Hi all! I’ve previously professed my love of the Fixed trilogy from Laurelin Paige. First I reviewed FIXED ON YOU, and then I reviewed HUDSON. Today, I’m just fangirling with a few choice quotes from the four book series. If you like strong male leads and plausibly flawed female leads, this series might be just for you.
These books are contemporary romance–and meant for mature readers…
From FIXED ON YOU…
It all began with an indecent proposal:
“I’d like to pay you to help me with a problem. I believe you’d be perfect for the job.”
The whole conversation had my head spinning, but he had my attention. “You win. My curiosity is piqued. What’s the job?”
“I need you to break up an engagement.”
I coughed, wondering if I’d heard him correctly, knowing I’d had. “Um, what? Whose?”
Hudson leaned back, his dazzling gray eyes flickering in the strobe lights. “Mine.”
Soon, it became much more.
But it wasn’t Stacy undoing my corset–it was Hudson.
He met my eyes, pinning my reflection with a greedy stare. Slowly, without breaking his gaze, he continued loosening the laces of my bodice.
I didn’t stop him. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t stop him.
When he’d finished loosening my gown, his hands traveled to the spaghetti straps at my shoulders. I watched as he moved the straps over the curve of my bones and down my arms. The dress fell to the floor, leaving me in nothing but black strappy heels and my red thong.
Alayna’s more than a match for Hudson; she’s a match for his bitter mother:
Sophia, on the other hand, made no indication that she even heard. “Tell me, Alayna–were you first attracted to my son because of his money or his name?”
Pissed didn’t even describe how I felt. I was seething, but still in control. Without skipping a beat, I wrapped my arm around Hudson’s and answered,. “Neither. I was attracted to him because he’s hot. Though I stayed with him because he’s fucking awesome in bed.”
And we get to the heart of the matter…
He let out a brief laugh, as if he recognized his own vulnerability and it amused him or confounded him. “I’m drawn to you, Alayna. Not because I want to hurt you or make you feel a certain way, but because you’re beautiful and sexy and smart and, yes, a little crazy, maybe, but you’re not broken. And that makes me hopeful. For me.”
FOUND IN YOU brings a deeper intimacy. Hudson and Alayna have decided to embark on a real relationship. It steams. See..
Not only did his expression show an absence of fear, it showed hunger, desire. Almost as though my paranoia was a turn-on.
“You have me,” I whispered.
He took the sash from my hands and pulled the knot free. “I want you right now.” His hand wrapped around my breast, squeezing as his thumb flicked across my nipple.
“Oh, you want me, want me.”
“Uh-huh.” He shifted me so my backside was against the table. Flattening his palm between my breasts, he pushed me down; the surface of the table met hard with my backside and a brief flash of worry about spilling his coffee and breaking the cosmetic bottles entered my mind.
“And I want you now.”
Fuck the coffee. Let it spill.
And things get real serious. Fast.
It was Hudson who drew the attention of the table. “I could have a child with Alayna.”
I nearly choked on the bite of food in my mouth. Sure, I’d been thinking that Hudson could have a kid, but it hadn’t for a moment crossed my mind he would have on with me.
Okay, maybe it had crossed my mind for a moment. But a small one. Certainly it wasn’t a thought I’d share out loud.
But when Hudson said it, had said it out loud like that to everyone, a strange warmth spread through my chest. It wasn’t the low, deep burn of desire, but something different. Something related to the love I felt for the man, mixed with a dash of hope.
Life is complicated, however–exes and stalkers and secrets, oh my!–which makes for a good story.
FOREVER WITH YOU
gets deeper into the emotional problems both Alayna and Hudson have–and there’s a lot of slowing down to do. Or not…
“I’m ready to give you everything I have, to make myself vulnerable, just like you made yourself vulnerable to me time after time.”
“No prenup? No I definitely know you’re crazy.” And I was crazy for simply continuing this conversation.
“I am crazy. Crazy without you in my life.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “You’re the only one who’s ever made me better. And now you have me by the balls, Alayna. Because if you say no, if you turn me away, then I’ve lost everything that means anything in my pathetic excuse for a life. But if you say yes, I have to be the one to trust you–you could scam me if you wanted to. You could simply marry me now, divorce me later and half of all I have would be yours.”
As if his money meant anything to me. “I have know interest in your–”
He cut me off. “I know. I know that you would never take advantage of my like that. But the point is you could.”
And, that my friends, is how Hudson doesn’t win the girl.
He waited a beat, but then he did step back and I slid past, careful not to touch him, though every cell in my body yearned to do just that.
I managed to hold my head high as I walked away from him, even when he called after me. “I’m never giving up, Alayna. I’ll prove myself. You’ll see.”
Fear not! The book is an HEA. For reals. Hudson perseveres. And we’re all super happy for it.
HUDSON
, in his own book, interweaves his history as a manipulative SOB and his adult recovery. It really brought home the lack of love Hudson felt throughout his childhood, and also the overwhelming experience it was for him to find true affection for, and from, Alayna.
He was a bit awkward, getting romance advice from his (then) teenaged sister, Mirabelle.
“Let’s see, women love the artsy, creative types of attention. Like write her a poem or draw her portrait.”
I blinked. I wasn’t artsy in the least. “Go on.”
“Then there’s the easy stuff–sending flowers, buying jewelry, giving gifts—”
I typed as she talked.
“But those are really lame if you don’t personalize them.”
I looked up from my screen. “What do you mean by personalize.”
“Don’t just give roses. Those are boring. Give flowers that you know she’ll like or mean something to her. The jewelry should be unique to her, or something she’s admired.”
God, it sounded like romanticizing was going to require more detailed investigation than I’d expected.
By the time Hudson encountered Alayna, he’d perfected his wooing skills. He knew how to win the girl, how to break up a relationship, how to sabotage a marriage, but he didn’t know how to love. Or, did he?
I’ve seen love deteriorate before. I’ve watched it unravel before my eyes. This is something I know. It’s the thing I’ve always been good at–destroying the fairytale of happily ever after.
Love doesn’t bear all, Love doesn’t endure. Love ends. It always, always ends.
For all that I’ve destroyed–in my past, with Celia, here today with Alayna–my curse is that my love alone goes on. My whole life I was empty. Now I’m full. Overflowing with love and anguish. Hers and mine.
And does he simmer in anguish. A while. He blunders through a proposal that doesn’t impress–though it does crack through to Alayna’s heart–but from that ashy demise the phoenix of Hudson’s love is reborn. And he woos with abandon.
I fall to my knee. “I realized something about the last time I asked this.” I haven’t prepared anything, but the words come easily. “I did it wrong. First, I hadn’t got a ring, and second, I should have gotten on one knee. But more importantly, I didn’t give you the right thing. I offered you everything I had, thinking that was the way to win your heart. That wasn’t what you wanted at all. The only thing you asked for, the only thing I would never give you, was me.”
She tries to swallow back a gasp, but it comes out anyway.
“But now I do.” I throw my arms open wide. “Here I am. precious. I give myself freely. All of me. No more walls or secrets or games or lies. I give you all of me, honestly. For forever, if you’ll take it.”
And people wonder why I swoon for these books? They rocked me. They are a sexy emotional roller coaster.
Interested? You can pick up the FIXED series ($3.99), or the single book FIXED ON YOU ($2.99), on Goodreads, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or maybe even at Target by now…the series is getting pretty popular.
You can find HUDSON on Goodreads, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
About the Author:
You can find Laurelin online on Goodreads, her blog, twitter and Facebook.
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