Author: Chelsea (Page 109 of 111)

Just One Night (Sex Love & Stiletto #3)
by Lauren Layne
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

**ARC kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

The truth was, she could count her sexual encounters on one hand.
On one thumb, actually.
Because Riley McKenna, sex expert extraordinaire, was exactly one tepid, beer-fueled college encounter away from being a virgin.

Aaaah okay. Something weird is happening here. This is my THIRD Lauren Layne book, and while the beginning did scare me a bit, what with it’s content, I still ended up giving this five stars…for the THIRD time. 3/3.

That’s crazy. I don’t know what it is about his author that makes me so happy while other NA/Contemporary authors don’t, but MAN this woman can write. No matter how skeptical I am of the storyline, she always somehow manages to make me smile like crazy and giggle like some deranged loon.

I don’t want any of them. “I don’t want this to be just another meaningless how-to article.”
“What the hell headline do you have in mind? ‘I Slept with My Brother’s Best Friend and Lived to Tell About It?'”

This story centered around Riley and Sam. Riley is a writer for Stiletto magazine and Sam is her brother’s best friend. Riley’s column centers around sex advice and totally off the wall sexual experiences…so naturally everyone thinks she has a wild and fruitful sex life considering how knowledgeable and realistic her stories are. But what if it’s all a sham? Anyone can write about sex….but doesn’t it take a sex expert to make the articles so noteworthy and helpful and realistic? Or is Riley just a natural at ‘faking’ it?

He turned back around, disappearing into the kitchen, and thank God for that, because letting Sam Compton see her tears was one path she was never going down.
But beneath the tears threatening to overflow was something else. Something deeper and darker.
It was the desire to tell Sam just how wrong about her he was.

And then there’s Sam-the minute he walked into her family’s door she’s had a huge crush on him. Many long years have passed with her pining for the guy who has never seen her for anything other than his brother’s baby sister…but yet she still wants him. So, when Stiletto asks Riley and all the rest of the staff of the magazine to write a ‘personal’ article, Riley knows she needs to end her years of celibacy (and practically virgin-hood) or she won’t have an article to write. So, in the end, she propositions Sam to help her out for ‘just one night’, but what happens when he has been wanting the same things…and what happens when just one night isn’t enough?

Riley ignored her, her eyes scanning for the white shirts of the serving staff. Yeah, so she had a great metabolism. She liked to think it was the universe’s way of evening the score for depriving her of sex.
Ah. There was the crab cake lady.

I’m going to be frank: There are quite a few things I hate in a book. I hate insta-love. I hate alternating POV if not done correctly. I hate books that center only around sex. I hate books where both people are intertwined with the family and fall for one another. Inevitably…this book had all of those-aside from insta-love, that is. But, and I am being as candid as I can be, Lauren Layne takes all of my issues and makes them completely vanish. They both have liked each other for a while? Poof. Gone-don’t care. She propositions him for just sex? Who cares…it’s hot. Oh, another alternating POV book? I LOVE BEING IN HIS SEXY, JEALOUS MIND. Oh, friends of the family and bro’s best friend and his lil’ sis’? All the better for a secret romance. Literally everything I could complain about is handled so well. Even in her last book, Broken, the guy was damaged and mean beyond repair-She made me love him, too. I don’t think this woman could write a bad book. And that’s the most honest thing I’ve said in this review.

This was it. Sex. Making love. Hell, it didn’t matter what she called it. She was finally going to figure out what all the fuss was about.
And then her hands did shake. Oh God. What if she was bad at it?

One point I want to center around that I mentioned above is the sex as a main point in the story. I got really nervous because at one point early in the story…they decide to try it. I mean, it was SO EARLY in the story and I just had these thoughts scrolling through my mind in rapid fire like-‘Oh gosh the whole book is essentially going to center around this night and they are going to do some weird BDSM and….’ yeah that was what I was thinking. But, no! I was SO wrong! Somehow, in every one of her books, she makes the lust and sex tasteful. It’s never overdone, there’s just enough to satiate us. And this book literally centered around sex…now how does one make this work without it being overdone? I don’t know…but she does it. And she makes companionable relationships on top of it to boot.

Riley reclaimed her glass off the table and settled back into the couch. It wasn’t that she didn’t like vegetables. She just liked other stuff better. Like carbs. And fat. And stuff that didn’t taste like, well…healthy.

Some people complained Sam was boring. Why? Because he wasn’t a kinky business man with a throbbing cock? Hmm. I don’t get it. He was kind, caring, flawed, slightly tortured, and he was in the closet about his business plan. He was scared to upset his best friend and yet couldn’t get enough of Riley. He was jealous, protective, and absolutely adorable. A certain puppy scene comes to mind ;). Everyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for puppies. He made me laugh, he made me swoon, and he made my heart hurt. I don’t understand why not as many people liked him-not every hero can be a flashing neon lights type of guy-he’s simple, understated, he never rushed Riley into sex, and he was kind. I would take him as my own man any day.

“So sneaking in the back door of a man’s home, snooping through his stuff, and then startling the shit out of him isn’t your typical MO?”
“How do you know I snooped through your stuff?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Well, of course,” she said, fishing the cherry out of her drink. “But it was a total waste of time. There was no diary or dirty magazine or leopard-print boxers.”

And, ya know, lastly-I laughed a ton. Again. It’s hard to make conversations funny, but Layne does it. I won’t dwell on it because I have mentioned this a million times for her Redemption series, but I just wanted people to know that the snark and humor was there in spades-as always. I can’t wait to pick up her next work and add it to my collection. She is an amazing author and she never fails to brighten my day. To any who haven’t read a Lauren Layne book-what are you waiting for?? You will most likely find your happy place in one of her novels-take a pick, any of them would suit you.

Reading Order & Links: Amazon (click on covers), iBooks (click on titles) ***Each book can be read as a standalone, but best enjoyed in order.***
After the Kiss Reviews: Jen Chelsea	Love the One You're With Reviews: Jen Chelsea	Just One Night Reviews: Jen Chelsea
The Trouble with Love Reviews: Jen Chelsea