Ten years ago, Dominic Walsh faked his own death. With no true identity, it wasn’t hard. But if he’d stayed, he would have been drawn further into a life he’d never chosen. He has friends and family at Ward Security now and has managed to escape his dark past. There is only one thing he truly wants.
Abraham Stephens.
When Dom was first tasked with watching over his friend’s father, he didn’t expect to fall so hard for the gorgeous silver fox. But Abe is interested in friendship only. He’s at a point in his life where he wants something permanent, not a romp with the sexy redhead who happens to be the same age as his son.
But Abe finds himself drawn deeper into Dom’s life when cryptic messages start appearing—ones that frighten the skilled security specialist. The more Dom tries to hide what’s happening, the more Abe wants to help him.
And maybe, just maybe, he’ll find a way to trust the strength of the bond Dom understood from the start.
Title: Sadistic Sherlock
Series: Ward Security Series #4
Author: Jocelynn Drake & Rinda Elliott
Publisher: Drake and Elliott Publishing, LLC
Release Date: September 28, 2018
Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 64k
Genre: Romance, Thriller/Suspense
Amazon
Abe Stephens set down his phone and pressed his forehead against the wall. He groaned long and loud. Flirting with danger seemed to be his M.O. more and more these days. It was getting too damn hard to resist Dominic Walsh. He was hands down one of the sexiest men he’d ever met. One chime from his phone and he was hurriedly pulling up the app, hoping it was Dom with his funny texts. Some of which left him feeling faintly sweaty and tempted to go back on his vow to start looking for someone who’d be interested in a more permanent arrangement rather than the wild, string-free fling he was sure Dom was looking for.
It was worse when they actually spoke.
Fuck, he loved Dom’s voice. Warm, scratchy, and always tinged with humor. The kind of voice that made him think of sweat pants Sundays, curled up on the couch in front of an action movie. Or low, gritty murmurs and moans of pleasure in a dark room.
As usual lately, whenever he let his mind go there, he lost track of anything else he was doing. He had a feeling that voice would sound so good in the dark, it would make him lose his mind. He blinked at the wall, desperate to swing his imagination away from that.
Why the hell had he agreed to go to Dom’s house? His home!
Abe snatched the towel off his shoulder and wiped at the sweat over his brow. The late-June heat was making the humid air thick. He began unplugging tools in his garage. If he was going to continue to work here, he should probably think about putting in air conditioning. He’d taken up creating hand-carved chairs as a hobby, then moved into whimsical window frames after a neighbor had commissioned one for his daughter’s eighth birthday. Nearly every parent who’d attended the little girl’s party had called to order more, and several had gone on to order chairs as well. Word had spread.
At this rate, he could quit the accounting he did part-time altogether.
Though that was his profession, he hadn’t truly enjoyed it since the financial world had gone to shit in 2008.
With his workshop put to rights, he walked through his house for a shower, telling himself with every step that he was just getting clean to be polite after sweating his ass off in his garage most of the day. He wasn’t hoping that Dom would put his hands on his clean skin. Or press his face into his clean neck. Or nibble his way along his jaw to his lips while sliding his hands down his chest to his…fuck, he was going to need to take care of something else while he was in the shower.
Still calling himself a liar forty minutes later, his headlights lit up the cute white brick house he’d been to only once before. The place had surprised him. He’d expected to find Dom in an apartment or an in-town rental. Instead, Dom had invested in an older fixer-upper with lots of personality. Just like the man himself.
Set back in the trees, the house offered privacy on the quaint, heavily wooded street in Mount Airy, not far from the Mount Airy Forest. Dom had told him he bought the place for the old brick-arched doorway leading to the deck and for the backyard full of trees.
Dom surprised him every time he saw him. He came off as a jokester, but there were layers to the man Abe ached to explore.
He parked in the driveway and sat another moment to mentally put up thick walls around his heart. Tonight, it would be more difficult than usual because Abe had a big birthday coming up. The dreaded five-oh. He’d been dealing with a lot of deep thoughts about his life and where it was going. With his son happily settled down, he felt like he was drifting, and he wasn’t sure why. He had everything he could possibly want. Happy son. A home. A fulfilling hobby. Steady income. What more could he possibly need?
His restlessness was at an all-time high, and Dom’s determination to move beyond friendship was starting to wear him down. Not that he was that resistant—he wasn’t—it was just…he couldn’t get why someone as insanely hot as Dominic Walsh wanted him so badly.
