"Work as a sex slave to pay the IRS?"

Set in present day New York, Paris, and the Med, it's a trip around the world for two people trying to make new lives. Kelly is a paralegal who leaves her overbearing boss the easy way, by dumping coffee in his lap. She is also a closet dominatrix who has been dying to try her hand with someone since her husband left her. Kelly takes work as an international courier and meets the answer to her prayers booked on the same flight to Paris.

Terry is an ex-military man who works with computers and owns his own company. How does a man like that get roped into playing submissive to the wealthy Lady Elizabeth? His wife leaves him, cleans out the bank account, and causes a $4000 check to the IRS to bounce. It's Elizabeth's 5000 Euro or jail for Terry. But on the way to his first, and probably last, assignment for an escort service, he meets Kelly. Suddenly, the man who wasn't sure he could submit to a woman wants nothing more than to submit to one and only one. After his week with Lady Elizabeth, he might just get the chance to pick up where he and Kelly left off.

I liked the story, but there were disconcerting jumps in believability and in logic. I would buy this better if it were billed as fantasy. The story gets gritty, which doesn't bother me particularly but may bother some readers. Terry's changes of heart seemed to come too suddenly at every turn, but other than that, he was an excellent hero. Kelly was much more in-depth than Terry, and the secondary characters were well drawn. I really got a feel for Richard, David, and Chrissy. I found myself wishing that I could meet Candy. You hear so much about her, but she is always off-screen, though her husband Richard is seen in several scenes.

Pet peeve -- I found that Kelly's retraining of Terry was somewhere between confusing and irritating. Her logic just didn't flow for me. Every time I thought I understood what her game plan was, she took a turn that completely destroyed the image I had formed. I loved the ending, and I think most readers will. Terry and Kelly are wonderful together, but I have to admit that I liked them better before he left her in Paris.

This book is an NC-17. There are six sex scenes in the 92 pages. Those scenes include masturbation, public sex, voyeurism, bondage, sex toys, dom and sub, anal play and anal sex, and S&M. I found some of the S&M a little much for my tastes, but for the most part, the sex was hot and plentiful -- and to my liking.

Reviewed by Brenna Lyons for Sensual Romance.

Reviewed by Sensual Romance
Courtesy Sensual Romance
Posted January 24, 2003

Summary

Terry Bradford www.InternationalMaleEscorts.com

This couldn't be happening. It was a joke, or a sham, or...something. Kelly read Terry's business card three times, just to make sure. Women actually paid for sex? Huh. Maybe women did this all the time. Maybe she could afford to hire him, just once, to try out her new found interest in bondage. The idea of this particular hard-bodied man tied up and begging for her was very appealing...

Kelly looked up at the gorgeous man who'd just handed her his card. It could work. As long as she remembered it was just sex.

Sexual Content: Rated NC-17, Genre: Contemporary BDSM.