Title: Free Me
Author:  Laurelin Paige
Publisher/Year:  Paige Press 8/13/19
Length:  270 Pages
Series: The Found Duet #1

Overview

I wasn’t supposed to be working the night I met JC.

Before him, I’d been content with the daily grind, managing one of NYC’s top nightclubs. So what if my life didn’t have a happily ever after? I didn’t believe in that anyway.

Then JC showed up.

Sexy, rich and smooth-talking, JC is nothing more than a distraction. I’m not interested in a night-in-shining latex so it’s easy to push the playboy away. Or it is until my life spins unexpectedly out-of-control. Then he’s there for me, offering a new method of survival, one based on following primal urges and desires that requires me to abandon my constant need for control.

His no-strings-attached lessons obliterate my carefully built walls. And as I discover freedom, I start to feel things for him that I shouldn’t. Things that make me fear for my newly vulnerable heart. Because JC has secrets of his own, and his secrets don’t want to set him free.

My Thoughts

I love how i’ve read so many stories around the world of Pierce an Edward and Celia and Alayna – now to find the story about Gwen. There’s so much that we learn about her that really surprises me and makes me wonder why I didn’t realize things before.

The story of Gwen is a hard one to swallow. She’s had a rough life with her father abusing her and her siblings, even more so once their mother passed away and as a result, she’s become hard and tough. Reserved and guarded. They ultimately put their dad in jail for what he’s done and life changes.Her older sister took over as guardian until she was old enough and as a result, she’s had this reliable example to take from. That older sibling is non other than Norma – the CFO at Hudson Pierce’s company. The salary that he pays her gives them more than enough money so that Norma can support them in a luxury high rise apartment and even send money to their younger brother Ben who lives in LA.

The journey here is watching Gwen go through the motions at a job that she actually loves as a manager at one of the most successful clubs in NYC. It’s only when she picks up a shift for someone else that she finds herself at a point of tension where her nature as a rule follower crosses paths with the sexiest man who is NOT a rule follower. that man….JC.

The chemistry that we watch rolling off them is intense and it’s a battle of wills to see when they actually take the steps towards one another. The arrangement that they come to is something that’s a bit unorthodox, but it works for them. JC wants to help Gwen relax, get out of her comfort zone and loosen up, and at the same time he gets to spend time with a woman that he’s so attracted and drawn to that it’s a win win.

We watch them make this no attachment situation work with their unique schedules and we see what always happens – the notion of no emotions and no relationship always backfires. It’s when there are too many secrets to keep hidden, that things start to crumble. They developed feelings for each other and that means that issues from their past will bubble up. All that JC is hiding (and it seems like a lot) will come to the surface and Gwen’s past comes to her present in the form of her father.

We are left at a point in the story where they are bonded and committed to each other but there are intense an unsafe factors at play that will keep them apart. Gwen chooses herself and walks away, takes steps to change her life, knowing that it means that JC won’t be able to find out. so, what that means for us is that we get to watch what happens with his life, watch to see if he sorts things out and then watch his attempts to track her down. I can’t wait to dive in right now to see how it ends up. Enjoy!