“At once wildly sensual and heart-clutchingly tender, this series gets better with every book.” – Christina Lauren, New York Times Bestselling authors of BEAUTIFUL BASTARD 

A man whose lifestyle is so different from her own… 

Nic Dalton’s cupcake bakery is thriving. She serves both rock stars and locals alike, content with her growing business. But one adventurous night out with her best friend, Bailey, turns her life upside down. She meets a handsome stranger who makes her skin sizzle and her heart race. Their one night together is explosive and unexpected, but when he has to suddenly leave without taking her phone number, Nic resigns herself to never seeing him again. 

…What will it take to trust and submit to his every desire? 

Matt Montgomery is one of Seattle’s finest. He works hard, loves and protects his family fiercely, and is loyal almost to a fault. 

And he has a penchant for bondage. 

Matt enjoys the way a woman looks wrapped up in his ropes, and makes no apologies for his preferences. When he meets Nic at a fetish festival, the small, beautiful woman catches his eye, drawing him to her. His one night with her was everything he’s ever looked for in a partner, but is cut short because of a family emergency. Even before he sees her again weeks later, he knows he’ll never get her out of his system. 
And he’ll do whatever it takes to make her his. 

“Give in to this, Nic. Let me prove to you that I will be one of the best decisions you ever make.” –Matt Montgomery 

This series has been hit or miss for me. While I loved
, I wasn’t particularly fond of the rest of the books. I suppose I need to be in the mood for a fluffy read and sometimes it works…and other times it doesn’t. But here’s the thing; BDSM and Fluffy? NOT a good mix.

I originally DNF’d this at 50%, but then some newly formed OCD (I blame you Mirjana and Crystal!!!) and a hint of masochism forced me to finish this.

Here’s the thing, just because BDSM has been mainstreamed doesn’t mean that every author is able to write it. And if you are going to write it? Don’t gloss it over or tip toe around it, do the genre some justice. Now maybe I’m a kinky bitch, maybe I’m a picky bitch. Whatever the case may be, as much as I was anticipating this book after the sneak peek in the last one, I was left grossly disappointed.

WARNING: Rage-y spoilers below

So we have Nic. Nic is a straight laced vanilla girl. Nic doesn’t do kinky. Nic is certainly not submissive. But Nic goes to an Erotic Ball (of the BDSM variety) with her friend. And within a few minutes, straight laced Nic allows a total stranger to tie her up in a demonstration. Said stranger then tells her he’d like to fuck the shit out of her. So she lets him take her home still tied up in the ropes!! Oh, but it’s OK, because he tells her he’s not an ax murderer.

In case you’re curious, said stranger is good old kinky Matt. He likes his sex dirty with a bit of bondage mixed in. Oh and Matt is a Master Dom. A TRAINED Master Dom. Matt also says this

In clubs, safe words are mandatory, so if we ever go to one together, your word will be ‘red.’ The second you say ‘red,’ everything stops, no questions asked. But, honestly, the way I feel about safe words is, you shouldn’t need one with me. It’s my job to learn what you can handle and what you can’t, and I’m a firm believer in ‘no means no.’”

No shit? Really?

Apparently Master Matt is also a mind reader on top of his Shibari skills. Oh and of course, scening only happens in BDSM clubs. No need for a safe word when you’re doing a scene outside of one…

Now Matt is not exactly a hearts and flowers forever type of guy. His other family members may have married off, but he’s not planning on changing his status any time soon.

But then a few short days and some awesome sex later…BAM! The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and the hills are alive with the L-words. Does he really know her? Not really. So I just have 2 questions here

As for Nic. Nic was the most contradictory character I’ve ever read about. She says that she’s vanilla and straight laced, but lets a total stranger tie her up and then take her home. She says she’s shy, but then on another occasion lets Matt strip her in front of strangers at a BDSM club and then tie her up again.

All the while Master Matt decides he’s too possessive of her to have others see her naked or touch her, so no more BDSM club for them. He’ll still tie her up and shit and maybe throw in a spanking here or there.

Matt was not a Dom in my opinion. He was a man with a kink for bondage. I think had this book not brought the whole BDSM factor into it, it would have worked much better. The character’s actions did not match the way they’re described.

Nic is brooding away because for some mysterious reason she doesn’t think she’s good enough for Matt. Little by little we find out what that reason is. But does she tell Matt? Fuck no. She loves him too much to hurt him and doesn’t think she’s good enough for him. So what does she do? Leaves him without saying one word.

