Review: ★Asking For It★ by @LilahPace

This is who I am. This is what I want. Now I need a man dangerous enough to give it to me.”

Graduate student Vivienne Charles is afraid of her own desires—ashamed to admit that she fantasizes about being taken by force, by a man who will claim her completely and without mercy. When the magnetic, mysterious Jonah Marks learns her secret, he makes an offer that stuns her: they will remain near-strangers to each other, and meet in secret so that he can fulfill her fantasy.

heir arrangement is twisted. The sex is incredible. And—despite their attempts to stay apart—soon their emotions are bound together as tightly as the rope around Vivienne’s wrists. But the secrets in their pasts threaten to turn their affair even darker…

Reader Advisory: Asking for It deals explicitly with fantasies of non-consensual sex. Readers sensitive to portrayals of non-consensual sex should be advised.

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You can have neat, tidy, and safe. You can have tame. Or you can have what you really want. But you can’t have both, Vivienne. And I think we both know which one you’re going to choose.”

Thought provoking, evocative, erotic, and unlike anything I’ve ever read before. I am absolutely blown away by this book. I didn’t know quite what to expect when I began reading it, but I never envisioned something like this. Aside from anything else, this book will make you think. It will take every line your mind never had thought to have crossed and burn them in one erotic blaze. Do not take the warning in this book lightly, because it’s everything that it talks about. This is not a subject matter that will be for everyone. But if you’re unsure whether you want to read it? I say dive in without a backwards glance because it will be one of the most unique books you’d ever have read. That much I can guarantee.

If you’ve read Willing Victim and/or Debt and wondering if this book is anything like that? The answer is a resounding no. The heroine is not bored with her sex life and looking to spice things up with one night of something rougher; she craves the darker fantasy with every fiber of her being. The heroine is also not one that’s introduced to the rougher edge by the hero; they both equally crave it. And most importantly, at the core of this story it’s not quite a romance….yet. It’s definitely erotic with a slow building undercurrent of romance that floats right under the surface but never quite breaches it. I’m assuming the romance aspect we’ll get in Begging for It.

This is who I am. This is what I want. Now I need a man dangerous enough to give it to me.

Vivienne Charles is twenty-five year old graduate student at the UT Austin School of Art and a teaching assistant. She’s also an artist that creates unique drawings. She’s a regular woman, with regular friends, and regular boyfriends. But beneath all that is a woman that craves something darker. Something that she equal parts needs and brings her shame. Unable to orgasm with any of her previous boyfriends unless she fantasizes about being taken forcefully, bent to someone else’s will and completely owned, Vivienne recognizes that what she needs during sex is anything but conventional. In therapy for many years because she understands the root of her desire, she’s attempting to deal with it. But that doesn’t mean that she can turn it off that easily. She just never thought she’d meet a man that could deliver them…

When she gets a flat tire driving home late one evening, a stranger that pulls over on the side of the road is able to induce the kind of reaction from her that her boyfriends never could with just his stare. Equally terrified of him and drawn to him, she never expects to see him again after he drives off once he’s helped her. Little does she know that she’ll soon not only meet him but find that he’s been closer to her than she’s ever known.

At a friend’s party, Vivienne comes face to face with Jonah Marks; the same man that she’s been fantasizing being taken forcefully by on the side of that road. Jonah is a research professor of Volcanology at the same university Vivienne attends. He’s also quiet, mysterious and still manages to evoke the same reaction from her if not even stronger one. When Jonah overhears her ex-boyfriend disclose her most private sexual desires, the last thing that she expects is for him to make her an offer that she’s both been fantasizing about and terrified of.

What soon begins is the acting out of a mutual and consensual fantasy. A fantasy that they both crave but for very different reasons.

I dream about tearing that dress off your body. When I close my eyes I see you the way you were afterward. Wrecked. And what I want more than anything else is to wreck you all over again.

The author doesn’t dance around the provocative subject of rape fantasies. She throws you right into the deep end and she does it flawlessly. The story is told only in Vivienne’s POV while Jonah remains the enigmatic mystery that he is for most of the book. The only pieces you get of him is what Vivienne does, so you get to experience everything along with her. It truly allows the reader to get inside the heroine’s head and get the full effect. You get this sense of ‘it sounds like it should be wrong but it’s oh so hot at the same time’. Knowing as little as you do about Jonah really makes that line between fear and arousal all that much bolder.

He’s brought me back to the line between fear and arousal. And Jonah’s going to hold me there as long as he wants.

This is very much a slow burn. It’s erotic, that’s for damn sure. There’s also the potential for romance that sizzles right under the surface but it never comes out. I appreciate that the author did that because it really allows the reader to get to know the characters and truly get what makes them tick. Adding any clear element of romance into this book would have ruined the effect. It wouldn’t have fit.

He’s making this last longer, because he wants to revel in his power over me. Jonah wants to show me how helpless I am. Whatever he gives me, I have to take.

I loved Lilah Pace’s writing style. That’s what truly made this book as provocative as it was. Although everything that goes on is very much consensual, she’s also able to weave in that little bit of an edge. You feel the struggle that Vivienne has with craving what she does and her shame of it. You also get to feel her question whether or not she should fear it. It was brilliantly handled.

I loved the depth that both of these characters had. Though they have one thing in common, their reasons for it are very different. I never expected this book to be quite as deep as it was. (no pun intended). It’s not thoughtless smut and acting out a dark and kinky fantasy. It’s so so much more.

Each of us assumed the other was simply indulging a kinky fetish, when in fact we were shepherding each other through our nightmares.

You know how sometimes you read a book and you really don’t see how it couldn’t just be one longer one? Or that the cliffhanger that was thrown in was done for pure shock value alone? This book is neither of those things. If ever there was a story that needed to be told in two parts, this is it. I can appreciate that the reader needs that clear division of getting to know the characters and then getting their love story. It’s what made this book was it was. And while it does end in a place where you know book two will follow, it wasn’t a shocking cliffhanger either; more of a to be continued. I appreciated that as well. The author could have gone there had she wanted to, but she stayed true to the story and didn’t. I can definitely tell you that Lilah Pace now has a huge fan in me and she’s going straight to my auto-buy list. I’m eagerly anticipating the conclusion to this story and can’t wait to see how it all resolves.