#steamyromance

Saint Bernard

Ella has spent her whole life fighting to be seen. Her brother, Jason, is a hockey player for the Pittsburgh Fury, and anything she wanted to do was given a back seat. Her parents put everything into Jason’s career, and never had a second thought for Ella. So she’s used to doing things on her own, whether she likes it, or not.

Bernard “Howie” Hauser has been tasked with picking up his friend and roommate’s little sister. It’s been a while since he’s seen Ella, and like a lot of people, expect to see the version of her as he last saw her (she was a teenager). So it’s kind of cute but mostly sad that he doesn’t recognize her. The funny part? The moment he sees her, he wants her…until he realizes who she is.

But, honestly, he still wants her. 

Jason has three (admittedly immature) rules — don’t touch his stuff, don’t touch his food, and don’t touch his sister. Maybe that worked when she was a teenager, but it sure isn’t working now. And after spending time with Bernard, she decides that she wants him to be the one to “deflower” her. And Bernard is on board.

I love that the chemistry between Bernard and Ella is so electric. As Ella hasn’t had a lot of dating experience (being forced to follow her brother around for years might have something to do with that), she wants Bernard to teach her. Their connection is so strong already, and they don’t know yet just how strong that pull is going to be. (Hint: It’s STRONG.)

Ella finds friends both at work and with the PAWs (Partners and Wives) of the hockey players. She even takes up a hobby. But the clock is ticking down to her nursing exam, and she’s having trouble understanding the questions. As it turns out, she needs to hear the words, not see them. And that really changes the way she studies for the exam. 

“You are the first place I’ve ever wanted to stay.”

Jake is in Salt Bay to consult on the renovation of the Salt Bay Beach Club. He’s good at restoring things, especially old houses. When he comes across an eighty-year-old woman on a ladder, trying to prune a bush, he immediately tries to get her down safely, but things don’t go his way, and he gets her medical help and continues to help until the woman’s granddaughter gets there to hep with rehab.

Emma has graduated from nursing school, and most of her friends from said school have already found jobs, whereas Emma keeps getting rejected. She still has three more interviews scheduled, but she gets the call that her grandmother has fallen and needs help, so she packs up and heads to Salt Bay, which had previously only been a summer destination. 

It’s clear that when Jake and Emma meet, there’s strong chemistry there. 

Oh, have I mentioned that Jake is a billionaire? No? Well, he is. And he’s not advertising it, because that’s not who he is. He is a man who saves things when it would be easier to replace them. He respects history, and the people who live with that history. He and Emma fall for each other, while each of them are taking care of Emma’s grandmother in different ways. 

There is an on-page love scene, but it isn’t graphic, so this scene hits somewhere around partly open-door.

This is also a prequel to the Salt Bay series, and it’s not as long as the other books have been. This is not a complaint, of course, as I really appreciated knowing this story, and seeing how it fits in with the rest of the series. 

He sees her for the first time, and forgets how to breathe.

Cammi’s living situation is fraught with trouble. Her mother is usually passed out from drugs or alcohol, and Rick, her boyfriend, is now demanding she pay her mother’s share of the rent, but now with money. When she refuses, he tries to assault her, and she manages to lock herself in her room and call her friend Millie. Millie and Wilder arrive and take her to Wilder House for her protection.

Noah happens to be looking out the window when he sees Millie and Wilder escorting a young woman into the building. He’s struck dumb, which is not something he’s ever felt before. He’s former Army, and his PTSD often ruins his sleep. But all that fades from his mind as he watches this woman walk into Wilder House.

Though Noah initially tells himself that he’s not going to get involved with Cammi, he can’t help seeking her out. He finds her at the local diner, working, and guess who shows up — yeah, it’s Rick. Her boss then fires her for making a scene (she was absolutely not making a scene, Pete, get it right). 

Now that she’s been threatened by Rick, Noah knows that he will not back away from her, even if he thinks he’s too old for her. Steaminess does ensue, and that’s when he realizes that she keeps the nightmares away. Not that he would keep her around just for that; he’s head over heels for this woman.

When animosity evolves into love...

Marco has just been told by his father Santo that he’s going to marry Brooklyn Briggs. Why, you ask? Because Brooklyn’s father has something Santo wants. Brooklyn gets a similar talk, with her parents telling her that she has to marry Marco Deluca. Oh, and there’s this little complication…she’s pregnant with another man’s baby. A man who wants nothing to do with said baby. 

Both Marco and Brooklyn have spent their lives doing what they were told. Both of them think it’s loyalty. But is it? Arranged marriages in this day and age? That seems less like loyalty and more like using your own family for your gain, not theirs. 

Honestly, Marco is awful to Brooklyn at first, which made me a little angry. She’s been forced into the same thing he has, and he ought to remember that. Marco’s brother Dom (see the Morelli Sisters books if you haven’t already) escaped that “duty”, leaving the family to be a model. Now he’s happily married and has kids. 

