Title:  Burn
Author: Maya Banks
Publisher/Year:  Penguin Group 8/6/13
Length:  368 Pages
Series: Breathless Trilogy #3

Overview

Ash, Jace, and Gabe: three of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country. They’re accustomed to getting anything they want. Anything at all. For Ash, it’s the woman who changes everything he’s ever known about dominance and desire…

When it comes to sex, Ash McIntyre has always explored his wilder side—extreme and uncompromising. He demands control. And he prefers women who want it like that. Even the women he’s shared with his best friend, Jace.

But Jace is involved with a woman he has no intention of sharing. And now even Gabe has settled into a relationship with a woman who gives him everything he needs, leaving Ash feeling restless and unfulfilled.

Then Ash meets Josie, who seems immune to his charms and his wealth. Intrigued, he begins a relentless pursuit, determined she won’t be the one who got away. He never imagined the one woman to tell him no would be the only woman who’d ever drive him to the edge of desire

My Thoughts

This is one of my favorite trilogies in the genre because or main doms are so different, yet their stories give us a great sense of being so intertwined and reliant on one another, and there’s such great anxiety and tension.  Maya Banks does a great job i think in bringing us women that are strong because of the way that they grew up yet sure of themselves enough to know that they can allow a man to take control and revel in it.

So this is the story that we’ve been waiting for – where Ash is the focus, and we get to see him on his own.  If you’ve read the first 2 books in the series you know that he and Jace used to be a packaged deal and they were infamous for their threesomes.  Then Bethany came along and Jace was smitten and completely in love.  leaving Ash feeling like he was on the outside, and that’s precisely where book 3 takes off.  We find him in a place where he’s feeling like his brothers/best friends are moving on from him for their women and he’s got no one for himself.  His control of everything seems to be slipping away and that is how he finds himself in a park, staring off into space in his own thoughts, when he spies Josie across the way, deep in thought as she’s drawing, that is until their gazes lock and things are changed for both.

From what we know of Ash, he always gets his way and he wants Josie.  Of course that means that he’ll use his power and money to find her, find out about her and make her his.  That’s what he does, and of course since we’ve seen the mistakes that both Gabe and Jace have made with their ladies, he’s going to make the same ones too.  Josie of course though comes from a complicated life as well, one that’s not so nice and tidy, and she herself is in a relationship (D/s) of sorts which complicates things more.  She’s not free to be with Ash, at least not yet.

So the journey that we go on with them is one where Ash feels the need to protect and own Josie, and she finds herself in a position where the timing is precisely right for that. of course things are never clean and simple, and they find themselves in a situation where trust is of the utmost importance, between them and those around them, someone gets beat up, and maimed, another person lands in the hospital, and you don’t know if there’s going to be a happy solution for anyone.

I loved that we got to see a lot more of Mia and Bethany and that they didn’t just fall by the wayside as their stories ended.  we also got to meat Brittany (Ash’s sister) and see the complicated dynamic of his family and how he’s afraid to trust that someone may have honest motives.

What i really loved and i’m worried that we’ll hear nothing more about is Brittany and Kai.  That’s a story that i’d love to get into more, and even Carol and Brandon (although that one doesn’t seem like a power trip like Kai and Britt).  I feel like Kai would fit in PERFECTLY with Gabe/Jace/Ash, so here’s to hoping that there will be another story to make this more than just a trilogy.

On top of a great plotline, there’s such heat and passion between these 2 (Ash and Josie) that you know what you’re going to get here.  Ash knows how to push Josie to her limits while tormenting both of them just the same.  It’s hot, it’s steamy and it’s perfect for this third installment.  Enjoy everyone, and make sure to keep the A/C on cause you’ll probably need it!