Read Our Lips! Book Review Blog: Review: On the Edge by Raine Latimer

For Lucy Malone—young and on the fast track to partner—nothing beats the adrenaline rush of edgy sex. But men can’t handle Lucy’s professional success or the passionate nature she refuses to hide behind a vanilla exterior…until she meets ex-Marine John Langley.A man who handles all things dangerous, John respects Lucy’s competitiveness and confidence even as he one-ups her fantasies, transforming their hot hookup into an emotional snare tightening around her heart. Determined to regain control, Lucy challenges John to a dark, risky game designed to push them both to the edge.John knows he’s in a winner-takes-all fight for Lucy's trust…and her heart. With the help of a fellow Marine, he’s going to show Lucy there’s nothing she can do but surrender.

My Quickie Review

What I loved about On the Edge:

1 Marine + 1 Marine = a whole lotta Alpha male sexiness!
That Lucy is smart, driven, and sexually adventurous. She owns her life.
John is hot as hell, funny, and incredibly protective, but would never dream of clipping Lucy’s wings.
I love a good menage.
There’s a riding crop and massage oil involved.
Ty makes her earn every inch.
When Lucy finally tells John that she wants to end it because no man can handle her career drive AND her sex drive, his only response is, “Pussies.” Uh, yum!
John surprises her with something she’s wanted for a long time.
It’s just scorching hot!

What I didn’t like about On the Edge

There needs to be a sequel, Ty needs a woman of his own!

"Plaid skirt and stockings, front and center!"

With a sharp whistle and a come-here beckoning hand, the bouncer at No Limits plucked Lucy Malone from obscurity at the end of the line. She strutted past dagger-eyed glares from women lined up in front of her and took her place at the head of the velvet-roped queue. The waiting bouncer indulged himself in a thorough top-to-toe once-over as she retrieved her ID from the tiny pocket of her short red plaid skirt.

Lucy gave him a winsome smile and turned slowly under his appreciative gaze. She'd accessorized the skirt with a pair of white cotton thigh-high stockings, black chunky-heeled shoes, a tight, cropped white t-shirt and schoolgirl braids. Four inches of toned, bare thigh between the hem of the skirt and the top of the stockings, smoky eye makeup and gleaming candy-pink lipstick sexed up the braids.

"Nice," he said slowly, then more professionally checked her face against the photo on her driver's license. Without a flirtatious response he left it at, "Very nice. Have fun, Ms. Malone," and opened the door to the club.

Oh, she intended to have the best kind of fun--the illicit, edgy kind she craved. No Limits was famous for cutting-edge dance music and sexually adventurous clientele. Lucy knew the bar and its patrons well. She wedged her ID back into her pocket, nodding greetings to familiar faces as she pushed into the crowd, the wall of sound as tangible as the bodies crammed together inside the club. Her heart rate quickly aligned with the bass beat thumping from the sound system and she lifted her arms over her head, twisting and sliding to the dance music as she moved through the crowd to the packed bar.

She found a sliver of space next to one of the few male patrons not wearing the obligatory tight t-shirt. A blue button-down shirt strained across wide shoulders as he shifted to let her squeeze in. Elbows braced on the bar, he flicked a sidelong glance at Lucy while she waited to get the bartender's attention, then did a gratifying double take.
"Ketel One and cranberry," she said when the tender made eye contact. The heat and strength of the stranger's forearm radiating against her elbow hardened her nipples as effectively as if he'd licked them.

"I got it," the man said, a bill in his long, work-roughened fingers.

She turned, openly considering him and the offer. Dark blond hair finger-combed back from his forehead, unreadable brown eyes, a face not even the sweetest smile could soften. Grooves on either side of his mouth gave him an older, harder look than No Limits' usual metrosexual, player, twenty-something clientele. This man held himself much like her boyfriend, John, an ex-Marine, did, that same air of unassuming competence. No posturing, no bragging, no leering, just utter assurance of getting her world rocked.

