Delighted Reader

Full review at http://delightedreader.com

Anna Davis is tired of being known as a good girl. She wants to live life. So when her sister gets married in Las Vegas, she decides she isn’t going back to the room after the reception. She goes out to a nightclub with her other sisters and their husbands in tow to show she can live life. When a chance glance across the room brings a handsome hunk of a man to her, she grabs him and won’t let go thinking it is finally time to live and he is the one she wants to live it with.

Cole Travis is used to fighting for what he wants. Driven to be the best on the Outlaws defensive line, he gets paid the big bucks to stop the other team from scoring. But when his grandmother finds out she has cancer, Cole can’t win this battle for her. Her last wish is to see him settled with a good girl and a family to go along. Lying, Cole invents a mystery woman who is the love of his life. Now he has to produce that girl for his grandmother to meet. Hunting the strip of Vegas isn’t bringing an answer to his prayers until he sees Anna across the room and her “mythical” halo of good girliness.

Drawn to each other and hypnotized by what they feel, the two get a quickie marriage, an incredibly sexy wedding night and a huge amount of trouble explaining where they met, how long they dated and the PR that comes with being a football star.

Now I am not one for love at first sight. Lust, yes, but not love. But this isn’t about love at first sight. They don’t even profess love till later one when some common sense finally smacks them upside the head. This is total lust on both sides, with a little devious procuring a bride for the grandmother on the side. The quickie marriage in a dive in Las Vegas kind of threw me off, but I knew why Cole was doing it. Anna was doing it to be wild. But all I kept seeing was the complications that this was going to cause. Then I gave that up and decided to just enjoy it.

Cole is no stranger to women. He is a love them and leave them guy with so many different things he wants to show Anna. Anna is a first grade teacher and only has had two lovers before Cole, neither of whom have stroked a raging fire of passion in her. So when Anna turns very nervous, Cole takes her slowly with throughly. It made me want to jump in and be Anna. Through it all Cole pushes Anna outside of her bounds with new experiences, touches, kisses. Anna blossoms and begins to see the side of Cole no one else sees. Cole took longer and I didn’t totally believe he fell in love with her. It seemed to be tacked in and phony for a bit.

There’s not much football in the book, which is ok. The Outlaws are playing games, both being home games. The story takes place over about a two week period. Very short love affair. We also get to see the characters from the previous two books and they are doing great of course. The side plots of grandma being sick turns a little unbelievable, but that wasn’t what I was reading the book for. The dynamic of the characters is interesting to watch, but there isn’t a huge amount of depth to the book. It’s a fun tale of suddenly lust and love that works out in the end.