Kaje Harper's Reviews > Bad Boyfriend

This is the second book in a series, but it would stand alone well enough. The MCs from the first are only secondary characters. (And Nate is still a jerk.) Also, since this is a Samhain book, it ends with about 30 pages left for other excerpts (something which I try to remember will happen, but often don't, and find frustrating, so I thought I'd put this note up front here for other readers.)

I liked this book a lot more than the first one, mainly because the characters are much more appealing. Eli was my favorite guy from book 1. Here he is sweet, a bit prickly, trying to be independent while his job is downsizing and his money is running out. He had a rough period in his teens, has few options, and a lot of pride. He meets Quinn in a club, and enjoys going home with him. But despite the neediness he tries to keep hidden, he's not sure he wants what Quinn is offering. Especially when part of what Quinn seems to need him for is proof-of-gayness to throw into the face of his ex-boyfriend and relatives.

Quinn has been sucker-punched. He was with Peter for ten years, and even though some of the time he was away in the service, and even though they weren't really out or into displays and words of affection, Quinn had thought this was the guy he'd grow old with. But Peter's self-loathing led him to cheat on Quinn with a woman, and she got pregnant, and Peter decided the pretty heterosexual life was more valuable than ten years of faithful companionship.

Quinn has tried to move on, but he's in a bind, because Peter's family has really become his own. They were there for him, through all the tough times, for ten years. He has no family of his own, and they still want him around, even though they're dancing to Peter's tune of not admitting why Quinn is part of their inner circle. Quinn can't just cut lose of the Peter part of his life, because he'd lose everyone he cares about. So he's trapped, going to Peter's wedding, spending holidays, pretending like it's not eating at him to see Peter play the straight husband, when Quinn was still fucking him right until the night he left.

Quinn needs to do something to break out of this unfair silence. But all he allows himself is a gesture, something to rub everyone's faces in the fact that he's really, truly gay, and by extension that Peter wasn't some one-off. When he sees Eli dancing, with his eyeliner and his body jewelery and his sinuous moves, Quinn is struck by how perfect he is. Perfect for a night in bed, and perfect for a completely unmistakable gay date to Peter's son's baptism.

It won't take long for him to realize that the guy behind the eyeliner is perfect for much more than that. But a relationship that started as slightly kinky sex, and moved on to using Eli as a signboard and a weapon, is hard to turn into a forever thing without getting messy.

I enjoyed the story, with its mix of secondary characters, and two MCs who begin with something simple, move on to using each other in different ways, and then have to battle to get past that. Peter is a slimeball, and it's hard to see how he kept Quinn so long. I'd actually have preferred that he wasn't such an unredeemable loser, because it would have reflected better on Quinn, and on the actions of the relatives, and added poignancy. Quinn felt a bit wimpy and passive-aggressive in the way he approached this, given how Peter behaved. If Peter had been more honorable and simply torn between competing needs, then Quinn's and his whole family's restraint would have felt more appropriate too.

The way the story played out was fun to watch, though, and I fell for both the MCs.

There is a fair amount of hot sex with a bit of kink; some mild restraint/spanking BDSM and the tendency to have Eli call Quinn "Daddy" in bed. That's one of my squicks - I'm fine with age gap, and can even put up with real adult incest if both adults are fully mature and consenting parties without a power balance, but "Daddy" is childish-sounding and age-play where a sex participant pretends to be a child isn't sexy at all to me. In this case, it's just the word and a feeling of Quinn as older/mature/protective, so it was all right, but I skipped the word when it came up. Purely a personal preference of mine - Eli is 23 and more than old enough for the relationship.

So while not my favorite K.A. Mitchell (that would be Collision Course) I did enjoy this a lot, and may reread it someday.