5 Smooches!
Synopsis
Being able to stand on your own two feet, sometimes requires getting knocked off them completely…
McKenzie “Kenzie” Lane is newly graduated from college and looking forward to a dream internship she has lined up for the summer in LA. Unfortunately, her controlling mother has other plans.
Colby Singer, with his hot-as-sin looks and wicked charm, is never without attention from the ladies. Despite suspecting how Kenzie feels about him, he’s always kept her comfortably off-limits since she’s the baby sister of one of his best friends. But when he’s determined to distract her temporarily from the stress of her mother’s ultimatum, deciding to show her some fun, he quickly finds that keeping her in the friend zone is not as easy as he’d hoped.
Once Kenzie realizes this may be her last opportunity to gauge her long-time crush’s true feelings, she puts it all out there in the form of a bet. It’s the perfect idea for her perfect man.
Until he isn’t.
Will a dose of reality lead to true love? Or will it crash and burn before it can even get started?
Full Length Standalone book with no cliffhanger. Third book of the “Something Series”
Recommended for mature readers due to situations of language, and sexual content.
REVIEW
“My mother was my kryptonite. Literally draining my strength with her very presence and killing my decision making powers.”
McKenzie Lane is home in Virginia having just graduated college attending the graduation party that she didn’t want thrown by her overbearing, controlling, steamrolling mother. Her post-graduation plan is to stay in LA to pursue a career in music, continue her studies with a music-related degree, and she is very much looking forward to the internship opportunity of a lifetime that she has beat one thousand other applicants for with a well-known recording industry producer. Not to mention that LA also appeals to her because it’s far away from her mother, and well, it’s also where Colby Singer, her longtime friend and crush, lives. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that her mother is on board with her plans, as she drops a bomb on McKenzie that has the potential to totally upend her life.
“In taking him down off the pedestal I’d put him on many years ago, I oddly feel relieved.”
Colby Singer is a very successful movie industry producer, long-time friend of McKenzie and her brother, Brian. Colby is also a notorious for being a man-whoring, playboy. Or is he? McKenzie is a close friend, and it seems that he’s always right there for her, ready and willing to step in and save the day. Following a horrible accident, McKenzie is convalescing at Colby’s and a bet between them is what gets the tide turning from friends to lovers. For McKenzie, the payoff was supposed to be the culmination of many a childhood fantasy, only it doesn’t quite go as she had hoped or expected that it would.
“You aren’t a little girl with an infatuation anymore. You’re a woman with an attraction to a man who happens to be imperfect, just like the rest of us.”
Close quarters, an abundance of time spent together and a simmering attraction between them both all collide and send them hurtling down the relationship rabbit hole. The change from friends only to lovers between these two relationship rookies is definitely a work in progress, but they’re off to a great start slowly building upon a years-old, solid foundation of friendship. Their biggest concern is the dreaded reaction that a relationship between the two of them will garner from her older brother, Brian, and Colby’s older brother, Josh, given Colby’s reputation.
My voice broke. “We can work through this, but walking away right now would be a mistake.”
He swallowed hard, emotion clogging his voice. “The biggest one of my life. …”
Weeks go by and they grow closer and fall into a comfortable routine, both inevitably falling harder and deeper in love with the other. But McKenzie is growing weary of the secret-keeping, while Colby is concerned about timing the relationship reveal properly. A slip up on a group engagement trip to Vegas solves that problem for them, though, and Colby’s worst fears are realized. Will Brian and Josh see him for the man he is now or will they be unable to see past the man he once was? Can Colby ever get past the embarrassment of his youthful indiscretions and allow himself to believe he’s worthy of McKenzie’s love or will he make the biggest mistake of his life by letting that guilt and shame over his past eclipse his future?
“…Colby has to get beyond his insecurities over his past, or it’ll never work. If he loved me enough, he’d be unapologetic about it, no matter what you thought. Although asking him be secure when I’m not isn’t exactly fair.”
Bet Me Something is the third book in Bondurant’s Something series, and I have loved each one. Bondurant bills her writing style as Adult Contemporary Erotic Romantic Comedy—or smutty chick lit—and those descriptions describe her work perfectly. She blends comedy and conflict effortlessly in this book, intertwining it amongst a very sexy romance. I can say unequivocally that the first kiss scene between McKenzie and Colby is in my top five favorite first kisses of all time – it was brilliant!! It’s those little surprise plot twists and turns that Bondurant casually tosses in to her stories that keep readers on their toes and turning the pages. As a fan of all of her works, I can say that I happily go into one of her books not knowing what to expect but confident that I’ll get exactly what I want.
“This right here is my center. The outside world tries to tilt us, or I accidentally do it, and being together puts us back where we need to be.”
Bondurant’s writing is on point, her characters are endearing and her creativity in spinning a friendship into a passionate love story is remarkable. Aubrey Bondurant is an author whose name should be on every romantic comedy fan’s TBR. I’m already anxiously awaiting the next book in this series, and I’m looking forward even to what will follow that. I absolutely adored Bet Me Something, and it gets 5 smooches from me.
“…losing a bet to you has always turned out to be the very best thing to happen to me.”
~ Danielle Palumbo
