I might still carry my V-card, but I know exactly what I want in a man. Smart, charming and oh-so-skilled. Too bad I haven’t found him yet.But maybe he’s found me.Because when my charming, laid-back, next-door neighbor discovers a secret list I keep, he volunteers to work through every single item on it.Including the last one — at the end, we walk away and stay friends.I say yes to his offer, … friends.
I say yes to his offer, and that’s when I discover another side to him.
A side I adore. A side I crave. He’s commanding, intense, and everything I’ve ever wanted.
But as we check things off one by one, I find myself breaking the most important rule of all. And I have no idea what it will do to my heart.
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Oh for the love of all things!!
Such a great read! I mean, did you really expect anything less!?? No! You get the Lauren Blakely experience with this one plus some extra heat! The chemistry with Adam and Nina just jumped off the pages from the start and it made for an excellent read!
So make sure you snuggle up with a good drink and enjoy this sexy book!
I received an ARC of this book and am willingly giving my honest review!
Lauren Blakely knows how to treat her readers to the ultimate gift. Every page of this best-friends-to-lovers story is pure perfection! I loved Adam and Nina! Her ability to step out of her comfort zone and assert herself is refreshing. She knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to ask for it! Adam, while happy to jump at the chance to help his best friend out, is the perfect gentleman. On the outside, he is respectful and loyal but underneath it all, he’s all sexy alpha who’s all too willing to show Nina the light. Their friendship is first and foremost and their connection pops off of every page. Their love for one another is unsurprising given very evident chemistry. These two truly sizzle! Blakely ups the heat factor in The Virgin Gift delivering a sexy, exhilarating love story that will satisfy everyone’s appetite. Don’t miss this delicious offering from Ms. Blakely! 5 Stars
It may be getting colder outside, but you will not need a winter fire blazing to keep you warm while reading Blakely’s newest book!! Her newest addition to The Gift Series will warm you from the inside out. It is a sintilizing tale between two friends that you will not want to miss!!
Nina and Adam aren’t just neighbors, they are also friends. While Adam is having his place repainted he’s staying at Nina’s and accidently comes across her “wish list” which is filled with naughty desires that he would like to complete with her.
While neither have crossed the friendzone before the list is revealed, neither can see anyone else filling the roles once the list is out between the two of them.
Once they set ground rules, the main one – remain friends no matter what – crossing off each of Nina’s desires becomes Adam’s focus and quickly discovers that Nina is a very good student to his teaching skills.
The Virgin Gift will touch base with friends you’ve met in previous Blakely books, but it also isn’t imperative to have read her previous books to enjoy this book.
Nina Bellamy and Adam Larkin, best friends to lovers, friends who realise they want to fulfil each other’s desires, in every sinful way. No secrets between these two, they’re open, honest, and willing to do whatever it takes to complete Nina’s wanton wish list. No mind games, even when they both realise that, maybe, they’ve crossed ‘that’ line. Wonderful writing, an angst free, super sexy story, and great characters. Oh, and a lovely twist at the end. I really like how your mind works Ms Blakeley. I received an advanced copy of this book. This is my honest review.
Upon the recommendation of a client, boudoir photographer Nina Bellamy listens to a podcast about how to ask for her desires in bed. The first thing, according to the podcast, is to list them all down, which she does—in a notebook she keeps lying around in her kitchen.
Her friend and neighbor Adam Larkin stays with her in her condo while he has his painted. He finds the list and decides that he has to be the one to give her all her fantasies (including taking her virginity!), and that doing so won’t change anything, that they’d still be what they are—friends and neighbors.
Will they be able to cross everything off the list without breaking the rules of engagement? Do they really want to?
This was a fun read! I like how deep Nina and Adam’s friendship was at the beginning and how comfortable they were with each other. I was rooting for them from the beginning! Can’t wait to read Jake and Kate’s story!
The Virgin Gift is a friends-to-lovers contemporary romance written in triple first-person POV. It’s a low-angst standalone that ends with a HEA. No cliffhanger, no cheating.
