Tropes: step brothers, forced proximity, roommates, camboying
Feels: 2/5
Steam*: 3/5
Kinks: voyeurism, exhibitionism, piercings
Angst: low
HEA: yes
Pairing: MM
Triggers/potential icks/content warnings: neglectful/abusive parents, eating disorder, socialization problems
Cheating between MCs: No
Any cheating: Their parents cheated on their spouses. But neither MC is a cheater
Other person drama: they had a random anger fueled hookup four years ago, and then Dex went off to college and they didn't really see each other much during those years. Dex is bi and hid his sexuality for a while at a Christian college, so he was mostly with women, and only did HJ/BJs with men. Asa is gay but leans aromantic/demi so he has only occasional HJ/BJ hook ups in the 4 years. Once they get together in the present, neither have thoughts of anyone else.
4 stars
Asa is 22. Dex is 23. They have been step brothers since they were 14 and 15 respectively. Their parents cheated on their partners with each other and got married and have had a bunch of kids. Neither of them have good parent figures amongst any of the parents and stepparents. Some of them are neglectful and verbally abusive.
They disliked each other growing up, but ended up having an angry hookup that was Asa's first time 4 years ago, and then they were nothing to each other as Dex went to college out of town. Now he's back to go to postgraduate school in town. Asa ends up renovicted and unable to afford another place. He asks Dex if he can stay with him until he can find a place. While staying there, Asa finds out that Dex is working as a camboy solo. Asa could really use the money, so he approaches Dex about collaborating, and they are really able to rake in the money together. They both are really hot for each other and as soon as they have an excuse to touch, they are really focused on each other and don't pay a lot of attention to the cameras.
There were a bunch of things that I liked about this book, but there were also a bunch of things that I didn't.
Things I liked:
- I liked the sexual tension between them, how attracted they were to each other, how different they felt about each other than anyone else. How much they enjoyed each other to such an extent that they were preoccupied and distracted by each other.
- I liked that the book mentioned some practicalities about doing cam work, like the legal process to prove you're above the age of consent. It was nice to have some realism.
- I liked when the characters slapped down the idea of misogyny and trashing women. Sometimes mm books villainize women, so that was refreshing.
- I liked that there was a progression of their feelings, that it wasn't just instalove.
- I liked Asa. I like a prickly character with hints of vulnerability like him.
Things I didn't like:
- I'm not a fan of when characters hook up and then years pass and then they get together. It's like their connection wasn't special enough for them to be together the first time. It's just not a vibe I enjoy. Btw, you can't even call this book a second chance romance, in my opinion because it was just a one time thing and you never even saw or heard much about that hook up, so it didn't even feel real.
- I didn't like that we didn't see a flashback or a moment at the beginning of their hookup four years ago. You never saw the POV of the characters and how they were feeling four years ago. So you couldn't feel that connection to the characters as they were back then, and you couldn't see any specialness to the feelings that they had for each other back then. It made what happened back then insignificant to their journey, an event, with no emotion. And maybe that was deliberate so that it didn't come off as an angsty break up or whatever that hurt the characters, but it just didn't give you a connection. It was empty.
- I thought it was a little much how Asa and Dex both said they never had sex with other guys. That they only did hand and mouth stuff with other guys. I'm a person who is in the camp that sex is sex in whatever form it is, so I hate when people say oh that didn't count as sex.
- There was a weird preoccupation with firsts. Besides the anal sex first that they shared, it was weird that Asa had never kissed anyone until he kissed Dex at 22, it just seemed weird that he wouldn't have kissed any of his hookups, like they wanted to just give another first to Dex. And it was weird that both Asa and Dex had never been on a date before, and they talked about having their first date together at 22/23. Asa I can kind of understand because he was on the ace spectrum and had very few hookups, he didn't people well. But Dex? He didn't take one of the women he was with on so much as a coffee date?! In trying to make what they have special, they made it seem like Dex treated his past partners like s***! LOL
- This book was slow burn when it came to emotions. The boys were really slow at recognizing that this was more than just sex. And they were really awkward about trying to bridge going from colleagues in the cam business to dating. And I guess it was realistic to some extent, and in character given who they were. But personally I like to see more feelings in a romance novel, and they only started to even consider feelings at the 75% mark. I feel like we missed out on a bunch of opportunities for affection!
Some notable moments:
I love that Asa is the type of person to do this. "“No, I didn’t keep crawling like a dumbass. I got up and followed him downstairs, only by the time I found him, he was standing there with a fire extinguisher in one hand and an apple in the other. The bastard put out the fire and had time to grab a snack before I’d even gotten my ass downstairs.”"
"I had no idea who moved first, but one second I was sitting on the couch, and the next I was on his lap, my legs on either side of his thighs as I straddled him. Dex’s hands gripped my waist and pulled me closer, and our chests pressed together. His body was warm and solid against mine. An embarrassingly loud moan escaped my lips as our mouths crashed together in a bruising kiss."
There was so much potential for emotion! I wish we'd gotten to experience more of it, I felt like the author didn't dive into the emotion of it. "The look in my eyes wasn’t just lust and desire. There was also affection, hunger, and what I could only describe as possession. I wasn’t looking at him like a fuck buddy or even a cam partner. That was how you looked at someone who was yours. Someone you didn’t just want, but someone you needed. This was bad."
"The silence between us stretched. “I have a confession.” “What is it?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate. “I haven’t really been looking all that hard for a place to live,” he mumbled, his eyes on his ring. “That’s good because I low-key don’t want you to move out.”"
*FYI about steam: I rate steam based on a combination of quality & quantity. I note kink separate from steam because I don't want to underrate steamy reads that don't have much kink.
**Note about spoilers: I like to comment on the plot of a book in reviews, so I almost always mark my reviews as containing spoilers. But I try to avoid spoiling the big dramatic moments! As a reader, I personally like to know what I'm getting into before I read a book so I know more about the content and if it's to my taste/mood, so I try to give that information in my reviews for myself when I'm considering rereading and also for other readers.