Crosstown Crush by Cara McKenna
Erotic
Released: September 1, 2015
Intermix

Reviewed by Mandi

I don’t think I’ve ever read a true cuckolding fantasy romance before. Mike loves, needs cuckolding kink in his sex life with his wife, Samira (Sam). While this becomes an issue early in their marriage, (previous to the book starting) once they communicated Sam started to understand what Mike needed. Every so often, Sam goes out with her girlfriends for drinks. On her way home, she spritzes herself with men’s cologne, and comes up with a naughty, pretend story, about what she had been doing that evening. Mike likes to pretend to catch her being with another man. He likes to feel like less of a man – that Sam needs more than he can give her (although this is not the case in reality). She even goes to the extent of putting lube inside her or rubbing a condom on her thighs to make it seem like she was with someone else. This gets Mike going. Sam likes to provide this fantasy for Mike, although she doesn’t 100% understand it. Mike is a detective, so she assumes a lot of it comes from the stress of the job and the fact he was cheated on years before.

One day, Sam brings up the idea that maybe they should make their fantasy a reality. That maybe they should look to bring a man to actually have sex with Sam, and let Mike “catch” them in the act. Mike is on board with this and they set forth to find the perfect fit for them.

They find Bern through a kink site, and Sam meets him for a drink, while Mike is seated not too far away. They like each other and have good chemistry and decide to go forward with a scenario in a few days. They will meet again for a drink, and as they leave, Mike will hop in a cab and hide in their bathroom so he can watch the proceedings. Then when he feels like it, he will burst out of the bathroom, catching them in the action. Bern likes to be watched, so helping Mike and Sam in the cuckolding fantasy also fulfills his voyeurism kink as well. They have so much fun together, they start to meet up regularly.

Although I don’t think I will actively go looking for cuckolding fantasy romance books, I did enjoy the first half of this book. The set-up and the explanation is done well. In the past, Mike had experienced a girlfriend cheating on him. This affected him greatly. He also feels the loss of control in his job. During the kink, I never felt Mike was upset about another man touching his wife (quite the opposite in fact) and I felt like Bern and Mike respect each other and their boundaries.

We get Bern’s point of view as well. He is a pretty easy going guy that loves to be part of Mike and Sam’s kink. I did feel like by the second half of the book, the sex scenes became repetitive. There were only so many ways Mike could catch them having sex and I got a tad bit bored.

But then feelings get involved. Which – is logical in a sense. If Mike, Sam and Bern all participate in a VERY intimate act, on a regular basis, emotions are going to come out. Sam and Bern start to feel something for each other, and have a moment, outside of role play where Sam realizes they’ve crossed a line.

I won’t go into a lot of detail so I don’t spoil the ending – but – I feel like this book crosses from an erotic, well done cuckolding kink, to dealing with cheating feelings and a permanent threesome.

Spoiler

Fellow Smexy reviewer Sheena, comments that Sam does the kink for Bern, but then “shrouds it in this self righteous wrapping, like she did it for him and then she decided to add another dimension. Poor Bern.”

I say, poor Mike. Either way, it was a kind of an icky feeling when I finished the book.

Grade: It’s a hard book to grade – B for the first half, C for the way it ended.

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