First Contact

Giddy Applause

Here's to buying books just based on pretty covers. I got this for no other reason than that I liked the simple yet beautiful cover. It turns out that this is smoking hot fun. Just what I needed to wipe away the sour taste of a bad read.

The pretext of the book is two newly paired cops going undercover as a Dom/sub couple in a BDSM club where the mob is doing business so ... yeah ... umm ... just go with it. The probabilities of any of this being possible are irrelevant. What matters is Rick & Jon and their page singeing chemistry.

I couldn't tell you with any certainty exactly what was being investigated or who the bad guys were and I don't care. If you're not a BDSM fan you're in luck because there's really minimal play. Mostly some D/s done within the context of the undercover operation and one bondage public sex scene with a bit of what could be considered sharing. I don't call it sharing. Rick used another sub as a tool to please Jon. I enjoyed this perhaps more than is seemly and I don't care.

I loved Rick and his inner monologues, how he's at a loss for words even in his own head but feels utterly right once he and Jon are in the club. He feels free and almost compelled to pursue his desire. Jon remains a bit of a cypher, utterly sexy, but mysterious.

Even though the writing suffers from some odd choices in narrative voice I gave it a pass. What brought this down a notch for me is the fact that there is no second book to follow up with all of the threads left dangling in this one. Jon has transferred from Chicago to Rick's precinct and the reasons seem interesting and something worth pursuing. Likewise the story of Rick's former partner or the sub who is a scion of a mob family or the cruel Dom/Mob boss with whom Rick and Jon have “words”. All of these are just left in limbo. I sort of knew, going by the length of the book, that they wouldn't be resolved within this installment but to have no follow up is just cruel. BDSM indeed.