Midnight Vengeance by Lisa Marie Rice (Midnight #4)
Released: August 18, 2014
Romantic Suspense
Carina Press

Reviewed by Mandi

I’m a fan of Lisa Marie Rice’s voice – she writes very over the top alpha men who fall to the feet of the heroine. It’s all very sexy and this book is no different. Morton Jackman, known as Jacko to his friends, is a former Navy SEAL sniper who now works in private security. He is a bad ass, who gets a lot of boners when he looks upon a friend of his boss’s wife, Lauren. Unknow to Jacko, Lauren is running from very bad guys. Now living in Portland and a talented artist, Lauren’s hoping to stay out of the spotlight because she likes this town and the people she has met.  Lauren’s step-father was a guy wrapped up in guns, prostitution and drugs – once he died, his money and estate went to her mother, who also died. The new guy in charge wants Lauren dead, so he can get the money that was passed down to her. Lauren took off, not caring about the dirty money but not wanting to be murdered by a mad-man. She has kept a very low profile, moving from town to town, but when a journalist takes her picture at an art display one night, she knows her time in Portland has come to an end. Except she didn’t figure in Jacko – a man she has befriended but she has no idea just how deep his feelings run for her – or just how scary he can be when the one he loves is in trouble.

My main complaint in this book is that we never truly get to know Jacko very well. And he is set up to be a really fun character. He is SO into Lauren, it’s fun to watch him squirm and lust after her from a distance, as he is too shy to approach her and tell her his feelings. But Lauren is the only one he has eyes for.

He didn’t even realize he’d stopped fucking chicks until three weeks after meeting Lauren. It hadn’t occurred to him. When it did, he made a point of going out that evening to his usual hole, The Spike, and picking someone up because Jacko Jackman didn’t do abstinence. Nope.

A couple of chicks he’d hooked up with before stopped by and made interested noise and to his enormous surprise, his dick said no. Fuck no.

As a matter of fact, it felt like his balls tried to crawl up into his body.

We learn Jacko takes Lauren’s art class and is brilliant. He is a good listener and patient with Lauren.  But that is just stuff we are told. We see him be a bit bashful with Lauren, but I wanted to see a lot more of him. More of him hanging out with his buddies and stuff. Instead we get a lot of page time with Lauren and a lot of page time with the bad guy. Jacko gets left behind.

However, we do get a lot of page time with them in the bedroom. Rice writes very spicy scenes that are fun to read – a bit over the top, but they entertain.

Lauren’s eyes were fixed on his dick and he didn’t blame her. It barely looked like a human organ. It was bigger than he could ever remember it being, huge and red and inflamed. He could feel her gaze on him as if it were her hands, and his dick moved.

“Just from me looking at you?” she murmured.

“Touch me,” he ordered and her hand lifted to him. Her skin was very pale against him as she stroked him from base to tip. He jerked and hissed, completely uncontrollable reactions.

Lauren jerked her hand away as if she’d touched a red-hot stove.

Oh God. How excited was she? He was normally big and now he was huge.

Midnight Vengeance was okay but definitely not my favorite of her books.

Rating: C+

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