Of course they work it out in the end and there’s flowers and rainbows shooting out of unicorn asses all that jazz. As for my thoughts at this point?

I can tell you I will very likely be in the minority with my opinion. I know a lot of my Goodreads friends really loved this one. But this particular kinky bitch has been spoiled by the Cherise Sinclair’s, Lexi Blake’s, Kallypso Masters’ and the likes. So suffice it to say, this book did not do it for me.

If you like fluffy romances with a little kink thrown in, you’d really enjoy this one. As for me, I think I’m done with this series.

THE IMPACT

Tristan hit rock bottom, and no one felt the impact harder than Danika. She was forced to see, in the most brutal of ways, that love does not conquer all. Bruised, bloody, and broken she had to walk away.

THE AFTERMATH

Picking up the pieces of your life after a tragedy is a daunting prospect, and that’s considering you still own all of the pieces. But what if you don’t? What if someone else owns those pieces, and those pieces are a part of your soul?

You dig deep and work with what you’ve got. 

That’s what Danika told herself and believed, every single day, for years. 

Tristan and Danika’s love had failed every test that life had thrown at them. She couldn’t forget that, not for one second. And if those tests had been overly harsh, well, she wasn’t one to wallow in self-pity. The failure was the thing she had to focus on. The failure was the lesson. She had no intention of working so hard to make it out of hell without learning that lesson well. 

He’d set me adrift, so very long ago, and I had wandered into deepest waters, with depths far too vast for me to navigate alone.
And here he was, swimming out to save me. Had he been following me all the while? Had I been so blind?

What a perfect conclusion to the trilogy. It was emotional, angsty, erotic, everything you would want in a book. I waited until book 3 was out to read the 2nd and ended up reading them back to back.

In Lovely Trigger we find Danika slowly begin to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and shattered dreams. She has a job at James Cavendish’s art gallery, and while she can’t dance anymore, she gets by. As much as she tries to move on emotionally, she can never seem to fully forget the man that will always hold her heart.

I convinced myself that it had all been passion, not true love.  True love was a myth, a misdirection from the solid things in life.  What I’d felt for Tristan had been big and all consuming, but I told myself, like a mantra in my head, that it had never been solid.   Even so, every little thing brought him to mind.  We’d had too much together, been through too much, felt too much, and every feeling had a memory.

She tries to move on, but no one ever compares to Tristan.

Tristan is dealing with his own demons. After hitting rock bottom, he’s slowly but surely trying to climb his way out. He’s gotten clean, a job as a magician in the Cavendish casino, but still the memory of Danika haunts him. He’s riddled with guilt; for the things that he remembers and the things that he doesn’t recall from his drugged out haze. Just reading about everything he went through after what happened in book 2 hit me right in the feels

I didn’t trust myself, Danika. I needed my sobriety. I’m nothing without it, and you were a lovely trigger for me.  That look in your eyes, after all that I’d done…The way you looked at me like I was scum and knowing that I deserved all of your antipathy. I knew that if you looked at me like that again, I’d hit rock bottom, and this time I wouldn’t come back from it.”

I kept waiting for their reunion, knowing that when these two cross paths it will be explosive. And holy shit was it!

The world stopped as we took what we needed, what I’d been starved for since the very last time I’d been in his arms.   It was a frenzied mating, a swift coming together that took me to the fever pitch of ecstasy with a few rough, heavy strokes, over too soon, the perfect testament to our torrid love affair.

I loved the way that Tristan works to get back into Danika’s heart again. You can feel his pain and heartache through the pages. As much as I wanted to hate him after the end of book 2, my heart went out to him. That’s the beauty of a book written in dual first person POVs.

Love doesn’t let you walk away clean. Love is messy. I don’t have to tell you, of all people; Love takes a fucking piece of you before it’s done.”

There was plenty of things stacked against them; their past, the secrets Danika still keeps, and their present. On a side note, Mona…

This was not as angsty as book 2, thankfully, but still packed a hell of a punch.

(Highlight to view spoilers)[When Danika finally reveals everything that happened that night to Tristan and reading his reaction? Gut-wrenching. (hide spoiler)]
(When Danika finally reveals everything that happened that night to Tristan and reading his reaction? Gut-wrenching.)

But then there was that ending. Perfection. Not gonna lie, it brought a tear to my cold and black little heart. It was that good.

