OFF THE CLOCK is the first book in the Pleasure Principle series by Roni Loren.

Marin Rush and Donovan West first meet in college. He is looking into the ways 'dirty sex talk' can help women who have problems with arousal. It's a legitimate thing he is doing for his course. Marin is fascinated with what he is doing and when he asks her to give feedback to him about the tapes she is happy to help. They become firm friends and are completely at ease with each other. It's no surprise that they end up having passionate sex. Circumstances later that very night see Marin leaving college. She and Donovan don't see each other for years. This is all in the first half of the book.

The second half of the book is where things really heat up. Marin is a now a newly qualified sex therapist. Donovan is a sex therapist too, but he is older than Marin and has been qualified and working quite a while at The Grove, a very high-end clinic for people with all kinds of addictions including sex. It's an utter shock for them both when Marin gets a job at the same place. She has to be mentored by him because she has had no experience of working with people, all her qualifications are on paper. She's green as they come and even blushes when clients talk about masturbation. It's Donovan's duty to make sure that she toughens up. How does he do that? Well, let's just say it involves a lot of passionate sex, in a lot of different ways. If she can have sex that way then she shouldn't ever blush about hearing about it from clients. That's the theory.

What I really enjoyed about OFF THE CLOCK is that it felt so real. The characters were believable, and the sizzling hot sex that they had didn't seem written for the shock value. This couple had hang ups, baggage from their past, but they are soul mates. It's not only lust that keeps their passion raging, but a connection that neither of them even realise they have. This story is a full on romance, the sex didn't come across as dirty or cringe worthy. They were like minded in what they wanted from each other, and what they could offer, and it wasn't just sex, it was intimacy, the ability to talk to each other, to help each other get over the problems in their pasts.

I fully intend to carry on reading this series if OFF THE CLOCK sets the standard. I am not normally a big fan of erotica, but this book is so much more than that!