“You need to be absolutely certain you want to open this door, Jenny. Because once it’s open, I don’t think you can close it again…” Random spontaneity is not Lady Jenny Markham’s style. Her blue-blooded self-possession permits her to think with her head–never her heart. It’s precisely why she’s engaged to the perfect man she doesn’t love. And yet Jenny just flew ten thousand miles to Sydney, … to Sydney, Australia. On a whim. To see the green eyes and devilish grin of her best friend, up-for-anything Dylan Kilburn…and to forget the words ringing in her head. You’ve never been shagged properly.
Of course, that’s exactly why Jenny’s here. Why Jenny’s body is engulfed by hot, aching need. Because she wants Dylan to show her what she’s missing before she locks herself into a loveless marriage.
Jenny promised that nothing would change between them. Dylan promised that he wouldn’t fall in love with her. But the moment his mouth takes hers, all hunger and raw, molten lust, Jenny knows that there’s no going back. Not from this. And now she’s well and truly screwed. Because just as Jenny finally starts thinking with her heart, she realizes she’s about to lose it…to her best friend.
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.
Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!
more
Take Me is the second novel in Caitlin Crews’ Filthy Rich Billionaires series, the follow-up novel to Teach Me, and it has just as much sizzle, just as much heat, but even more emotion than its predecessor, and once again, I devoured it in one sitting, reading until dawn. It’s an excellent addition to the series, an excellent addition to the Harlequin Dare imprint, and it gets another 5-star rating from this reader.
Lady Jenny Markham is engaged to marry a man she doesn’t love, a man who doesn’t love her, a man her wealthy and titled father chose for her to consolidate their business interests, a man who is cold and emotionless, and it’s something Jenny has resigned herself to accept since she lost her mother at the age 12, and vowed to never love someone so much that they’d grieve her loss the way her father grieved the loss of her mother.
One of Jenny’s dear friends and former college roommate, Erika (who was featured in Teach Me), cannot understand why Jenny would resign herself to such a cold, impersonal, unfeeling, arranged marriage, and something Erika says about Jenny’s lack of and need for a positive sexual experience sticks with her. Jenny isn’t a virgin, but she is forced to face the fact that the sexual experiences she’s had in the past have been far from stellar, a past partner even told her flat-out that she was not good in bed, and so she decides to consult an expert in the field, her best friend from her college days, Dylan Kilburn, whom she met and befriended when he was a poor young man from Ireland, barely able to afford college back then, who, after graduation, moved to Australia, started his own business, and is now a billionaire living in Sydney.
Jenny and Dylan have stayed in touch since college and the two friends text each other often. It’s become quite clear to Jenny that Dylan is quite the ladies man, always leaves his many lovers satisfied, giddy and swooning, and, on the spur of the moment, Jenny hops on a plane at Heathrow and 24 hours and two flights later finds herself standing outside Dylan’s door at dawn, just as Dylan is saying a very heated goodbye to the woman with whom he obviously spent a very busy night. Dylan is shocked and delighted to see Jenny, and although it takes Jenny some time to get around to telling him why she’s really there, eventually admits to wanting Dylan to take her to his bed and show her what she’s been missing.
What Jenny doesn’t realize is that Dylan has been in love with and lusting for her for years, and her asking him to show her what she’s been missing sexually is both a blessing and a curse for him, because he knows, by the giant engagement ring she’s wearing, that in the end, no matter what happens between them, she’ll be flying back to England and entering into her loveless marriage–or will she? In addition, Dylan is quite a dominant and controlling lover, one who wants what he wants, when he wants it, and Jenny is in for quite a wild ride, both in and out of bed. Dylan has also told her that it’s not uncommon for his lovers to fall in love with him, but that he will not fall in love with her, no matter how great the sex is between them, and when these two characters finally stop talking about it and get together physically, Ms. Crews pulls out all the stops.
Told in alternating narration, a literary device I’ve come to love, Ms. Crews has given the reader a chance to climb inside the minds of these two characters, feel their emotions, experience Jenny’s sexual awakening, her growing ambivalence about her arranged marriage, as well as Dylan’s angst at having spent years loving a woman he believes will never be his.
Take Me is a well-written, graphically steamy, and deeply emotional, friends to lovers romance and I absolutely loved every minute of it.