EBookObsessed
Written on Dec 29, 2017
Laurel met a man online in a chat room and had plans to meet him at the local coffee shop. What Laurel didn't know is that the man she was expecting, calling himself Detective Russ Evans, was really a con-man who bilked women out of their money. She also didn't know that the police had information about her intended meet and were staking outside the coffee shop. Laurel is stood up by her con-man, but when the real Russ Evans walked in, Laurel ran up and hugged him and introduced herself, surprising Russ.
It seemed that one of Laurel's friend knew the real Russ Evans from High School and Laurel was able to look him up in the yearbook. (Again, life before social media and Facebook.)
Something about Laurel sets off Russ's need to protect and Russ decides to let Laurel know that the man she was expecting was a con-artist and that she should no longer contact him. Laurel, who is deaf and who has secluded herself in her mini-mansion for the last few years, was mostly hoping to meet a man so they could have some sexy naked time.
Russ is shocked (life before Tinder), because he was thinking sexy naked time would be awesome, but also he had that problem with needing to protect Laurel because he sees her as sweet and innocent. But Russ also starts to obsess about how much he would like to help Laurel out with her lack of sexy naked time until his partner finally dumps Russ at Laurel's front door after about a dozen stalker drivebys of Laurel's house to make sure she's okay.
What starts out as a police drama, turns into a lot of foreplay and the aforementioned sexy times, and does eventually come back to the police drama part as the prior mentioned con-man still wants to get his hands on Laurel's trust fund.
The criminal aspect was more a side interest to the romance between Russ and Laurel. Russ and Laurel do spend a good deal of the story naked, and after enough happy naked time with Russ, Laurel has come to the realization that she needs to make changes in her life and stop using her deafness to hide from the world. Add in the fact that Russ's parents just died and he was now raising his 14-year-old brother to round out the story.
I did have one problem with Detective Russ Evans though. Russ stalkers Laurel to a club one night when Laurel was going out with her girlfriend (Russ didn't like the idea of his not-girlfriend dancing with other men), he freaks out that he saw the man Laurel was dancing with drop something in her drink. Detective Evans drags Laurel out of the club because she is being irresponsible and could have ended up waking up after being compromised by this stranger. Soooo, you are telling me that the police officer sees a man drop a date rape drug in a woman's drink but doesn't arrest the man and take the drink into evidence? He just dumps it to make sure Laurel doesn't drink it and drags her out of the club away from the stranger. Even back in 2005, roofing a random woman at a club should have been illegal, right? That part was badly written and did piss me off.
Other than the ignoring date rapist and the outdated internet references (since nowadays police have cyber crime divisions), this was a sweet and enjoyable romance.
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