Bianca Ristretto, a dominant, hard charging business professor … with a secret. Her new position teaching young college students about real business could open some doors for her career. Ruby Phillips an innocent medical school student who needs a business class to graduate. She doesn’t care about business but wants to succeed. When bad grades lead to Bianca seducing her student, sparks flare and … student, sparks flare and a vivid submissive power play ensues. As they twist their way into an unexpected romance, they both find themselves falling harder than either expected. Will their new positions as teacher and student lead them into an unprofessional destructive relationship or find them forming a powerful merger?
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What immediately struck me about Dominant Business was just how deftly J. Scott danced around the very real questions of sexuality and consent. Even as they become aware of the increasingly sexual aspect of their roles, Bianca and Ruby face their own doubts and questions about where their relationship is headed. What could have been an exploitative, triggering mess instead becomes something both empowering and erotically charged.
As I was reading, though, what resonated with me ever more was the fact that whether Ruby is being a treated as a slave or a slut, as a pet or a protege, hers is a story of empowerment more than anything else. Yes, there are very heavy scenes of BDSM within her tale, nights of extreme domination by multiple strangers that might appear demeaning to vanilla readers, but there is never so much as a hint of humiliation to the experience. Every submission, every surrender is designed to lift her up, not cast her down, instilling her with a greater confidence and a sense of self-worth, not in spite of those experiences but because of them.
Underlying Ruby’s submissive journey is a romance that is no less powerful for being so unorthodox. It is really the story of a relationship between three women, with Ruby’s sexual apprenticeship revealing the deeper facets of love beneath the friendship between Bianca and Ash, even as the the friendship Ruby develops with Ash proves to be deeper as well. These women care for one another, protect one another, and always act with one another’s best interests at heart. That love poses a challenge for Bianca as a Mistress, making her question how she can be a lover and a bitch at the same time, but understanding that is part of her journey.
To say that Dominant Business is intensely erotic would be an understatement. Scott holds nothing back in exploring Ruby’s introduction into a fetish-heavy world of sexual submission, offering up multiple partners of both genders, a wealth of toys, an array of bondage equipment, and a variety of punishment implements. It can be overwhelming at times, especially when she is being used by multiple partners at once, but what anchors the reader (and maintains the eroticism) is focus. We are either experiencing everything through Ruby or watching her through Bianca’s eyes, and that keeps the encounters both intimate and satisfying.
There is a third aspect to the story, a layer beneath the submissive journey and the erotic romance, and that is Ruby’s personal journey into becoming a stronger student and confident businesswoman. With Bianca as teacher, boss, mentor, and friend, Ruby is challenged just as much before colleagues as strangers, and the same confidence that allows her to stride naked into a dungeon is what empowers her to stand tall in the boardroom.
It is where those layers all come together that the story finds its greatest challenges and deepest strengths, as a veiled complaint of an inappropriate relationship threaten both Ruby and Bianca. It is here where Ash shines brightest in coming to the rescue, but also where Ruby stands tallest in proving she understands more about herself and her lovers than anyone suspected. As happily-ever-afters go, they don’t come more satisfying than Dominant Business.
J. Scott’s debut LGBTQ erotic novel Dominant Business is unconventional yet so realistic it was hard for me to put down. I read it in a couple of days and wanted more. J. Scott created an environment rich with characters with angst, baggage and desire. It is fact paced, emotionally charged and awesomely erotic. If the idea of strong power exchange dynamics in multiple relationships and vastly evolving BDSM themes are not your cup of tea this is not a book you want to pick up. But if personal adventure and stretching your ideas college life are up your alley this is a book for you. I am treading in a manner so as not to disclose any type of spoiler. I really loved this book and have great hope that J. Scott will continue to write LGBTQ fiction that pushes the envelope. This is not just a Lesbian story it is the first all-inclusive novel of this type I have read to date. I encourage you that if you took the time to read this review in its entirety you will probably enjoy Dominant Business as much as I did. I received an ARC copy of Dominant Business prior to its release.