Kat Roberts is celebrating her nineteenth birthday in a pub
with her best friends. She has found a home, at least for
the next three years in Magdalene College, Cambridge. Her
father is forever traveling, but it seems they'll stay put
longer this time. And then, surrounded by a halo of
snowflakes in the night, a veritable sex god steps in the
pub, and all the heads turn. Tristan Kingsley, a 25 year-
old
playboy has tongues wagging right away; his reputation
precedes him and follows him everywhere. Kat, against her
better judgement, gets up and goes to him. She's not that
brave, but she's completely enraptured by his beauty, and
she kisses him. Then she leaves, and he follows her. He
buys
her a cake and will take her home. And what happens then is
not what you think.
Tristan, the future Earl of Pembroke, is a bit full of
himself, but a gentleman in spite of it all. Kat has never
had a real relationship, and she is a virgin. She doesn't
want to be a notch on his bedpost, but she wants him.
Tristan shuns relationships as well, but this girl
captivates him, and he will do what it takes to have her.
Although, at first glance FORBIDDEN: Her British
Stepbrother might
appear formulaic,
it is not. Lauren Smith knows how to infuse her stories
with
authenticity, and that is what we get in FORBIDDEN. Because
Tristan is so
charismatic, he jumps off the page, and
it
makes perfect sense that Kat reacts the way she does. The
characters are well fleshed out, the story flows
flawlessly,
and I really got the feeling of being a student at
Cambridge. Tristan and Kat have real chemistry, I love how
the romance progressed. He is not the cad he first appears
to be; there is much more to the man than even he wants to
let on.
Lauren Smith is a fine writer, always very eloquent, and
she
conveys Kat's innocence in a way that makes her very
relatable and likable. Kat doesn't act like a fool; she is
young, and we feel that exuberant youth, that first whisper
of real sexual awakening. The author makes one remember how
it felt at that age when faced with such a predicament. Kat
knows what she's getting into, she accepts the challenge,
and the hurt that might ensue. I very much appreciated the
sex scenes, which felt entirely genuine, and tender.
Because of the subtitle of the book, what could have been a
shocking cliffhanger is but half that, however FORBIDDEN is
the first installment in a trilogy, and I cannot wait to see
how it will unfurl, because Tristan and Kat's worlds are
going to be pretty shaken up!
Kat has always been a good girl. She studies hard and
never
stays out too late. But when sitting in a pub on her
birthday, she realizes she's a nineteen-year-old virgin
who's never really lived. And she wants tonight to be the
night that changes.
Then she sees him walk in. He's tall, dark,
handsome,
and straight out of her deepest fantasies. His voice
makes
her knees feel weak, and when he smiles, she imagines him
doing wicked things to her in bed. From the look in his
eyes, she knows he's imagining it too. So when he asks if
he
can walk her home, she hears herself whisper yes .
. .
Excerpt
He lifted his glass to his lips and sipped. It wasn’t ale
he was drinking but something else, a dark, warm gold
color, probably Scotch. She realized she must have been
staring at his mouth when he licked his lips and spoke
again.
“Keep staring at me like that and I’m liable to kiss
you.”
Desire and hunger lit up his eyes, heating the strange
mixture of blue and green. It almost made her forget that
she was talking to a stranger. It really was possible to
lose yourself in someone’s eyes. Maybe the poets weren’t
wrong about love at first sight. She didn’t love this
man, but she was…captivated by him, which felt like love,
in a strange sort of way. The lightness of her head, the
wobbly knees, the fascination with him.
“There’s nothing stopping you from kissing me,” she
breathed. Her heart was pounding against her ribs as
excitement skittered through her. Would he accept the
challenge and kiss her?
His eyes softened, but there was a dangerous glint to his
expression, one that warned her that if he kissed her…it
wouldn’t be chaste, wouldn’t be sweet. It would be the
sort of kiss that made a girl forget where she was and
moan helplessly for more.