I understand the impetus to do what’s best for your family. But if blindly doing what’s best for your family means losing your own autonomy…well, it’s not an equitable situation, and it will drag you down.

“Don’t burn it down just because you don’t think you deserve it.”

Wilder spent six years in prison after a raid on the Serpents MC. There he met Johnny, who taught him control, even as he was dying. Johnny left him everything he had, and he took it and made a life for himself and a place where people like him could land and begin to rebuild. In other words, he owns and lives in an apartment building 

Millie comes home to the apartment she shares with her mother to find an eviction notice. Apparently she wasn’t spending what little money Millie made on the rent. The woman goes so far as to say she’s moving in with her “boyfriend” (he’s really a drug dealer) and Millie can figure out things on her own. But there’s nowhere for her to go; all of the shelters are full, and she has no friends to help her.

Being a very empathic person, I can feel how scared she would be. Everything she owns is in her backpack, or on her body. She has no one to turn to. The world shouldn’t work this way. But thankfully for Millie, she makes a snap decision that will end up completely changing her life for the better. 

When Wilder hears someone crying, he investigates, and finds a young woman curled up on flat cardboard boxes in one of his storage closets. Instead of throwing her to the wolves or reporting her for trespassing, he lies and says there are no vacancies, but she can stay in his guest room. Steamy stuff ensues later. 

Wilder could have gone down a more dangerous road, but he didn’t. He learned control. And he quietly helps people like him find their place in the world. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but I do. If only there were more people like him in real life.

The burden of expectations.

Ivy’s cousin is getting married, and the inevitable questions of “when are you going to settle down?” That’s a bit of a downside, as she’s now fielding even more questions about why she hasn’t found a husband. From Ivy’s point of view, the marriages in her family are anything but healthy, and she’s committed to steering clear of that. But the townsfolk won’t give up, even though her extended family are a bunch of unhappy people.

Hunter is waiting in line at Parcel & Post, where Ivy is the owner and operator, and when he realizes that Ivy is being badgered, he steps up and says that he’s her boyfriend, not waiting a second longer to get to Ivy out of the line of fire. And what starts as fake dating, quickly becomes more.

I get how Ivy feels, as I’ve been through something similar. Both my older and my younger sisters beat me to the altar — one of them even beating me twice — and I got so tired of people asking when I was going to settle down, as if I wasn’t open to meeting “the one”. What I always told those people was “never”, trying to throw them off my trail. (Spoiler alert — I found my man, and we’ve been happily married for almost 29 years.)

Ivy gets a lot of guff from her grandmothers, and Hunter continues to fake date Ivy, though there’s very little fake left in there. Even so, social pressure builds.

He's the first and only man who's fought to stay with her.

Ironside (original name Reuben Calhoun) is at The Bellflower shop, to pick up some flowers for Tarzan’s wife Keely, who just had her second baby. But when he sees the proprietor of the shop, Lena, he knows he’s found something good. She’s tall, curvy, and sweet, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make her his, even though he’s twenty or so years her senior.

Lena is in her thirties and, to her chagrin, is has never had sex. She has a condition that makes intercourse extremely painful, and has been dumped or passed over for most of her adult life. But when she meets Ironside, she’s struck by how romantic he is, especially as he’s the VP of the Reckless Order MC. He asks her out, she accepts, but she worries that this will be another failed attempt at finding satisfaction. 

Lena is also tall, at six feet high, and that and her condition make it difficult to turn any man’s head. But Ironside is not any man. He’s been through heartbreak as well, and wasn’t really looking to find someone after his fiancé dumped him a couple of years ago. It makes sense that these two would be drawn together, as they understand those hard knocks of life.

If you haven’t guessed yet, this book is steamy.

Always read the note.

Hannah is in Kauai for her friend Brynn’s wedding. And she’s carrying a lot of mental baggage, as her father left her and her mother when she was young, leaving only a note behind. She watched her mother suffer, as her father had made her mother quit working, and now they had no income. Then Hannah dated and almost married a man who told her she would quit her job once they were married. You can guess how well that went over.

So, when she meets Hawk, one of the groomsmen in the wedding party, and is immediately attracted to him, she does her best to completely ignore him. Naturally, it doesn’t quite go her way.

Hawk is immediately infatuated with Hannah, but he doesn’t chase women. Hannah, however, is worth the risk, and he lets down his guard, only for her to walk out on him the next morning without a word. He left a note, which he thought she’d read and then threw away, but let’s remember how she feels about men leaving notes behind. 

Things get even more complicated when Hannah accepts a contract that brings her back to the islands, and ends up working for Hawk’s company. She also figures out that she’s pregnant, and there’s only one person the father could be.

I get why Hannah didn’t read Hawk’s note; she’s operating from decades of men letting her down, usually by note. Thankfully, Hawk is not that kind of man. He wants Hannah, period. But he also won’t force himself into her life.