Six months of world-rocking experiences with John had taught her well. She liked the look, and his hands, rough and deft at the same time.

"Good girls don't take drinks from strangers," she said.

A single eyebrow lifted as he scanned her again, his gaze snagging in all the right places. "Good girls don't dress like that, so how 'bout I buy your drink?"

Quick on the draw. Another plus. The combination of his deep voice and her favorite scent, male sweat and plain soap, made her want to drop to her knees right there. But she'd been in the club for less than five minutes and while she did have to choose someone for the game she and John were playing tonight, she could take her time doing it. Half the fun was stretching out the anticipation, heightening the pleasure.

"Maybe later," she said, with a smile that left things wide open.

"I'll be around," he said. He left the bill on the bar in front of him, a clear signal he was there to drink, not dance.

Lucy handed the bartender her twenty and accepted her change and her glass. She wandered over to the dance floor and sipped the drink, a smooth, tart combination of vodka and juice that tasted just right on a hot, humid night.

Her elbows braced on the chest-high railing, Lucy felt a zip along her nerves that came not from the alcohol but, she suspected, from her would-be suitor's gaze roaming down the line of her spine, over the curve of her ass and down the length of her legs. She shifted her weight and peeked over her shoulder. He sat right where she'd left him, back to the wall at the end of the bar, using the combined height of his body and the stool to watch her through the crowd.

Tonight was about living out a fantasy, so she locked eyes with him and let her imagination conjure up the image of her on her knees, unbuttoning the fly of those old-school jeans, sliding her hands under the elastic waistband of his...boxers? Definitely boxers. With his big, rough hands it was easy to imagine him holding her in place for corporal punishment. Her pussy fluttered in its white lace confines. Across the room his eyes darkened as if he'd felt the tiny spasm himself.

Take your time. There's no need to rush into a decision. The story you'll tell John is as important as the game itself.

Choosing a man for her task required identifying her options, and the sexy outfit she'd put together with John's assistance did its job. Within a minute she'd declined requests from two trashed frat boys and accepted one from a gorgeous, dark-skinned man with the muscles of a bodybuilder and the calloused hands of a construction worker. The slight scrape of the roughened skin against her bare waist as they danced sent promising shivers rippling through her.

But after a few minutes, Lucy connected him with a tight-lipped redhead glaring daggers at her from a table next to the dance floor. Lucy stepped back out of her dance partner's embrace. Tonight was about her choice, her fantasy. She had no intention of becoming some player's revenge fuck or getting into a catfight in the bathroom.

"Come on, baby," he said, trying to pull her back into his arms.

Entitled attitudes annoyed her, and she hadn't worked eighty hours a week for the promotion to partner to get called baby by a player. She flicked a glance at the redhead and shook her head as she removed his now-not-so-tempting hands from her waist. "I'm not your baby," she said, pushing through the writhing, gyrating couples to the edge of the dance floor.

To her surprise, the blond, dark-eyed stranger from the bar leaned against the brass railing. She raised both eyebrows in question and got a c'mere tilt of his head in return. Her short skirt flitted around the top of her thighs as she strutted up to him. When she approached he turned sideways, creating space for her to slip up against him, chest to chest, hip to hip. A hot awareness sizzled across the inch separating their bodies.

Under the guise of giving him a few more seconds of flirty assessment she checked in with her gut. She was on her own for the first part of tonight's game, but her gut was curiously silent, or perhaps drowned out by the noise and the hyper-sexual atmosphere. The man watched her, clearly wanted her, and his controlled demeanor, so unlike No Limits' usually raucous crowd, captured her attention as surely as John's had the night they met.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Ty," he said.

No last name meant no problem with no strings. Like John, Ty was only a couple of inches taller than she was in four-inch heels. She liked the feeling of peering into a man's eyes when she kissed him, liked even more the long look up when she dropped to her knees.

"Lucy," she said, making her choice. "A pleasure."