They were mere inches apart now…When had she leaned into
him? Somehow she had shifted closer, fixated on his
mouth, the full sensual lips. The bit of the cider ale
she’d been drinking earlier made her thoughts a bit
muddy. Well, all but one thought.
I want him to kiss me. If he won’t, I’ll kiss him first.
Before she let herself think better of it, she seized the
chance to be reckless and rocked up on her tiptoes,
curling her fingers into the lapels of his coat as she
kissed him. Hard. It was wild, the way she let go and
just gave herself into kissing him. Her own sexy
stranger…
His hands gripped her waist, fingers digging in slightly,
making tingles of excitement shoot down her spine, clear
to her toes. His lips were soft and warm, moving against
hers hungrily. When he angled his face, he caressed her
lips with his tongue. The startling, erotic feel of it
had her mouth parting, and he thrust inside. The little
teasing strokes of his tongue against hers created
shivers deep in her belly. He overwhelmed all of her
senses, and Kat couldn’t catch her breath. There was no
escaping his strong hold, and she didn’t want to. His
lips were a drug, and she couldn’t get enough.
Every cell in her body pulsed and hummed to life when the
kiss turned slightly rough, as he nipped her bottom lip.
She rocked her body into his, desperate to get closer, to
feel him completely surrounding her.
All mine. She smiled against his lips just as their
bodies separated a few inches and she gasped for a
breath. Blood pounded against her temples, and she panted
and glanced up at him. Stark, raw lust burned like coals
behind his eyes as he stared down at her, an almost
animal ferocity in his expression.
“That was—”
Before she could finish, he curled an arm around her
waist and pulled her flush against him for another kiss.
The touch of his lips this time was feather light…as
though he were savoring her. A simple, almost innocent
brush of mouths, before she shivered, and a little moan
of longing escaped. Suddenly he rotated her, pinning her
against the bar, his mouth taking her hungrily, seeking
entrance to hers. She parted her lips, more from surprise
than anything else. When his tongue slid in and teased
hers, she whimpered. The bare hint of stubble rasped
against her skin as he kissed her, making her sensitive
to every sensation.
More, I need more of this…
No one she’d dated in high school had kissed like this,
as though he had all night to taste her, explore her,
excite her. Nothing else mattered, nothing but this man
and his life-altering, seductive lips.
When his mouth parted from hers, she blinked and stared
up at him, wondrously dazed.
“You were too tempting to resist. Makes a man hungry for
more when a woman looks at him like that.” He brushed the
pad of his thumb over her swollen lips, his eyes tracing
the shape, along with his finger.
“Like what?” she asked, fascinated by his words just as
much as his hands and the way they touched her.
His laugh was dark and rich like a pint of Guinness.
“Like she needs to be kissed, to be taken by a man who
knows just what to do to make her moan with pleasure.”
Taken…the word was heavy, dark, forbidding and yet it
filled her with a secret thrill. She could picture this
man taking her, doing a thousand erotic things that would
blow her mind and her body apart.
She struggled to respond, but what could she say to the
man who’d just changed her life with one mind-blowing
kiss and talked to her about how he could make a woman
moan with pleasure? Had she really just made out with a
complete and total stranger? She needed to do something,
anything, to lessen the suddenly awkward moment.
She thrust out her hand and said, “I’m Katherine Roberts,
but everyone calls me Kat.” It felt silly to introduce
herself after the kiss they’d shared, but she did it
anyway.
The man stared at her hand and then took it, raising it
to his lips rather than shaking it. He brushed his mouth
over the backs of her knuckles in a caress, like an old
world prince greeting a lady. Her heart fluttered inside
her chest at the little romantic act. She’d never met a
man who’d done that before, and it made her imagine what
it might feel like to have his lips on other parts of her
body.
“Tristan Kingsley. It’s been quite the pleasure meeting
you.”
I think this sounds fabulous but the age thing has me a bit concerned. 19 years old is a bit tender, if one has always been a homebody. Thanks for the review! (Kathleen Bylsma 4:25pm January 16, 2016)
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy