One Exquisite Touch by Lauren Blakely Review

5 SMOOCHES!

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SYNOPSIS:

A sexy rivals-to-lovers standalone, rich with masquerades, billionaires and forbidden trysts!

When the invitation arrived, it detailed the rules of the masquerade — no names, no identities.

I set one more— find a most wicked man for one night.

The kind who’ll bring me deliciously naughty pleasure in dark corners.

But as the clock ticks to midnight, he finds me, whisks me away to a secret alcove, and delivers all that dirty bliss and then some.

We make arrangements for another secret rendez vous before I rush out of the ball.

But fate has other plans, since I see my most wicked man the next morning. Because that man is the billionaire owner of the hotel across the Strip from mine.

My rival. My enemy.

We vie for business every second of every day, so the last thing I can do is let him in my bed at night.

I give in one final time, in a daring, risqué game of chance, and then I vow to resist.

And that’s what I do every time I see him, every time I get to know the brilliant, mercurial man who wants a piece of my business.

Until the night he ups the stakes.

And I have no choice but to see his bet and raise it.

ONE EXQUISITE TOUCH is a wickedly racy, high-stakes love story between a man and a woman. It also features several sexy MFM love scenes.

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REVIEW:

Lauren Blakely is back with another After Dark rendezvous in Vegas with One Exquisite Touch, a breathtaking new enemies-to-lovers romance in the Extravagant series. In these uniquely conceptualized stories, Blakely moves beyond her much beloved contemporary romances and romantic comedies to push boundaries and fulfill fantasies with these titillating romances.

“There is no shame in sex unless you bring it there. There is no shame in desire. There is no shame in wanting. If everyone consents and everyone is safe, that’s really all that matters.”

This quote is not only solid advice from a wise friend to the heroine, it is also a spot-on depiction of the entire feel of this book, this series, this entire catalog of stories from Blakely. Desire, want and need are all natural human emotions, and it was a good reminder to the heroine—and the rest of us as we embark on this journey with these characters—that there is no shame in seeking pleasure, in a safe and consensual scenario, unless you introduce it.

One Exquisite Touch begins at a masquerade ball, with a couple of billionaires and a fiery, forbidden tryst. Hotel CEO, Sage Carmichael, is not looking for her Prince Charming—she’s looking for a wicked prince to help her quench a desire she can’t quite name. In a darkened corner, she finds just that in Cole Donovan—and his best friend and business partner, Daniel. Passion ignites, blood sings, bodies hum… until realization sets in when the masks come off at a meeting between business rivals. The thing is that this little encounter was so much more than a stolen moment, though, and I gobbled up this story as the characters came to terms with that.

Daniel and Cole were very much in sync in their pursuit of Sage, no doubt a result of their long-standing friendship, and their single-minded, laser-focused attention on Sage was positively exhilarating. But as a female reader well into adulthood, it was experiencing Sage coming into her own as she explored her sexuality that kept me glued to my Kindle. Blakely captured the essence of those passionate moments and that consuming chemistry with hair-raising intensity and mesmerizingly vivid imagery. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Lauren Blakely novel without a gorgeous love story, and there was a fantastic one here, too.

Blakely takes it to new heights of adventurism in One Exquisite Touch, an unputdownable story of the unabashed pursuit pleasure with the sweet surprise of discovering love in the process. This is Blakely’s boldest, most daring and thrilling romance to date, and I positively inhaled it in a single sitting. This author’s work always impresses me, but when she stretches her wings and takes a chance with more risqué material, she delivers something truly special and memorable, and I am a grateful reader for her brave storytelling. Five smooches from me for One Exquisite Touch by Lauren Blakely!

~Danielle Palumbo

 

 

 


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