her so much she decided to leave. They both bent to pick up the same towel at the same time and bumped heads. They jerked apart and rubbed their heads in unison. Toni looked up at him, her brown, doe-like eyes watery with tears. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of pain or humiliation, but seeing them in her eyes did strange things to his chest. He wasn’t sure why it was suddenly tight.
“It’s okay,” he said, deciding that though it was fun to tease her, he’d better tone it down a bit. She obviously wasn’t used to it, and he didn’t want to harass a woman who wasn’t receptive to provocative flirting. He hadn’t intended to upset her, just wanted to have a little fun and get under that conservative skirt of hers. “I’ll get the towels, Toni. You go ahead and do your business.” He opened the bathroom door for her.
She lowered her hand from her forehead to reveal a large reddened bump.
Logan winced and leaned forward to press his lips to the lump. She sucked a startled breath into her chest. Shit. There he went crossing the line again.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I always kiss boo-boos.”
“I have a pimple on my ass that needs kissing,” Steve called.
Logan closed his eyes and shook his head. “One of the things you should consider stressing in your book is how little fucking privacy a man has while on tour with his band.”
“I can include that,” she said, “but I think fans are more interested in the size of your dick.” She backed into the bathroom. “I know I am.” She bit her lip before closing the door in his face.
What are you going to do to me?”
“Lamb, the question you should be asking is what aren’t you going to do to me?”
No one and I mean no one can write an erotic rockstar romance quite like Olivia Cunning. This book served as the perfect reminder of why I fell in love with her writing and characters in the first place when I first discovered her Sinners series years ago. But this book? This gloriously sexy and make you laugh out loud like a loon book? This is easily my favorite book by this author to date. Coming in at over 500 pages, I never wanted it to end. Yes, it’s long, but never once did it drag, never once did I want to skim, and never once was I bored. Never. I can safely tell you that Insider was very much worth the 2 year wait because it was just that good.
So what did I love about it? Everything. But I suppose I can give you a list since I’m generous like that.
First there was Toni Nichols, the adorably naive virgin with the heart of gold and a quirky habit of collecting mismatched socks. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I loved her character and I’m usually not a reader that enjoys reading about 25 year old virgins. But Olivia Cunning managed to create such an incredibly endearing heroine with her that you can’t help but love her right away. I could also understand how growing up the way she did with a mother that’s more wrapped up in her job, losing her father young, and caring for her special needs sister would explain her current hymen challenged issues. She was just adorably clueless about everything. And while normally that would annoy me, here I just couldn’t get enough of it.
With her mother owning the company she works in, she never quite felt like she belonged. But then she gets the job of a lifetime going on tour with Exodus End in order to create a revolutionary interactive biography about the famous rock band. This of course lands her right in the path of Logan Schmidt; adrenaline junky, manwhore, and the band’s super sexy bassist.
The chemistry between them is instant and absolutely sizzling. And soon Toni begins to get the lesson of a lifetime in more ways than one…
Toni’s knees clamped shut again. he was going to do what to her whozit?
I loved how naive and clueless Toni was about most things and Logan’s ways of teaching her. I just loved these two together. They never failed to spice things up but with a signature humor to it all that made this book absolutely unputdownable.
Eyes wide, Toni’s body stiffened. She wasn’t sure if she should be excited or nervous by the prospect.
“Your pussy tastes so sweet,” he said. “I’m going to start you off by licking it for hours.”
Okay, excited it was.
Logan was everything I love about rockstar manwhores. Seeing him slowly begin to realize that his relationship with Toni is much more than he had intended. What’s that they say? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And when Logan falls, he definitely falls hard. It’s impossible not to fall for someone like Toni. While Logan introduces her to the dirty side of things, she never loose her sweet disposition that draws everyone to her like bees to honey.
I also loved that no matter how much sex this book had (and it had quite a bit), it was ALWAYS sizzling hot and I never got tired of it. Olivia Cunning is probably one of the very few authors I know that can actually pull off this much sex in a book without it taking away from the story. It just fit. I didn’t skim one scene in over 500 pages. And it never failed to make me uncomfortable aroused with how hot it all was.
The humor is really what took this book from a solid 4 stars straight to a glorious 5 stars for me. It was quirky, self depreciating, and so much fun. Logan is like a teenager with ADD most times, but it just worked. I just loved him to pieces.
