Wild Man by Kristen Ashley

Title: Wild Man

Series: Dream Man 2

Author: Kristin Ashley

Genre: Contemporary

While filling her display case in her bakery, the bell over the door sounds and Tessa O’Hara looks up and sees the man of her dreams. Within thirty seconds he asks her out for a beer. Thirty seconds later, she says yes. But after four months of falling in love, she discovers he’s an undercover DEA Agent investigating the possibility she’s involved in her ex-husband’s drug business

Obviously Tess decides this means it’s over.

But DEA Agent Brock Lucas disagrees. A man on a mission who’s really committed to his job, he’s spent years in the underbelly of Denver with the dregs of society. And spending four months with Tess who’s as sweet as her cupcakes, he seriously enjoyed his job. But during Tess’s interrogation, Brock learns the devastating secret Tess is carrying and he’s determined to be the man who helps her heal as well as take her back as she walks on the wild side.

As wild and sweet mix, they face challenge after challenge of family struggling with history and terminal illness. Not to mention, Tess’s ex-husband, the drug lord and Brock’s ex-wife, who has a very big playbook are scheming to tear them apart.

But Brock Lucas has wild in him and once in his past on the trail of vengeance he let that wild loose, making a mistake that he would have no idea years later will put his sweet Tess in the position to pay his penance.

I have been hearing a lot about this series for a while and anyone who follows @JenniferRNN on twitter then you know for the last couple of weeks she has been tweeting her reads of this series so much so that I had to go into my netgalley account and get them. They then set there for awhile until I really needed something to read. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t waited, because I LOVED this book.

One of the things I really liked about this book was that the major conflict between Slim and Tess happens at the beginning of the book and not at the end where they have a quick resolution. It was really refreshing to have the conflict happen at the beginning and we get to see the result of the conflict and how they get past it and rebuild their relationship.

Brock “Slim” Lucas is NOT the typical hero I read. For one he’s older, and I normally don’t like my heroes in their forties. For another he is very brash and blunt. Which normally doesn’t work for me however in this book oh my does it work for me. He’s sexy as hell in his worn jeans, biker boots and old concert t-shirts. Add to that, the most important people in his life are first Tess, second his boys, and then his family. He loves to drop the Fbomb, he’s a cop, and he likes sex. A LOT. And the dirtier the better.

Tess I never really felt a connection with, probably because this was told in first person and I usually never connect with the heroine in these stories. I do however always fall in love with the hero because we see him, flaws and all from her perspective.

I do have to say that if all of the contemporary heroes I read this year are anything like Slim I’m going to count myself lucky to be a romance reader, because he is a lot to live up to. There was nothing I didn’t like about this book. If you are looking a hero who knows exactly who he is, why he is that way and knows what he wants then you can’t go wrong with this book.

While this is the second book in the series it can be read as a stand alone book just fine.

Grade A