Review: Price of a Kiss by Linda Kage

AMAZON | KINDLE

Price of a Kiss by Linda Kage
Contemporary / New Adult
Linda Kage (August 14, 2013)

Rating: B+
Heat: Hot

Heroine: Reese Randall – In Hiding, Fabulously Witty 
Hero: Mason Lowe – Gigolo, Hotness 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis:

I don’t care what my cousin says; I am not the queen of impossible relationships. I mean, just because my last boyfriend tried to kill me and left a bit of a scar on my neck, then forced me to move across the country and legally change my name to Reese Randall to escape him, does not mean—

Oh, who am I kidding? For a freshman in college, I have to have the worst dating track record ever.

It’s no wonder love is the last thing on my mind when Mason Lowe enters my life. But the chemistry between us is like bam! Our connection defies logic. And he’s just so freaking hot. Being around him makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt before. I even like bickering with him. He could be my soul mate...except for one teeny tiny glitch.

He's a gigolo.

Boy, do I know how to pick them.

Review:

Price of a Kiss opens up with eighteen year-old Mason Lowe working in the yard when his landlady, Mrs. Robinson – er, Garrison – visits and begins to hit on him. She then proceeds to blackmail him into having sex with her and in return she will forgive his mother for half of the three thousand dollars she owes in rent. His mother works two jobs already and his sister has cerebral palsy. They need the money they’ve been saving to buy his sister a wheel chair and there is no way they could come up with that kind of money in time. It was either sleep with the cougar or be evicted. He chose to save his family. What he thought was one sexual encounter turns into a job to pay the bills, as Mrs. Garrison becomes his pimp and sets him up with clients who are rich, older women.

Fast forward two years. Reese Randall is hiding from her ex-boyfriend, who abused her in high school. When she tried to break things off with him, he turned into a psycho stalker and tried to kill her. The ex-psycho’s father is a lawyer and managed to get the charges dropped. Fearing for her life, Reese had no choice but to go into hiding. Reese Randall isn’t really her name. She’s now attending community college and living above her aunt and uncle’s apartment across the country, still living in the fear that he will find her one day. This is not the dream she saw for herself the first year of college.

One day, while sitting in the courtyard with her cousin, she sees a drop-dead gorgeous guy that immediately makes her heart flutter. As she is practically drooling over him, their eyes meet and there is an immediate spark in their heated stare-off…

“I didn’t respond—couldn’t if I’d wanted to. I was too busy being electrocuted from the inside out. My fingertips sizzled and toes curled as if an invisible, kinetically charged bolt tethered me to the hunk fifty yards away, who seemed to bind us together with his stare alone.”

Poor Reese has the worst luck when it comes to guys. And now, come to find out the first guy she’s interested in since her crazy ex-boyfriend is a gigolo. Mason is forbidden fruit. So, instead she secretly lusts after him from afar…

Oh, how I could become addicted to crack, especially when those two taut, tanned globes hugging that blessed crevice molded so perfectly to the back of his towel. They were like twin mounds of ecstasy.

Mason and Reese eventually become best friends when she gets a job babysitting his little sister. Reese is the type of person who embraces people and is optimistic about life. I absolutely adore Reese and all her quirk and wit. She is so incredibly selfless, genuine, and sweet. Reese understands the lengths Mason’s gone to for his family and sees him as a man, not a whore, trapped by a life that he hates. So, as their feelings grow, they find it hard to stay strictly friends. The desire to jump each other’s bones becomes harder and harder to resist. And Mason makes it especially hard to deny him when he makes her swoon with his sweet and charming words. (He made me swoon too!)

“See, your laugh is exactly what's keeping me away, woman. I just want to kiss those lips and hoard that sound all to myself.”

Because Mason isn’t sure he can give Reese what she deserves, he keeps her at arm’s length. But complications be damned - these two are similar souls who belong together. They must fight hard and Reese is not a girl that gives up that easily. Will they beat the odds and find their happily ever after?

This friends-turned-lovers romance swept me off my feet and made me giddy with excitement. I LURVE this couple. The sexual tension buildup is electrifying. The chemistry in the bedroom is deliciously HOT. I absolutely adored all the fun and flirty banter between them. There is also true emotion behind this forbidden romance. I found myself aching for this couple and silently pleading with Mason to give up his gigolo ways so they could be together. Price of a Kiss is an amazing and well written story that made me laugh and smile until my cheeks ached, touched my heart, made my insides tingle, gave me butterflies, and then left me with an ending that melted my heart into mush.