Offensive Behavior by Ainslie Paton (Sidelined #1)
Released: March 31, 2016
Contemporary Romance
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

When I saw this had a virgin hero, I grabbed it up. There is something about virgin heroes that suck me in! I can’t help it. Reid is in a bad place in his life – fired as the CEO of the technology firm he built for basically being an asshole, and now he has turned to drinking. At twenty-eight, his life is a mess. He is a control freak, who couldn’t learn to work with others, forcing his work partners to make him resign. Reid now spends his nights drunk at a place called Lucky’s where he can watch a woman with the stage name of Lux, pole dance. He has become fixated on her, and a little obsessed (not creepy though!).

Lux aka Zarley was on track to be an olympic gymnast, until she grew too many curves and got too old. Now in school, she dances as a pole dancer at Lucky’s to make money. She knows a mysterious man is always staring at her when she dances, and after colliding with a undesriable man in the alley, Reid makes his presence known. Zarley really wants nothing to do with him – until one night as she is leaving, he is very ill in the parking lot from food poisoning. She takes pity on him, gets him home and stays the night to make sure he doesn’t die. Reid wants to make this up to her – and in all honesty, date her – so he starts to woo her, finally breaking her down. But in a turn of events, Reid becomes insecure about dating her and courting her and Zarley is the one to show him the ropes.

I really enjoyed Zarley (except her name – I’m sorry to any Zarley’s out there!!!) Anyway, Zarley is strong and confident and attracted to Reid, although his moody, surly behavior gets on her nerves – which she makes known. Reid, although very sexy, takes on a lost puppy tone at some points. At 28, I think he says the last time he had a tongue down a girl’s throat was his senior year of high school – tack on being a virgin, and that is quite a dry spell. He blames it on being an obsessive workaholic. He wants Zarley badly, but doesn’t know how to make that step. Zarley, once she admits to herself how attracted she is to him, shows him the pleasures of sex. They have a great physical relationship and Reid falls hard and fast. I love that Zarley calls him out when he moons over her too much

She didn’t even get a head turn out of him. “Could you look at me, please?”

A slight swivel of his chair, a quarter turn of his head, then he focused on his screen again. “I’ll take you back to the apartment whenever you’re ready, or wherever you want to go.”

“Are you sulking?” He closed his eyes.

“I’m giving you space to do what you need to do.”

“You sulked at Lucky’s for a month. You’re sulking now because,” she flapped her arm. “I don’t know why, but that’s what you’re doing. I shouldn’t want to kiss you when you’re sulking but I do.” And what was that about? Possibly something to do with how miserable he looked. “I’m not going to because it will reward the behavior and you’re better that that.”

She doesn’t let him get away with silly or sulky behavior. In a sense, she helps him grow up – except in a sexy way and not like your mom.

Towards the end, there is conflict – some that made me roll my eyes, some that made me want to shake Reid. It felt a little forced in my opinion and I almost gave the book three stars – but the way Reid apologizes is so sweet he made up for it. He grew up so much *wipes tear*

I felt like Reid and Zarley had a little different dynamic than a normal romance couple and I appreciated that. Looking forward to book two.

Grade B

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