A lot of those deep thoughts lately had been the “What would naked with Dom be like?” kind…
It’s always so fun when a couple who are obviously attracted to each other in one book finally get their own book. Sadistic Sherlock is for Dom and Abe.
Abe is nearing 50 and although he always felt that he was bisexual he never got a chance to act on it. I don’t know if this is “officially” a trope, but I really like it. Because you still see the insecurities that the character feels, but you also get the excitement without him wondering why he is all of a sudden attracted to men.
Dom wants Abe bad but sees his hesitation, so he goes about it slowly. Becoming his friend. Texting, hanging out, until, FINALLY. Yes, finally.
The storyline also involves Dom’s twin brother finding him 10 years after he faked his own death. I don’t think we ever really found out how his brother found out that he hadn’t really died. It kind of sounds like he knew all along, but then why did he wait 10 years?
Anyway. This is a very fast paced book. There always seems to be a lot going on. And I really enjoy that. I like not having lulls in the book where I want to skip paragraphs or even pages.
Fixing the problem, as it were, seemed a bit far fetched- especially because it was Abe’s plan. The accountant. But, hey, whatever. It was still fun and exciting and I loved Abe and Dom together.
We do, of course get some Rowe and even some Noah. I miss the other guys though. But I also like that the authors don’t fall back on those characters to keep us interested.
4 pieces of eye candy
This one seemed so different than the others, but no less intense, and no less amazing. This one centers around Dom and Shane’s (who’s with Quinn) dad, Abe. Dom isn’t the broody, ill-tempered, confused BAMF that the rest of the guys at Ward seemed to be in their books, and I liked that. He’s funny, he laughs, and like the rest of them, he’s just an all around good guy.
He’s also had a crush on Shane’s dad for as long as he’d known the man. A little advice from the movie star he was working to protect had him realizing that he’d never get what he wanted unless he went after it…. So, he did… unfortunately, working for that same movie star is what had Dom in the limelight and called attention to a past that he went to great lengths to get away from. So, when that past comes back in the form of an identical twin psychopathic brother, Dom isn’t sure what to do, to keep Abe safe.
Here’s where my problems come in. Dude…you work for a BA, bodyguarding company. You ARE one of them… and yet, you don’t tell them when your psycho brother comes around threatening you and you hot daddy?? Why not??!! It’s literally ALL of your jobs… that didn’t make sense to me. I mean, I guess, I get it.. you didn’t want these people to know where you came from or whatever, but… not even Rowe, who knew the whole story? He just kind of ignored it, hoping it would go away or something, when he knew that it wouldn’t. I didn’t understand that part. It took well over half of the book for anyone to find out, and it was because of Abe, not Dom. It was already too late for him. Thank goodness Abe done something first!
Now, Abe… I loved Abe…having a son the same age as the guy he’d been crushing on, he thought maybe it was a mid-life crisis… That and the fact that Dom liked to play the field, he didn’t want to jump into his bisexuality with a guy who didn’t want the same thing he wanted…which was a relationship. Had he been paying attention, though, he’d have known that all Dom wanted was him…
Unfortunately, before all the cards were on the table, Dom’s brother showed up…
Y’all…this guy was a legit psycho…talkin’ about wolf packs and a crazy life of crime lol, he just didn’t seem all there for me. He spent the last decade doing whatever he wanted, not caring about the consequences…and honestly, I’m surprised he hadn’t gotten caught until the end, because he didn’t seem very smart to me. How he didn’t realize that he was being played at the end, was beyond me…but, meh, whatever worked. It all just seemed like a badly acted B rated movie, if I’m honest.
I of course, loved all the guys from Ward security… I’m so obsessed with this series, and all the guys in it; and I’m so glad we get another HEA…and aww, the expanding family with Lucas and Andrei… hope there’s more to that… I’d love it!
But, this one just wasn’t my favorite of them all so far, but I’ll definitely be waiting for more! Maybe even from Trent, or the awkward numbers guy, Daniel was his name?? I don’t remember… but, yeah… I’m all in for more!
4 pieces of eye candy from me
Who are Drake & Elliott?
Jocelynn Drake and Rinda Elliott have teamed up to combine their evil genius to create intense gay romantic suspense stories that have car chases, shoot outs, explosions, scorching hot love scenes, and tender, tear-jerking moments. Their first joint books are in the Unbreakable Bonds series.
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