Series: Hard Feelings #3
Author: Kelsie Leverich
Published: May 6, NAL Trade
Format:EGalley, courtesy of Penguin (Thank you!)
First Sergeant Rafe Murano did everything to the extreme. He trained harder, he fought harder, and, unfortunately, he loved harder. And falling for the wrong woman nearly destroyed him.
Home from a deployment, and without his missions to consume him, Murano is ravaged by memories of his heartbreak. So he drinks until he’s numb and drowns himself in meaningless one-night stands. But they only take the edge off…
Until he meets Fallon.
Haunted by her past, Fallon Kelly knows all too well about the desperate desire for an escape. So when she sees the tatted-up bad boy who’s one punch away from a ride in the back of a squad car, she offers a distraction—one that quickly becomes an addiction.
Little does she know, this bad boy can love so hard, it can break her…
Well well well, the third book in the Hard Feelings series, and it's definitely not losing any steam! I just realized there is a book 2.5, so I need to go hunt that down (Trevor's book!) But as someone who has read all 3 books, I can tell you each book is similar, but very different. You get that undercurrent that these are military men in love with strong women, but every story is a completely different setting and set of rules. If you like military romances, you should check out this series!
Fallon had been around the block a time or two in her short twenty-five years and had quickly learned that if she wanted to get anywhere in this cutthroat society we all lived in, she was going to have to grab society by the balls and tell it to go to hell.
Fallon is the heroine in Beautiful Distraction. She made a cameo in a previous book, I think. Don't quote me on that one. Either way, she was something else in this book. We learn a few facts about her, she's estranged from her family, she lives to dance, and she owns Velour, a burlesque club. There were a lot of things I liked about her, she was definitely a soft and feminine woman on the outside, but hard as nails and all business. She could handle her own. However, she had some walls built up due to things in her past. I could totally understand her walls, but sometimes I felt like they kept me, as the reader, out as well as men. I really loved the moments where she let it all down and just lived in the moment with Rafe.
And oh boy, let's talk me. Let's talk Rafe Murano. THUD. Yeah, that's my jaw hitting the floor. We've met Rafe before too, he was the guy in the other book that was kind of pitied because he was head over heels for a married woman. Well, by the time we get to Beautiful Distraction, he's dropped that woman, Bridgette. But now he is heartbroken and drowning his sorrows. Rafe is tough, military, freaking smoking hot, tattooed, scarred, and he smokes. And this is something I loved - a hero who smokes. It's not that smoking is a "thing" for me, but so many books are forced to be politically correct, I love that Kelsie Leverich adds this little aspect to Rafe. Rafe is a little bit rough around the edges, but trust me ladies - there are things that more than make up for it. The man is divine!
With one stride, he slammed his body to hers, pushing her against the hood of the Jeep, gripping her face between his hands, and forcing her to meet his eyes. "You feel that, babe?" he growled. "You feel the way your heart just crashed into your chest when you felt my body against you? Don't tell me you don't fucking want this! You can't tell me my hands on your body don't make you feel!"
So these two meet, they're drawn together. The only problem is that neither one is the relationship type, both Fallon and Rafe are love em and leave em type of lovers. And yep, they try fooling themselves that that's all that is going on when they get together. Next thing you know, there's sleepovers, family meetings, and not being able to get the other out of their own head. I totally enjoyed their whole story. Rafe is a stand up guy with a backbone made of steel, and Fallon is this independent woman who is going to take the world by storm. When the two of them get together it is full of chemistry and tension, and they positively light up the pages with their interactions. The heat.... oh, it's sooo good. Sure, they try to fight it, but it's so going to happen and I delighted in every moment waiting for the HEA.
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