I received this book at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Wow! This After Dark series is on fire! I absolutely loved this friends to lovers storyline as well as the empowerment Nina gains throughout this read. The chemistry between Adam and Nina is sizzling hot! Can’t wait to read The Decadent Gift.
Nina is a photographer that captures the love couples feel for one another in digital prints. She longs to share that kind of connection with someone but for personal reasons she has yet to do so. When her best friend comes to stay with her for a few days while his apartment is being painted he discovers Nina has a secret list of items she wants to check off and Adam is all too happy to help her with that list.
This is a great story of best friends that become so much more. I loved how even though Nina is inexperienced she is eager to learn and knows what she wants. She is a confident woman and takes life by the horns. I also loved how Adam wanted to give her everything. It was all about Nina for him and I fell in love with him myself for that.
I received an early copy to read and review and give my honest opinion. This is a great friends to lovers with lots of heat and heart. I loved everything about it and highly recommend it.
This was a quick but really good read! I liked the connection that Nina and Adam had from the very beginning. They were already close friends and neighbors, but everything had been platonic between them, so the transition to lovers was an interesting one because it wasn’t as if they had been actively lusting over one another for years. The sex was hot, and I loved the fluffier moments between Nina and Adam. There’s also a mini side story involving Adam’s best friend–and no, it’s not like the one in The Engagement Gift–that I loved. Five stars for The Virgin Gift.
Once again Lauren gave us a sexy titillating story that will have your kindle on fire. This was an easy read having read it in one sitting. She had me fanning myself and swooning all in one breath. She gave us a story about going after what you want and not holding back. It was super sexy and romantic all bundled together.
This book was HOT as SIN!!! My gosh did I find myself needing to cool off after this next book in Lauren’s After Dark Series.
Nina and Adam have been friends and neighbors for years now so when Adam’s apartment was having work done, he was staying over at Nina’s. These two have always been great friends and have that sexy flirty banter between them but when Nina starts listening to the Aphrodite Podcast she decides to make a list of things she wants to experience. Not realizing she left her notebook out, Adam stumbles upon it and discovers Nina’s secret… She’s a virgin who has specific fantasies she wants to fulfill and who better to fulfill them but himself.
The Virgin Gift was a steamy, great, and fun read. You will definitely need a fan to help cool you done after this read. Lauren this had been the best book of the series so far!!!
This book was a good read. Adam and Nina are friends/neighbors but when Adam discovers something about Nina, their friendship goes to a different level. I loved how their friendship was the basis of everything. Their interactions whether steamy or friendly was the best. It was just so easygoing. I enjoyed these two together. As the story progresses we learn more about Adam and Nina individually as well as a couple and I liked that. It wasn’t just a focus on one particular aspect of their relationship but all of it. I also liked their cast of friends and seeing some familiar faces. Overall a magnificent read that I enjoyed greatly. I can’t wait to read about the next couple in this series. I just know they have a good one to tell.
Wow, this second standalone novella in The Gift series by Lauren Blakely is another hot and steamy romance that is really a beautiful love story at it’s core! Nina’s profession is to capture her clients love and passion. They ask for her insight, but Nina has a secret she can’t reveal. Nina is a virgin physically, but her dreams and desires are anything but innocent. When her good friend and sexy neighbor, Adam, accidentally finds her top 10 fantasies list, he knows he is the only man who can fulfill them for her. Adam has always been attracted to Nina, but saw her as a good girl, and his desires were too dirty for someone like her. Nina always saw Adam as the kind, funny, helpful friend and never as the passionate, dirty lover of her dreams. Now these two friends have found the adventurous lover they have always yearned for, to exploring the boundaries of all their fantasies. But when they both can’t get enough of each other, will they be able to go back to being just friends? This After Dark story still has Blakely’s signature witty banter, and great characters with explosive chemistry, but now has an even dirtier, passionate steam that I can’t get enough of. I loved this swoony, passionate, hot and steamy romance!
I loved this story!!
The main characters Adam and Nina are so very likeable. It is super steamy so get some wine or some cold water and dig in!
Nina is a Boudoir Photographer, one of the best in the field yet she has never experienced any of the feelings her clients portray in the photo sessions. Adam is her good friend and temporary roommate.
