After reading Infected by Scott Sigler – Triangles #1, I needed something to cleanse my pallet so to speak, and read something light-hearted and easy-going and I absolutely loved this book. Felicity Chen is a 37-year old American-Chinese rom-com writer who gets invited to host a show in the vein of The Batchelor or The Bachelorette where she has to find true love among 9 romance male archetypes: the hot nerd, the vampire, the navy seal, the cinnamon roll (a sensitive guy), the cowboy, the businessman, the one that got away, etc.

Instead, she falls for the show’s producer, a hot hubba bubba guy, who reminded me of Reacher in most descriptions.

The book is split between his and her views, slowly progressing the story fraught with issues like: boundaries (the professional kind), issues dating when you have kids, issues keeping a romance off the books during a dating show, potential scandal.

Some bloke on a podcast once philosophized that the perfect day comprises ten hours of caffeine and four hours of alcohol. I might agree with the caffeine bit, but the mediocre beer in front of me feels more like liquid sadness than escape. Oddly fitting for the day I’ve had.

Connor is very much a serious dude. He does documentaries. A reality show about dating is not really in his comfort zone and Felicity – or Fizzy – wants to show him how to relax. In the meanwhile they fall madly in love with each other.

Felicity is also very funny – “I am the floppy wind sock in a family of sturdy street signs”. “He’s so taken with my dad he’s barely seemed to register how much mental salivation is being aimed in his direction”

I start to follow, propelled like there’s a silken rope connecting us, but hesitate. I think about the warmth of the car and the soothing mood of the music. I think about Connor’s big hands wrapped around the steering wheel, gripping it like it was a vine tethering him to the top of a cliff. I think about his forearms that are corded with veins and muscle, and how when he’s two steps below me we’re finally at eye level. I think about how his eyes lit up with joy tonight watching his daughter in her element, and I think about how his shoulders felt beneath my legs earlier when he lifted me. I think about the defeated growl of his My new best friend and I think about being in the front seat beside him for one second longer and I’m not sure I can do it. I am but a mortal woman after all, and once again I want Connor Prince III to crush me beneath him like a delicate flower under a fallen tree.
But sexily.

She’s really good at describing it for us, readers, how good it would be:

Connor is a mountain of a man, warm and massive, solid as bedrock beneath me. His mouth is soft and strong, commanding and pliable. Pleasure spears a sweet arrow through the center of my chest, and in a flash, our simple kiss flares, all the pent-up feelings pouring out as our mouths move together.

And let’s just say the sex scenes are HOT.

It’s slow, perfect torture. Sanity is so fragile, I think, losing my mind in inches, one after another as he works his way into me, carefully, his focus on my expressions and sounds. But then it goes from careful to starving the second he’s all the way in, like stone in silk, and I become a wind tunnel of thoughts, tiny particles and fragments flying by too fast for me to process. I am a selfish monster wanting more. I am a wizard toying with time to make this sex last an eternity. I am the first woman to ever be with a man, I’m sure of it.

I’m still sitting on the counter but it’s a formality. His hands are under my ass, arms holding me up, angling me so that he can move in a way that makes us both gasp. There’s so much power behind each thrust, so much pent-up need coursing between us. For all my talk about enjoying sex, I’ve never been a noisy lover, but with Connor there isn’t room for anything else and there’s too much sensation to hold inside, it has to escape somehow. Sharp, rhythmic gasps. Surprised cries. The sound of our sweat-slick skin coming together. I hear myself and wonder at it, feeling half out of control of my own body and brain. Maybe I am. I don’t care. I’m not worried about anything, not wondering for a second if it’s good for him because the answer is written in the furrowed lines of his forehead, the soft bow of his lip as he stares between us, slowing to watch, moving to touch me, thumb stroking.

I had to give it to the author, she knows exactly what women want:

The common theme: most viewers would like to ride him like a Peloton.

Let’s just say I agree with the sentiment.

He tempers my impatience, and I don’t know how because he looks about as calm as I feel, flushed and tight all over. I want to bruise his thighs, eat him whole. The galaxy inside me expands, too fast, in a world-ending way. The feel of him—his patient, trembling hands on my waist and full mouth on my breasts and his urgent body filling me—sends me into a euphoric trance. I start slow, but eventually animal instinct takes over, slippery and wild. It’s so good it’s speechless, gasping sex. It’s take up the whole bed sex, head hanging over the edge, sheets popping off the corners sex. It’s screaming into his ear, laughing into kisses as we slow down and check in with each other sex. It’s slow, shared breath, tiny movement and fast, headboard slapping sex. When he finally comes—behind me, curled over my back and trapping me in a savage, tender cage—the room falls still for the first time in an eternity. His massive body heaves in breaths, fists shaking where they’re planted on the mattress beside mine.
“Holy shit,” he breathes against my spine. His forehead is sweaty when he presses it between my shoulder blades. “Holy shit.”

And the love confession at the end is just * chef’s kiss *

“But I’m saying that I love you,” I continue, “because I sometimes think we as a society hold too many things back. We’re afraid of being vulnerable or rejected, we’re scared that we’re weird or say things that no one else thinks. And that’s okay. I’m not scared of that with you. I know I’m being rejected, I know I’m weird, and I know for a fact that no one else thinks exactly what I’m thinking right now because no one knows you the way I do. No one loves you in this exact, perfect, consuming way.”
“Fizzy,” he says quietly, his fingers twitching on the table. Carefully, he reaches one hand forward and brushes his fingertips over the back of my hand.
“So, when you’re home later, and feeling however you feel about this conversation—whether it’s grossed out, happy, sad, or confused—I just want you to know that there is someone on this planet who loves you unconditionally and deeply because of who you are and how you carry yourself. I’m so glad to have known you, Connor.”

LOVED THE BOOK! WILL DEFINITELY FIND OTHERS AND READ THEM TOO!