Why not 5 stars?
There were some things that I wanted a little more resolution for. I’m a picky bitch, what can I do?
(After everything that happened with Danika and her sister, I wanted to see what happened with their relationship. I don’t remember her being mentioned after that whole Tristan fiasco. I loved that she had her half-brother now, but some resolution with Dahlia would have been great.)[After everything that happened with Danika and her sister, I wanted to see what happened with their relationship. I don’t remember her being mentioned after that whole Tristan fiasco. I loved that she had her half-brother now, but some resolution with Dahlia would have been great. (hide spoiler)]

Aside from that very minor thing, I loved the book. Trilogies are not something I read as I tend to grow bored with the same couple after 2 books. TO be honest, when I saw that there was going to be 3 books instead of the 2 that I had assumed, I almost didn’t read it. (I blame my book ADD) But after reading these books I can definitely understand the necessity of it being stretched into 3. The story would not have been the same in just 2 books. Considering that this is my 2nd trilogy that I finished, it tells you something. If you love angsty, emotional, break-your-heart-then-put-it-back-together-with-a-cherry-on-top love stories, you need to read this.

The man was sinful. It wasn’t just the looks that made him dangerous, it was the cocky confidence that dominated every move, every touch. And the frustrating yet ecstatic fact about the whole package was that he could back it all up… 

Julia Campbell never knows what to expect with win-at-all-costs Brad De Luca. And she’s starting to like it that way. She gave up safe, conventional relationships when she let the elite divorce attorney seduce her into his world. Now that he’s determined to strip her naked of every inhibition, she’s in danger of falling too deep and too fast. 

But their affair begins to feel even more dangerous when a murder leaves a trail of suspicion that points straight to the mob…and Brad. Trusting a man with a bad reputation and a past full of secrets seems like a mistake. But when she’s forced to make a choice, the consequences will take her further than she could ever have imagined.

I fell for the feisty, smart-ass Julia that calls me on my shit. But I’m owned by the vixen that you become behind closed doors.

If you haven’t yet read Blindfolded Innocence, do not read my review. There’s no spoilers for this book, but there will be spoilers of book 1. You’ve been warned 😉

Masked Innocence starts immediately where Blindfolded Innocence ends. Julia and Brad are together, but keeping the relationship a secret. Brad has taken Julia completely out of her comfort zone in her sexuality, but she’s reveling in it. She’s finding out that she’s not quite the good girl she thought herself to be.

I should have felt like a slut, a dirty whore. But instead I felt liberated, aroused. It was an interesting discovery, to know that I liked being dirty. I wanted to be stared at, pointed to, to have men lining up to fuck me. Inside, I felt a release of some tie, some leash undone, and I knew my descent into sexual awareness was just now starting.

Good thing, Julia, since Brad’s kink is to swing.

While this book had a good share of it’s steamy moments, it was a much different feel in comparison to book one. With the murder of one the law firm’s partner, we get a sense of intrigue and suspense. Julia has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and asking too many questions, and now her life hangs in the balance. Who is threatening her life? And just who is Brad De Luca?

The man I had turned to was the one I should have run from. I didn’t know what bothered me more, the new danger facing my body or the risk I had brought to my heart.

Brad is determined to protect Julia at all cost, even his own life. But that certainly doesn’t stop him from having her anywhere he can. There was kitchen sex, masked party menage sex, office sex…

Well you get the idea here…

Julia and Brad’s relationship continues to evolve into something deeper. Brad finds himself doing something that he never imagined himself doing; falling for her. And you know what they say? The bigger they are…

I did’t want a relationship! Didn’t want to (view spoiler)[fall in love (hide spoiler)] or be committed, or be required to share the intimate details of my life! But I’m here- with you, a curse of a woman who has taken all my fucking walls and shredded them like fucking tissue paper in your tiny little hands!

As much as I love Brad, I really love Julia’s sassy personality. I found her to be his perfect match. She really gave as good as she got

To the most wonderful woman I have ever met. May we spend the rest of our lives together.
“That’s your toast?”
“You don’t approve?”
As I’m sure you have figured out by now, I have a very healthy self-esteem, bordering on egotism.”
“Bordering on?”
“Shut up. Regardless, you have been with a disgusting amount of women, and will be with a hundred more before you die. For me to be the ‘most wonderful’ woman you have ever met, and you toasting to ‘spending the rest of your life’ with me rings a little…”
“Fake?”
“Bullshitty.”

The book leaves off in a HFN-ish type ending, but there is still danger looming in the future. I’m looking forward to the conclusion of Julia and Brad’s story and seeing what the future has in store for them.