Hurt Me So Good by Joely Sue Burkhart
The Connaghers Series
(Book #2)
Kindle Edition: 274 pages
Published: October 5th, 2010 by Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Erotica, BDSM, Adult Fiction, Erotic Romance, Contemporary Romance
Kindle Version ~ Kobo ~ B&N ~ Goodreads
Synopsis (From Goodreads)
One sub to please the Master…in any way he wishes.
Victor Connagher is no stranger to the Dallas BDSM scene. As CEO of a risqué cable channel that caters to adventurous adults, he ensures the lifestyle is portrayed in a positive light. He even supports a local bondage club. Yet behind the cool, confident mask, Victor lives in fear.
Once, and only once, he lost control of his inner Dom—and it cost him his fiancée. Now, no one knows how hard he works to keep his darker appetite for pain buried. No matter how much his saucy, confident associate producer makes his fingers itch to once again take up his riding crop.
Shiloh Holmes is a sub, but she’s no doormat. She’s always suspected Victor has the skills to feed her insatiable need for pain, and now she’s found the perfect way to crack his formidable control. Develop a new reality show, America’s Next Top sub…and dare him to compete.
Week after week, as Shiloh fearlessly challenges the real Victor to come out of hiding, he realizes his past mistake was only a blow to his pride. If he loses Shiloh, he could lose his heart.
Warning: Explicit sex, BDSM, reality television, a very reluctant Dom, an audacious sub willing to do anything to win for him, and one very wicked riding crop.
My thoughts on Hurt Me So Good
WARNING: This have spoilers. You’ve been warned.
Shiloh has been wanting to get Victor’s attention for a long time. She wants him badly, so bad in fact that she started a blog writing her dirty thoughts about the Dom she was so interested in and what she wanted him to do to her.
Her last attempt to get his attention was pitching an idea to get more income into the TV network he owned. A reality TV show that portrayed Dom’s looking for the best submissive and earning the tittle of TOP sub with the TOP Master leading them.
Shiloh and Victor got into the show for the first season. She being a pain sub/masochist was perfectly paired with Victor, who is a sadist. Can you see how this is going to go through all the story? You may think a romance between a sadist and a masochist will be too strange and you won’t enjoy it. You may be right.
This is NOT for those that can’t tolerate pain and sex mixed together *serious face* I mean it.
We are not talking about regular punishment here. We are talking about pure pain for the mere fact that the protagonist needs the pain. She can get off with it, yes, but not all the time is because of the sexual release that Shiloh needs the pain.
You will see Shiloh taking the pain dished by somebody else, another Dom, not the man she loves, and she can take it but she doesn’t feel any sexual pleasure from it. It’s not until his love, Victor, touches her that she feels pleasure and gets aroused from the pain she receives.
Victor has a problem with what he does to the woman he loves because something that happened in his past. He can’t get his head around the fact that he wants to hurt Shiloh. He loves her, and he thinks he shouldn’t want to hurt her. The thing that he needs to understand is that she needs him to do that to her, she needs him to release what only the pain can release for her. And she wants to feel his crop because she also know it’s a relief for him. But most importantly, she loves him and trust him to the point of putting her body into his hands and she feels safe knowing he will take care of her.
I can’t explain it to you because I’m not into pain, but this story got me understanding the sadists and masochist a little more. Even when I know this is nothing more than fiction, it still helped me understand some of the fundamental things I couldn’t wrap my head around before. Like the relationship between this kind of couple and why they needed what they needed from each other.
For me, pain is pain, and pain is not good. As a matter of fact, I always said to the doctor that I’m a cry baby when something hurts, and it’s true. I won’t relate directly with the story, ever, because I won’t seek pain for pleasure, not even out of curiosity *laughs* but I can admit that I felt the underline message that the characters wanted to let us know, as readers.
Seeing characters like Shiloh and Victor, and knowing there are people out there that can relate more directly to them I feel like this book was incredibly well done. The before, the act itself and the aftercare was there when the scenes ended. That for me, knowing as little about the D/S and BDSM world as I think I know, it’s vital in a story like this where the body will actually hurt or even bleed if done in certain ways.
Finishing this book I was in awe of the writing and the story itself, but mostly I was dumb struck about how I felt about the people out there living like the characters in the story in some ways.
I end up feeling a bone deep respect for the people who live the BDSM live style and are into sadism or masochism after reading this book. I won’t want to experience what they do with pain but I can respect them more.
There are risks in a story like this one. Great risks but damn if the author didn’t make it look good and hot and sexy as hell *sassy grin*
Rating
FYI... I’m drunk on Joely Sue Burkhart stories right now…
Joely Sue Burkhart has always loved heroes who hide behind a mask, the darker and more dangerous the better. Whether cool, sophisticated billionaire, brutal bloodthirsty assassin, or simply a man tortured by his own needs, they all wear masks to protect themselves. Once they finally give you a peek into the passionate, twisted secrets they’re hiding, they always fall hard and fast. Dare to look beneath the mask with delicious BDSM in a wide variety of genres with Joely on her website, www.joelysueburkhart.com.
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