LEATHER AND LACE - Taylor Tryst
Ellora's Cave - www.ellorascave.com
ISBN: 978-1-4199-1251-1
September 2007
Erotic Romantic Suspense

 Rated: E-rotic
 
Minneapolis, Minnesota - Present Day
 
Cleo Tanek makes no bones about the fact that she loves sex.  Who doesn't?  Ok, so Cleo is probably more adventuresome in that regard than most, but she's always had one rule: sex should not affect the job.  One look was all it took. 
 
Lukas Nathaniel Lace, CEO of a multi-billon dollar corporation, and an absolutely riveting man is Cleo's current target.  An ex-cop who left the force at the top of her game and is currently building her portfolio as a private investigator, Cleo didn't realize when taking her current job how hard it would be to resist the target of her investigation.  All of the information she's gathered to date has indicated that Luke is a straight arrow, so why someone wants information on his day-to-day activities is a mystery, but that's not her concern, just her job to gather the data.  But in the process, Luke has certainly inspired a few fantasies.  So when their eyes meet across a restaurant while she is supposed to be surreptitiously watching him, it doesn't take much for that first contact to blaze into a raging relationship. 
 
Unfortunately, there are a still a couple of small issues facing Cleo and Luke. Who hired Cleo to follow Luke and why?  Has Cleo unwittingly provided the information that will make it easier for a hitman to kill Luke?  More importantly, is the woman with a love of leather, guns and sex strong enough to weather the roller coaster that is love?
 
Super steamy and sexy, LEATHER AND LACE will grab you from the start.  Cleo and Luke have such vibrant personalities that their attraction fairly jumps off the page.  Although Cleo is a woman who knows what she wants and can take care of herself, she does have some insecurities and relationships are one of them.  Luke has always bowed to the wishes of his parents -- going to the school they wanted, playing the sports they deemed acceptable -- but Cleo's fearlessness inspires the bad boy in him.  These two can't keep their hands off each other and the wildfire between them burns off the pages.
 
The plot is a fairly intricate one with several secondary players, mainly Luke's family or people connected to them.  Everyone seems to have their own secrets and reasons why they are keeping tabs on Luke and it's up to Cleo to figure out why, hopefully before Luke gets killed.  LEATHER AND LACE is an entertaining tale with a few minor flaws.  First, I'm all for the HEA, but all the characters don't have to happily like each other at the end, and it's patently unbelievable that a woman would make nice with her attacker within the hour of an attempted rape.  Second, the story is told from both Cleo and Luke's point of views and jumps around between them, sometimes a bit dizzily.
 
Fast cars, Manolos, guns, and leather miniskirts combine to form a scintillatingly erotic tale in LEATHER AND LACE that you won't want to miss.
 
Phillipa Ann