Veena’s review of Restrained Under His Duty (Dirty Little Secrets, Book 3) by Stacey Kennedy
Erotic Romance published by Loveswept 04 Apr 17
When I started this series, I was expecting more hard-core erotic romance, but the first two books surprised me with softness and romanticism. With Haley being a submissive who uses clubs and pain to find control, this story comes the closest to a hard-core BDSM theme with the soft undertones of a true HEA romance.
Haley, as a little girl, had declared that she was going to grow up and marry Ryder, but then their paths seemed to diverge with Ryder as her senator father’s full-time body guard, maintaining his distance from her. Then a tabloid newspaper makes up a story about a budding romance between them, while Haley receives a blackmail tape of herself with two masked strangers in a compromising situation. Thrust together, the walls tumble between the controlled millionaire bodyguard and the senator’s beautiful daughter who craves to be controlled.
The first grown-up kiss between them is addicting and the distance between the two of them crumbles, as Ryder finds himself easing out of guarding the father and gravitating to the daughter who’s always rung his bells. With Haley dealing with a compromising blackmail tape and a short clock to get her father to resign from his position as a senator, Ryder has to use all his resources in an attempt to find the blackmailer before the senator’s career and Haley’s reputation blow up. To complicate matters, Ryder has his own share of enemies who are targeting him and his friends who own erotic clubs in the city and form the dominants’ council.
There’s a nice element of mystery and violence that gives this story a nice edgy feel. Ryder and his top notch security team move into high gear to find the blackmailer and do what is necessary to keep Haley safe. Meanwhile, Ryder and Haley indulge their appetites in her bed, with Ryder giving Haley the necessary restraint and pain she needs to keep herself in control with her world unraveling around her. The mystery behind the person targeting Haley and Ryder remains a mystery until the very end, with the author very masterfully keeping her readers on edge.
Ryder does manage to find the mole who’s been secretly recording the conversations of him and his four friends where they relax and unwind. Unfortunately, the unmasking is an unpleasant surprise for the fourth member of the group and hooks the reader into the final story of the series. All in all, an enjoyable tale.
Grade: B
Summary:
An uninhibited politician’s daughter falls for her loyal bodyguard behind closed doors in this scandalous novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Bound Beneath His Pain and Tied to His Betrayal.
As the chief of security for a prominent senator, Ryder Blackwood is stunned when an anonymous source sends him a compromising photo of his boss’s twenty-five-year-old daughter getting down and dirty in an underground sex club. If it gets out, the media firestorm could ruin her father. More troubling for Ryder is how arousing he finds the whole situation. He’s known Hadley Winters since she was a kid. And now she’s the woman in all his most private fantasies.
Wild behavior helps Hadley get through those painful, lonely nights, but she’s been waiting a long time for a man like Ryder to protect her from herself. Ryder is raw. He’s real. And he makes her feel safe. Now that they’ve both become pawns in a blackmailer’s dangerous game, there’s more at stake than her father’s political career. As the intimate threats tear apart a tender new love, Hadley is forced to trust Ryder with her life—and her heart.
No excerpt available.
