Jet (The Marked Men, #2)

by Jay Crownover

[Cocktails and Books]

I knew there was more to Ayden than meets the eye when we were introduced to her as Shaw's best friend in, RULE. She was a fabulous "broken" heroine and it was a great turn to see it be the guy having to suck it up and pick his love interest up, rather than the other way around.

Ayden and Jet had an instant attraction when they met. Ayden, the good ole Southern girl who loved her country music, couldn't help but be drawn to Jet as he strutted and screamed his metal music across the stage. But when Ayden decided to unleash the bad girl she was trying to keep under control and seduce Jet, she was devastated at his decision to turn her down. For a year after that fateful encounter, the two of them had an uncomfortable truce as friends and roommates. Their friends kept trying to push them together, but Ayden and Jet were convinced they shouldn't be together and did everything in their power to stay as they were. But just as fate forced them apart, it brought them together when they needed it.

Ayden was hiding from her past. Raised in a small town in Kentucky by a mother who had a revolving door of men coming in and out of their trailer, Ayden lived up to the trailer trash label that had been placed on their family. Most of what she did was to keep her brother out of more trouble than what he was already in. So when a high school chemistry teacher saw potential in Ayden, he helped her fill out applications and get her to Denver to college. Ayden did everything she could to make sure that she lived her new life to deserve the second chance that she got. She studied hard. She worked and saved. And she only dated nice guys that had their future mapped out. Jet was none of the things she claimed she wanted, but he called to her bad girl side. When she finally gave in to their attraction, it was under the understanding that it was just sex because she knew Jet could destroy her and the life she was trying to carve out. But Ayden discovered that while you can hide from your past temporarily, it always managed to come back and bite you in the ass. When it did, she was willing to give up everything under the guise of protecting what she loved, knowing it was going to kill her and seriously piss off her friends. But Ayden discovered that no matter how bad her past was, Jet was going to be there for her and support her when she needed it. It was the slap of reality she needed to realize that not everyone was like her brother or mother and could be counted on.

Jet had his own set of family issues. A father that blamed him and his mother for ruining is his and a mother that was unwilling to let go of a man who made her life miserable, had Jet shying away from anything that looked like a relationship. He ever set aside fame and fortune with his band because of his fear that something would happen to his mother while he was gone. But with Ayden, Jet began to see that all the bottled up emotions that made him such a great songwriter and performer because a little easier to deal with. Unfortunately, he could admit this to himself but could never manage to verbalize it just the right way to Ayden. He let years worth of hurt and anger make him walk away from her, rather than to fight for what he wanted most.

I really liked Jet and Ayden together. It was great to see what a cohesive group everyone had become in the year after the end of RULE. They were all a family and a family that stucked together and told each other when they needed a swift kick. Jet and Ayden needed quite a few swift kicks to get them to their HEA. But it was a HEA that was worth it, especially when it was Jet coming to Ayden to prove that he was always be there for her.

The Marked Men series continues to roll on with another great entry. Given the snippets in the epilogue, Rome and Cora's book (which is next) is leaving me with some pretty high expectations.