Adam discovers Nina’s bucket list and requests to be the one to assist her in fulfilling it. In helping Nina with her quest, they both realize that they may want to be more than friends.
Can roommates and great friends become a happy loving couple?
Oh, my…my…
There is just so so much to this story.
First off, Nina and Adam’s friendship right from the beginning, is epic. Seeing these two together, even just as friends, makes the page sizzle. They just get each other. But once the “good stuff” comes into play, things really heat up.
I could go on and on about all the “good stuff” that is in this book and just how GOOD it is, but that would then be missing the point. This book is about TRUST. Trusting that you know yourself and your wants, trusting your partner, trusting your heart. The way these two characters trust each other is amazing and in the end, it leaves you with all the feels. ALL of them.
This book isn’t for the pearl-clutchers, but is for anyone who wants to read about a couple who trusts each other explicitly, has great chemistry in and out of the bedroom and at the end of the day, wants to feel and squishy and giddy inside.
Another fabulous story by Lauren Blakely with wonderful and real characters. Nina and Adam are friends and have a wonderful friendship, when Adam finds Nina’s list and then helps her fulfill it…but what happens when you add deep trust and intimacy with a strong friendship…hot and sexy and love
I’m a fan of Lauren Blakely, and I love her rom-coms. This is the second book in the Gift Series, and it’s like Lauren Blakely Plus. Still the great character development you expect, but with a little extra heat. This is a fun best-friends-to-lovers story.
Nina and Adam are best friends and neighbors, with the same friends, the same likes and dislikes, and an amazing, easy, seamless friendship. When Adam stumbles upon a list of Nina’s that reveals a secret, they form a plan to check off every item on the list, and then go back to their friendship.
As typical with Lauren Blakely’s books, you truly get to know the characters, and see the relationship develop. The Virigin Gift is well-written, enjoyable and playful, and a great read.
Someone please call the fire brigade as Lauren Blakely has lit up my device, my mind and my body by this scorching hot romance called The Virgin Gift. It was intense. It was dirty, filthy and sinfully sexy. The best kind of decadent heat you would like to feel again and again.
Nina and Adam has been best friends for a long time. They have an easy camaraderie going on. Nina is one of the most sought after Budoir photographer in Vegas but her own experience is lacking. She is dying to feel the excitement, the exhilaration and the kinky pleasure from a dominating man. When Adam finds out about her bucket list accidentally, he has to volunteer to be that man. Because he has been attracted to his friend forever but he never wanted to cross his line and also due to his traumatic past relationship. But can they keep the sex and the feelings separate? And what about the last item on her list?
Nina and Adam has this sizzling hot and mindnumbing chemistry. I love how Adam can be two different yet same person. He can be sweet, caring, charming, funny and easy going gentleman. But he turns into this possessive, controlling and rough alpha with Nina. I loved Nina’s personality. She is smart, sweet and intelligent. She has a shade of uncertainty and vulnerability about her sexual desires. But once she embraces them, she became a vixen. You should be ready with tissue, wine and multiple change of panties. Because it was one feast of dark, delicious and toe curling passion. Lauren Blakely put the sweet romance in middle of all the steamy scenes and that made this story more alluring. Nina and Adams fall for each other by a bit after every item is checked off the list. And the last wish was so forbidden and risky that I could not believe they did it! Full on blush, goosebumps and wetness…
Lauren Blakely surely has a way with her words and The Virgin Gift proves that again. Indulge yourself in this incredibly sensual treat.
Received ARC for Honest review
Well, this one was hot.
This story is such a good one. I fell in love with the characters since the beginning. I love how Nina and Adam explore the boundaries of their friendship and their experience in the romantic field. I love how good Adam is with Nina, he is such a gentleman when needed to be. And Nina? I love that even if she’s a bit afraid of testing the waters in that way with Adam, she doesn’t back down and goes for what she wants. Their connection is so obvious, sparks fly and flames burn hot between them, there is no denying that their friendship is real but so is the attraction they have for each other.
Scorching and fun.