The second book in Alexis Daria’s Dance Off series finds one playboy charmer falling for his new roommate.Natasha Díaz is having a day. She’s trying to prove she can make it as a professional dancer, but she’s overworked, out of cash, and her roommate has just moved out. When she comes home to find a hole in her ceiling and her bedroom flooded, she’s desperate enough to crash with the one guy she … crash with the one guy she can’t quit. She accepts his offer with one condition: no sleeping together while she’s living with him.
Dimitri Kovalenko has never lived with a woman before. But when Tasha’s in need of a place to stay, he suggests she move in without a second thought. He accepts her condition, hoping she won’t stick to it. They’re good together, both in the ballroom and the bedroom. Since their first dance, she’s never been far from his thoughts. Sure, she’s a pro and he’s one of her show’s judges, but they’re not currently filming, so no one needs to know.
Living in close quarters shows Dimitri a side of Natasha he’s never seen before, and he likes it. A lot. Too bad she’s doing everything in her power to keep him at arm’s length. When an injury forces Natasha to take it easy or risk her ability to dance, it’s his chance to show her that the rules have changed, and she can trust him with her heart.
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***4 Stars***
This was one of those books that I didn’t really look twice at until an author I follow (which one, I now forget) put on SM how much she had loved it and my curiosity got the better of me and after reading the blurb I decided to give it a go and though it did take me a minute to dive in, I ended up really enjoying it. It was a quick, fun read that had a good mix of sweet, smexy and frustrating and kept me turning the pages.
I really liked Natasha and Dimitri, I did, but boy do these two have a lot of baggage. Natasha was sassy and snarky, but boy was she stubborn, not that it was a bad thing. I loved her drive to succeed, that passion was a draw, but her determination also gave her tunnel vision and prevented her from truly living. Dimitri, I loved. He was all kinds of dominate alpha AF male that at times came off as being a caveman, but his intentions were, for the most part, well meaning. He just went around it the wrong way, kind of like how he had a bad case of what I call “insert foot in mouth” disease.
Natasha and Dimitri’s journey was definitely one that had me doing my best not to pull my hair out, but I enjoyed it. They both had a lot of insecurities and it built quite a few walls, not only between them, but those they called friends and family and through their impromptu living situation that put them in very close quarters they found a way to work through those issues and come out stronger in the end. As for their relationship, the eye rolling happened a lot, but the chemistry was there and I liked where they ended up at the end of the book.
This was my first book by the author and I really enjoyed it. The writing was engaging, the pacing was good ~ it did slow a bit in some places, but nothing major ~ and I enjoyed the dual 1st person POV. The dancing sequences were very well done and I could picture the movement and flow in my head easily. I really enjoyed the secondary characters, Oksana may just be my favorite of the bunch, but I wouldn’t mind if Kevin and Lori got books of their own some day in the future!
~ Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley & voluntarily reviewed ~
Natasha is having a really bad day, so when her on again, off again friends with benefits, Dimitri, offers to let her stay at his place, she accepts, with one condition – no sex while she’s staying there. Sounds like a plan, but that’s not what happens because Dimitri is a pushy jerk who basically coerces her into doing what he wants, always what he wants. Now I’m all for an alpha man, but Dimitri takes alpha to an all new, unpleasant, unacceptable, level. He was so unpleasant that he knocked off an entire star. The other star down? Natasha. She made the worst choices, I mean, the WORST choices. She was nothing like the heroine in the first book in this series, Take the Lead. Though they were both dancers for the same show, and were friends and one time roommies, they were nothing alike, which was a shame because I loved Gina and was hoping I would love Natasha, too.
So, unfortunately, I just can’t give Dance with Me the same 4 star rating I gave Take the Lead. It’s not that it’s not well-written or well-paced, because it is; it’s just that I dislike the two leads, a lot, so 2 stars is fair.