“Mine. It’s impossible to get anyone’s attention when Max is around.”
“Tell me about it,” Logan grumbled.
“So I figured if they wouldn’t talk to me, maybe they’d talk to my boobs.
Okay, who’s next?” she called out.
Logan leaned toward her chest. “I’m Logan Schmidt, and I’ve been a fan of Toni’s boobs for almost a day now.”
I also fell hard for the rest of the members of Exodus End. Miss Cunning manages to give each of them a background full of depth that will captivate the reader from the very start and leave you panting for their story. And let me just tell you, if you’ve been impatient for Dare’s book before? This book will probably put you over the edge. Holy mother but do I need his book something fierce. We also get more peeks at the members of the Sinners, which was great; particularly my favorite threesome.
Insider is a quick paced, funny, and absolutely sizzling sexy read that I loved from beginning to finish. Logan and Toni together never failed to make me laugh, oddly enough mostly during their sexy times. Which really just added to their appeal for me.
“It does?”
“What did you think it meant?”
“Well….I thought it mean you’d do it to me until my vagina got sore.”
“Do what to you?”
“Pound me.”
Seriously. I think I had practically the entire book highlighted with their banter.
“Oh, sure, you barely know this car, and yet you’re already giving it privileges you won’t give me.”
“Not inside my ass. It poked me in the hip.”
“You got me all excited for nothing. Back seat?”
I read the entire book with a huge goofy grin on my face, when I wasn’t fanning myself like a maniac, of course. This had to be have been one of my all time favorite rockstar romance books that I’ve read in a long while. Fans of Olivia Cunning will fall for Logan and Toni just as quick as I did. It’s impossible not to. I’m positively obsessed with this series already and I already know it’s just going to keep getting better and better. I’m so excited to be getting more Trey with the next book (because let’s be honest, you can never have enough Trey. But I also cannot wait to get my hands on the rest of the boys of Exodus end; Dare, Steve and Max all have such intriguing history that I already know their individual books will suck me right in.
In short, I fucking LOVED this book. HARD. If you’re a fan of super sexy rockstars, this is one book that you definitely don’t want to miss. Read it. Loved it. Thank me after. Trust me.
Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock ‘n roll, USA Today Best-Selling Author Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians.
Raised on hard rock music from the cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She’s been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen, she discovered her second love, romantic fiction — first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own.
It’s been over a week since I read Toxic and it’s taken me this long to be able to sum my feelings and clear my head enough to rate it. If I can describe this book for you in one word, it would be exhausting. I was absolutely emotionally spent when I finished it. I spent a good 40% of it feeling like I want to rip my hair out. And this is coming from a self-professed angst whore, mind you.
But then here’s the thing; I liked it. Even though the constant back and forth between Phoebe and Jeremy left me feeling like they’re going to give me whiplash, I still liked it and gobbled it up like the angst starved junky that I am. Was it delicious? Heck no! I thought I may choke on it. But god help me, I still liked it. My favorite trope is the second chance romance and Toxic delivers it in spades.
While both Phoebe and Jeremy know they may be toxic together, they can’t stay away from each other. Their chemistry practically crackles in electricity. There’s one thing that’s certain, Kim Karr can write some scorching sex scenes. But the lies between them are like poison that won’t leave. Much as they try to purge it from their relationship it remains that one toxic factor that brews the way for mistrust and mistakes. I think it would be safe to say that neither of these characters are perfect, far from it in fact. These two fuck up so many times it made me want to throttle them and chuck my kindle at the wall. It was rage inducing.
There’s a wealth of secondary characters that were introduced that added to the story in a very significant way. Maybe that’s what helped dilute the angst between Jeremy and Phoebe? It made the book evolve like a movie in front of my eyes and it made me really connect to the characters’ lives. I’m not sure I’d be able to say the same thing if this happened in any other book, but in this one it just worked.
If you’re looking for a book that will enrage you and enrapture you all in one, Toxic is that. It’s a make you want to rip your hair out while still rooting for the characters kind of second chance romance. It was far from perfect, but yet it worked. It may not be for everyone, but if you’re a reader that enjoys your angst in rage inducing proportions while getting an unforgettable second chance romance, Toxic is definitely a must read.
The road is paved in hard truths, Alessandra, not denials.”
