BOOK REVIEW: 'His Contract' by Rebecca Grace Allen—4.5 Stars

His Contract, Rebecca Grace Allen’s latest erotic romance novel, is witty, gripping, and emotional. Read our review and get your copy today!

[Some Spoilers; For Mature Audiences]

Confession time: I’ll read anything Rebecca Grace Allen writes. ANYTHING. She’s burst onto the contemporary romance scene in a HUGE way with her Portland Rebel Series (where she sexifies scientific theories—a woman after my own heart!). Now RGA is taking readers on another erotic romance journey with her new series, Legally Bound. The first novel, His Contract, explores how a safe, sane, and consensual BDSM relationship can heal two individuals recovering from past trauma.

From beginning to end, His Contract is witty, gripping, and emotional. As is her signature style, RGA is able to build a world that the reader effortlessly steps into. The characters are so compelling, that we could easily know them as our family members or friends. I loved every moment of reading this story!

Harvard Law professor Jack Archer has had a really difficult year. 18 months ago, he lost his beloved wife and submissive to cancer. Truth be told, when Jack buried her, he buried himself as well. What makes things even more painful is that Eve’s dying wish was that Jack force himself to move on. However, he’s very doubtful he’ll ever find another woman to love and share the BDSM lifestyle with. Now that he’s back to work, Jack’s friends are determined to help him resurrect his love life too. He’s not at all interested in the Boston bar scene, but things change when Jack makes eye contact with Lilly across a crowded pub and the long-dormant sparks fly…

Like Jack, Lilly Sterling is trying to find her way out of a painful experience. Her first foray into the BDSM lifestyle ended horribly, and as a result, after finishing law school, she flees the Midwest in search of a new beginning in Boston. Unfortunately, the blow to Lilly’s confidence permeates through her personal and professional life. But then she meets her brother’s best friend’s brother, Jack…

Jack and Lilly are able to fill a mutual void in each other’s lives—their arrangement gives Jack the opportunity to flex is Dom muscles, establishing world of rules, order, pleasure, and pain. And Lilly is able to become her fully submissive self, safe and confident in the protection of Jack’s dominance. They can each confess their secret hurts, heal, and move on.

Yet, when Jack and Lilly start to care for one another, things become more complex. This is supposed to be a temporary, contractul agreement. Besides, Jack is very sensitive to the fact that he’s practically 20 years her senior. Moreover, his insistence that they keep their relationship under-wraps gives Lilly flashbacks to another time when she was someone’s dirty, little secret, a situation she’s not at all eager to repeat. The more Jack and Lilly play, the more we wonder if a long-term arrangement is really outside the realm of possibility.

It won’t surprise you that one of my favorite parts of this novel is the relationship between Jack and Lilly. I love watching them negotiate, test boundaries, and explore one another. And the result is some of the most sexy and sweetly erotic moments:

She tried to prepare herself, but when his palm cracked against her ass, Lilly cried out in real pain, nausea crawling up her throat long with the sickening worry that she’d been wrong all along. That this was when he was going to hurt her. Then she felt Jack’s lips over her skin, kissing where he’d struck.

“Such a beautiful, brave girl, giving herself to me like this.”

Her heart skipped a beat, his intimate touch and words of reassurance reaching a place inside her that had been broken for so long. He might hurt her, but he wouldn’t harm her, and Lilly realized that she would take more. She wanted to take more, for him.

And Lilly is perfectly ready, willing, and able to take the MORE that Jack dishes:

Lifting one of her legs until her ankle was balanced on his shoulder, he slid into her in one smooth thrust. The feeling of him filling that aching spot inside her was relief and torment at the same time, the release she’d been chasing all day suddenly bearing down on her. He hooked a finger around the chain between the clamps and gently pulled. Lilly trembled violently, the combination of his slow thrusts and the bite of metal on her flesh keeping her balanced on the pointed edge between pleasure and pain…

“Please let me come, Sir.”
“Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Sir.”
She didn’t say it because he told her to. It was simply the truth.
“Come for me, little girl.”

*UNF*UNF*UNF*

Truth be told, there are several times where I become impatient with Jack. I know why he’s unwilling to see beyond the sexual relationship, but his insistence that he can never love Lilly, that she deserves more than he can offer, is annoying.

At the same time, I really enjoy watching Lilly come out of her shell. I like seeing her resolve her issues and make a major slam dunk at work. Lilly remembers her worth… she’s a brilliant (almost) lawyer, a generous sister and friend, a phenomenal lover, and she deserves all the best things. So when a ghost from her past skulks across her path, Lilly knows how to shut it down. And when she sees that Jack is unwilling/unable to be what she needs, Lilly is strong enough to walk away. *HIGH FIVES*

Besides the Jack/Lilly relationship, His Contract has fantastic secondary characters. Jack’s best friend Patrick and brother Brady are hilarious. Similarly, Lilly’s brother Nick, Nick’s husband Gabe, and her colleague/friend Cassie are constantly supportive.
As someone who LOVES legal dramas (Law & Order SVU, Suits, How to Get Away with Murder), I also enjoy the secondary storyline where Gabe, Cassie, and Lilly work on a pseudo-mob case.

I highly recommend His Contract to those who are fond of BDSM erotica, complete with a sexy, older Sir and his (sometimes) bratty little girl.

His Contract is now available in ebook (Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Google Play, Kobo) print (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Samhain), and audio (Audible), so add it to your Goodreads TBR list, and grab your copy today!

Thanks to RGA and Rock Star Lit, we have an exclusive excerpt from His Contract to share, as well as some pretty steamy graphics:

Excerpt

Jack closed his front door and leaned against it, as if doing so could shut out what he’d felt tonight. As if it could shut Lilly out. He’d wanted to murder Patrick for leaving him alone with her, and yet, during that short time, he’d forgotten how for the last year it had hurt to do anything more than breathe.

Hearing she was at least older than Josh was a small comfort. His age, however, seemed of no consequence. He’d thought she hadn’t read anything into the question, that the attraction that was driving him out of his mind was all one-sided, but Lilly’s blush said otherwise. As did the quick pass of her soft, pink tongue over gorgeously full lips.
Jack groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face, then looked at his scar. He could only imagine what Lilly would think if she knew where it came from, what kind of life he’d lived. The Dominant he once was.
He closed his eyes and saw Eve in their playroom, the two of them beginning their scene with practiced words.

“You are mine, love.”
“I am yours, always, Master.”

Grief shouted from the past. But the image was quickly replaced with one of Lilly looking up at him in the bar. How would she react if he ordered her to strip for him? Would all of her skin bloom with the rosy hues he’d seen on her cheeks? Jack’s mind traveled to a place where he had her bound and naked, telling her to bare everything to him—body, mind and soul.

Realizing where his thoughts had strayed, he tried to shut the fantasy down but it was too late.
Lilly had flipped a switch in him, waking the part that had been buried under the ashes of Eve’s death.
And now that he’d opened that door, he didn’t know how to close it again.