Belong To Me by Shayla Black (Wicked Lovers #5)
Erotic Romance/BDSM
October 4, 2011
Trade Paperback
Berkley Heat
Reviewed by Helyce
When Tara Jacobs’ best friend, maid of honor and fellow agent goes missing while on assignment, Tara leaves her FBI analyst desk job to go undercover as a sexual submissive in order to infiltrate a sex ring, locate the missing agent and rescue her. In order to prepare, Tara and Agent York, will train at Dominion, a BDSM club, in order to convincingly pose as a Dom/Sub couple. But time is short and Tara is worried that Agent York won’t be able to pull off the Dom persona. He’s just too close to the situation. The missing agent is his fiancé.
Navy SEAL Logan Edgington has lived the Dom lifestyle for years now. He’s currently on leave and is spending quite a bit of time at Dominion. When club owner, Mitchell Thorpe asks him to train an FBI agent and make sure she’s ready for an undercover assignment Logan jumps at the chance, especially after he sees his soon-to-be pupil through the two way mirror for the first time. Just the sight of her kneeling in a submissive pose, her red hair flowing down her back, gets Logan all worked up. Logan enters the room and begins to speak to the woman for the first time. He is completely unprepared when the woman he’s supposed to train turns out to be someone he knows but has not seen in over 12 years.
Tara and Logan were high school sweethearts. At 16, they were in love and Tara had given up her virginity to Logan. They had their whole lives ahead of them and the joy of young love had Logan’s heart bursting. Unfortunately, nothing could prepare him for the tragedy awaiting him when he got home from school that day. When Logan arrives home, he finds his mother dead, murdered. If that wasn’t enough, he finds a threatening note on his bed that states that if he doesn’t leave Tara alone, she may be the killer’s next victim. Frightened and wanting Tara safe, he breaks up with her the next day.
Twelve years later, he finds himself face to face with Tara Jacobs, in Dominion of all places and all the feelings he’s ignored come rushing back. But Tara is not having any of it. All she knows is that Logan left her and broke her heart and for the past 12 years she’s tried to heal and get on with her life. At the moment, Tara doesn’t have time for questions or explanations. Her focus is learning what she needs to know so she can rescue her friend.
I really liked Belong to Me. I have no knowledge whatsoever with regard to the BDSM lifestyle and my preconceived notions of a Dom/Sub relationship were somewhat inaccurate to say the least. When Tara is paired with Logan for training she fights it with all she has. How can she possibly pretend to submit to Logan after everything they’ve gone through in the past? Worse, she finds that she doesn’t really have to pretend. She’s drawn to Logan and she really has no trouble submitting to him. She likes it. The attraction started so many years before is still there and even with the huge gaping hole of hurt and confusion Logan left when he broke up with her is not enough to stop her from falling under Logan’s spell.
Logan has never stopped loving Tara. Having to leave her that day, broken hearted, with no explanation as to why, has caused him pain every day since. In fact, it’s affected him so much that he’s been celibate for many years. When he’s asked to be part of Tara’s training he jumps at the chance, knowing that this is his last chance not only to explain, but to win her heart again. Things take a positive turn for Logan when Tara’s FBI/Dom goes missing and he jumps at the chance to go undercover with Tara.
This book is HOT! There is a lot of sex. In fact, I’d say a little over the first half is focused on Tara’s “training” at club Dominion. What I found really different with this book, though, was that it was so emotionally charged that the sex parts were necessary. It was truly the catalyst for Tara especially. You can literally feel her walls crumbling down as she lets Logan be the man he wants to be for her. For Logan, even as a Dom, it’s all about Tara. Everything-his heart, his soul, his every breath is Tara. When we meet Logan in the beginning, he’s quite broken and we see him come back to life for Tara. It’s really well written and will pull you in.
There is great focus on the rebuilding of the relationship between Tara and Logan and the suspense of the missing FBI agent kind of takes a back seat. Did I feel jipped? Not at all. Though, I will say that once Tara and Logan are placed undercover at the resort things happen very quickly and the mystery is solved very smoothly. I was completely shocked at who the bad guy was and I love it when that happens. I was so completely wrong! Very much enjoyed the character Xavier, Logan’s good friend. Would LOVE to see more of him!
This is not the type of story I would normally choose, BDSM being something I really can’t wrap my head around; but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Rating: B
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Great review Helyce.
Thanks Tori!
The girl on the cover is going to have major back spasms if she remains like that during her loving.
LOL! For sure!
I just read this book this weekend. I liked it more than I thought I would, but the books I’ve read in this series seem to all do that so I really shouldn’t be surprised. My only complaint is that the suspense portion of the story felt a bit lacking (too unrealistic in procedure/investigation aspect) and the mystery bad guy was obvious to me early on.
Oh you’re good. I thought it was some else the whole time! I agree that the suspense part took a back seat and that it was all wrapped up too easily, but I still enjoyed Logan and Tara finding their way back to each other!
Nice review Helyce, a nice surprise when a book not your usual genre ends up surprising you. This is not really my kind of thing either, but it doesn’t bother me when it appears in one of my series. (Like Anita Blake).
Yeah, my perception of the dom/sub relationship was completely the opposite of how it is portrayed here in this book. I am quite naive when it comes to the bdsm lifestyle but this story sure put it in a different life. I’ve read one other book in this series but didn’t know it was part of a series at the time. That said, there is a teaser for the next book at the end and I’m very intrigued!
Great review! I think I need to read this series!!
Hi MinnChica-I was skeptical, but I really liked. Went to Goodreads to check out characters from previous book and realized I had read one already…The teaser for the next one looks really good!
I loved book 1 in this series, but books 2 and 3 not so much, I may have try again with Belong to Me. Thanks for the review.
I haven’t read the early ones Dani-so I can’t say, but this one surprised me. I thought the bdsm might be a bit much for me, but it’s done very well here. And Xavier…yummy secondary character!
This series seems to be so hit and miss. I loved this book but I’m a sucker for second chance love! I too enjoyed the first book and disliked the second book so much that I did not read any further until Belong To Me. I’m so glad I gave it a chance because it was a great story!
Hi Amy-I loved the premise of it too, especially when as the reader, we know why Logan does what he does as a young 16 year old. I loved where he waited for her to ask him what happened. He didn’t just jump in and try to explain. Did you love Xavier? I hope he gets a book!