Matchstick Men

3.75 bitching and complainingI could blame this on OCD or the fact that I somehow find myself in possession 3 books in this series, but that would be disingenuous, to say the least. The truth is that despite the problems I had with [b:On His Knees 36304274 On His Knees (A Hunter Dane Investigation 0.5) Adira August https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1506540942s/36304274.jpg 55757420] I was sufficiently intrigued by the MCs to go on with the series. Good News/Bad News? The same issues continue. The good and the bad. Hunter Dane is a 35 year old maverick detective with the Denver Police Department. He's the guy who gets assigned the difficult cases because of his ability to read a scene devoid of emotion or unnecessary entanglements. He also happens to be super HOT. Enough to be a model for stock photos, the kind that regularly appears on the cover of romance novels. Body only. No face. When he wants to wind down he goes to Seen And Not Heard (SANH), one of the fabled BDSM clubs that populate romance. SANH was created to cater to Denver's millionaires, billionaires, and sundry celebrities. On the verisimilitude column is that Hunter Dane's membership doesn't come due to his stock portfolio but on account of being a cop. The club waives membership fees for EMT, Police, and Firefighters, not for altruistic reasons, but to have an “in” when anything goes wrong. Hunter frequents the club and seems to be some kind of switch between Dom and sub depending on need/mood. Dunno if that's a thing but much of my enjoyment hinged on suspending disbelief on certain matters, with varying degrees of success. After a particularly harrowing case Hunter feels the need to be punished, broken, taken out of himself, and only one Dom will do: Camden Snow. The events of that night were detailed in [b:On His Knees 36304274 On His Knees (A Hunter Dane Investigation 0.5) Adira August https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1506540942s/36304274.jpg 55757420] and are referenced here. When Matchstick Men begins it's about a week later and Hunter comes to the club in Dom mode looking for something light and mellow. Things don't go as smoothly and a club member ends up dead. It's up to Hunter to solve the case before the club membership becomes public knowledge. It's a race against time and a religious, fire & brimstone, black & white police captain, who wouldn't look too kindly on the sexual proclivities of Denver's elite and wouldn't blink twice at exposing them and their kinks to the public. So far so good. The mystery itself is pretty clever, and even though I correctly suspected the ‘who' early on, the ‘how' was neatly done. A kind of closed room mystery.In fact there were quite a few things I liked about this, which will probably keep me coming back, that and I own the next two books. I liked that the D/s relationship is flipped, where the Dom is the younger of the two. I liked that Hunter, though not verbalized, seems to be demisexual and bisexual? or fluid? I like to see characters like that develop romantic attachments. It's a challenge for the writer to convince of the truth of the relationship. So far Adira August is doing quite well. I liked that by the end of the book Hunter's problems haven't been solved by magic cock. He does get relief or a reset via his scenes at the club, but he's self aware enough that he knows they're not an end all. They serve more like a salve. He's aware that maybe therapy would be better but ... we all do what we like. I also like how unsentimental, practical, clear, and direct Hunter is. Can you tell I liked Hunter? Sadly what I didn't like or rather believe much at all was the other half of the equation.Camden Snow is a 23 year old Olympic calibre athlete. He's a snowboarder, which put me in mind of Gus Kenworthy, save Gus is cute & adorable, and Cam is consistently and ad nauseum described as “Camden Snow, Norse God of a winter Olympic champion”, or other such nonsense. The descriptions of both leads can get a little hyperbolic to say the least. They're not just good looking guys, they're perfect specimens of men who grace our meager earth with their presence. Ugh. Please! However that's neither here nor there. I can totally ignore physical descriptions. My major pause is Cam as a Dom. And yes it has much to do with his age. Is he meant to be some kind of Dalai Lama style sage? The spirit of the prior Lama infused into him, but in the BDSM world? There are some perceptive 23 year olds, but they're not masters of human psyche. Cam doesn't have the life experience to truly understand Hunter's world. His job. He freaks when they find the bloody murder weapon! I'm also on the fence as to the truth of Hunter & Cam's D/s relationship. There's no basis for it. At all. As discussed in my review of the previous book, the first time Hunter “kneels” for Cam they really know nothing about each other, except by reputation gleaned from club gossip. I don't think they've exchanged more than a glance! And yet they jump headfirst into a scene with no previous convo about anything: likes, dislikes, hard limits, expectations, sexual preference etc. And get this: NO SAFE WORD. Why you ask? Because Cam demands complete and absolute submission and he's so awesome he knows exactly what a sub needs/wants. I'm not a stickler for rules and I'm not super into codified scenes, but seriously? WTF? Cam will butt fuck you, even though he knows you never do ass play, and are quite possibly an anal virgin. Because you need it. He could've gone dildo route, but whatever. However he's super honorable. He won't come. It's not about his (Cam's) sexual satisfaction. It's about Cam as a Dom giving you (the sub, in this case Hunter) what you need. He's generous like that. Check out this exchange, at least they seem to be in agreement. I guess? “Did you come last night? On the Angel?” Hunt interrupted him. “No,” He looked offended. “It wasn't about sex. Coming in you would be ... rape. I don't do that.” It was a wonder to Hunter that Cam understood so perfectly that ramming his dick painfully into Hunt's ass was one thing, but using him for personal pleasure at that moment was so vastly something else it was unthinkable.”I decided to squint one eye and look at him through the haze of romance. And things were going well until Hunter figures out who the killer is and they're racing to do something crucial in the case. Cam has not only conveniently been inserted into the investigation, but while en route to the super important thing he forces Hunter to stop in the middle of the night in a well lit parking lot to make Hunter give him a BJ because he, Hunter, is too pent up. Doing his job. As a cop. No regard for Hunter risking his job if they get caught in flagrante delicto or losing time while a killer is on the loose. But hey! Cam is a Dom. He knows best. Another thing that gave me pause was this conflation of Doms & Sadism. I may be wrong, but as far I know not all dominants are sadists. They're not the same thing. I persisted and chugged along with the story. shrug There were other things I liked. One thing which will sound weird is that I appreciated the scenes, in the prior book and this one, of Hunt douching, getting ready for anal sex. I don't have coprophilia or anything close to it, but I must confess that whenever couples, in M/M, go out for dinner and then come home and just skip and hop into penetrative sex my brain does a little “sure, uh-huh”.I also liked the ending. It's sort of a cliff hanger but it shows progression for Hunter. He behaves like an adult and yet you can see some cracks in the armor. Despite all my complaining I'll soldier on and it wont even hurt. Not a bit.