Run to You by Charlotte Stein
Released: July 25, 2013
Erotic Contemporary
Mischief Publishing

Reviewed by Mandi

I love Charlotte Stein’s voice. I love her heroes. I love her heroines. I love how deep we go into the heroine’s head. I love how filthy her books are and how the characters explore their emotions, insecurities, love and self esteem through sex. In Run to You, Stein gives us a burly, hairy Hungarian hero. Can we just take a moment to let that sink in. Take a long moment, because you will need to absorb this next passage as well…(it’s in regards to his manly bits..)

I still moan excitedly at the sight of his greedy gaze and his frantic, fumbling hands.

Then louder, for his gorgeous cock.

It’s just like the rest of him: too big and too solid and too everything. He could probably beat me to death with it, if he was so inclined – and, judging by the look of him, he might well be.

Death by cock! Only in a Charlotte Stein book. *wink*

You know how you can see a stranger that intrigues you just by the way he or she looks? And then you can daydream a crazy scenario where you actually interact with this person and they may fulfill some secret fantasy you have…this book is that scenario, except it happens to the heroine in real life. Alissa is a very shy, awkward woman with little self esteem. She sees herself as dull and leads a very safe life. Her roommate though has adventures, and Alissa has always secretly been obsessed with what and where her roommate goes. After her roommate disappears on some crazy vacation, Alissa does a little snooping and notices her roommate often goes to this very fancy hotel for ‘assignations.’ Feeling completely impulsive, Alissa decides to take her roommates next appointment pretending to be her, and soon finds herself at a very fancy hotel, feeling vastly out of place.

It is in this lobby she sees a huge man that fascinates her. When she gets to the hotel room, and then sees bondage stuff on the bed, she starts to freak out. Right when she is about to leave, she hears someone coming in, and hides in the closet. Who walks in, but the man from the lobby. Apparently her roommate must meet men for kinky sex, but Alissa is too scared to come out. This man leaves, but before that he leaves a note, hinting that he knows she is in the closet along with his phone number. Days later after calling and hanging up several, times, he finally calls her, and the game is on.

This is a book about a girl with no self esteem who looks up a physically strong, solid man and looks to him to give her confidence. And he does.  But what Charlotte Stein loves to do is present a very insecure heroine who you think can only find confidence through the hero, but then she twists the hero around to have him have to lean upon the heroine to help him with his problems. I love this about Stein’s books. Janos can give Alissa physical pleasure, but he is terrified of intimacy. For as big and solid a presence that he is, he can’t look her in the eye after they have sex, he has to run away. Alissa has it built up in her head that she is the one with the ultimate fantasy of being with this delicious man, but she comes to learn, he thinks he is living the dream.

I think the beginning of this book is a little bit slow, but it picks up speed in the second half. And I thought the end was very adorable and romantic. Now to wait for the next release.

Rating: B

Goodreads l Author Website

Kindle l Nook

And because this is Smex Scene Sunday, I’ll give you an excerpt!

He doesn’t go right for my breasts, however. Of course he doesn’t. Schoolboys with sweaty hands do things like that, and he’s the absolute opposite. He’s from another world where men are calm and cool, and capable of just letting the tips of their fingers trail over a woman’s collarbone.

I feel him press lightly, briefly, barely there, but just as I’m starting to enjoy it he backs away a bit. He lets those fingertips brush against the material instead of my skin, touching buttons in a suggestive way. He might undo them. He might not.

All I have to do is say.

So I do.

‘Yes, that,’ I tell him, fumbling and bumbling over word choice and finally settling on something that makes no sense. Yes, that, I think, and want to roll my eyes. He’s like the endless coils of a clever snake, and I’m this humiliatingly literal and oh, so basic creature.

Not that he cares. In fact, my stunted attempts at being a real person only seem to spur him on. I stutter out the only words I can and he responds with a sultry ‘and more, I’m sure?’

Before that maddening hand does just that. It gives me more – far more than I expect. Running through my head is the image of him cupping my breast, or maybe unbuttoning my shirt a little bit, before I explode. Instead he touches two fingers to his lips, like he’s blowing me a kiss.

And then he licks them. He licks them.

It’s probably the dirtiest thing I’ve ever witnessed. Dirtier than actual sex I’ve had, dirtier than movies filled with sex. He’s still in his suit, and he looks so elegant and refined, and yet he’s lewdly easing his tongue all over and around his fingers, right in front of me.

Of course it’s then that I realise I’m not going to survive any of this. He hasn’t even done anything, and I’m staring like a maniac. I’m thinking like an unprepared teenager. I can’t even fathom why he’s doing what he’s doing, even though I should absolutely know. Why else would he be making his fingers all nice and wet?

He’s going to touch me, I think, but the thought doesn’t connect with his actions. I watch his hand lower back down to my trembling body, as though everything is suddenly in slow motion. My lips are parted; my eyes are wide. I must look pretty comical, following his fingers as they slide beneath the material of my shirt.

And even more comical, when they slide beneath the material of my bra. I make a little sound and come pretty close to grabbing his wrist, but I swear it’s not because I’m a prude. It’s because I’m far too excited. My nipples are stiff unbearable points, clearly visible through my shirt. I really need more time to compose myself before he does this.

But he gives me none.

He simply eases those slippery fingers over that one tight little tip, rubbing and rubbing before I’m ready. I’m still choking over the first burst of sensation, and he’s making slow, slick circles around one of the most sensitive spots on my body.

Or at least, it’s one of the most sensitive spots now. Great aching tingles surge down from that point of connection, turning most of my lower body to liquid. I’m shuddering all over, and so stuffed with heat I could set fire to the carpet with very little effort – and over such a minor thing. It’s nothing really, I think. It’s nothing.

And yet at the same time it’s everything.