Title:  The Dominant
Author: Tara Sue Me
Publisher/Year:  The Penguin Group (USA) 8/6/2013
Length:  400 pages
Series: SubmissiveTrilogy #2

Overview

Nathaniel West doesn’t lose control.

As the playboy CEO of West Industries, he governs the boardroom during the day; as a strict dominant with exacting rules, he commands the bedroom at night. He never takes on inexperienced submissives, but when Abigail King’s application comes across his desk, he breaks his own restrictions and decides to test her limits.

Abby’s combination of innocence and willingness is intoxicating, and Nathaniel is soon determined to collar her as his own. As long as she follows his orders and surrenders herself fully to him, no one will get hurt.

But when Nathaniel begins falling for Abby on a deeper level, he realizes that the trust must go both ways—and he has secrets which could bring the foundations of their entire relationship crashing down…

My Thoughts

i’ve gotten used to the idea of installments coming out from the POV of the other lead, but i don’t know if that was necessarily what i was expecting here.  Granted with the title of The Dominant, there’s not much else to expect, i still didn’t think that it would be a carbon copy.  that being said, i actually enjoy the idea of seeing the whole story replayed through the eyes of Nathaniel and hear what his internal struggles were since we didn’t get a good picture of all that until the very end of Submissive

What we get here was actually a nice story showing us a more human side of Nathaniel.  I think that we’re typically accustomed to the Dom being more of a hard ass and really not having this internal debate from the get go on his relationship with his sub.  Nathaniel has a back story that we started to hear about in book 1 and really get into here in book 2.

The other really nice thing that was done here was that we got to know Paul, the mentor that showed Nathaniel the ropes 10 years ago when he was thinking about the lifestyle, and it’s really great to see a dom in one of these types of stories get a chastising and really see that it’s not something that you’re born knowing how to do – you actually have to have someone teach you the basics about how to be a good dom.  On top of everything else, that makes me like Nathaniel that much more.

So aside from all of that, we didn’t veer too much off of The Submissive, it’s only the last few chapters that really shape the story differently and set us up for a good finale in The Training.

There was a teaser of The Training at the end of the ARC that i read and i’m really looking forward to what’s to come.  i think that we see a big dynamic shift here, and we see that there’s going to be a bit of give and take, and both i think will be trained in some sense or another.

It’s Hot, and it’s Steamy and that’s one of the GREAT things that i’ve come to appreciate from Tara Sue Me.  Her scenes don’t disappoint, and i found that maybe i shouldn’t have been reading this and The Submissive on the Train while commuting since i felt like i was hiding a dark and dirty secret by reading this stuff and i felt my cheeks turn red (at least maybe i thought they were) because of the tone and verbiage that were used over and over again.

Here are my questions

1) what’s in store for Abby (Abigail) and Nathanlel?

2) will we continue the story with Jackson and Felicia?

3) Will melanie play a role at all in book 3?

4) who’s going to be trained and in what sense?

5) is there going to be some dark secret that comes out or some bit of angst or anxiety that makes the finale a tense one?

so, for those of you who weren’t lucky to get the pre-read, at least it’s less than 2 months until you’ll get to read it!