The Valentine’s Arrangement by Kelsie Leverich

ORDER A COPY: The Valentine’s Arrangement: (InterMix)

Publisher: Berkley Sensations
Publishing Date: January 31, 2013
eBook: 190 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Tattoo artist Ronnie Clark is counting the days until Valentine’s Day is over. Ronnie doesn’t do romance. She doesn’t do flowers or dates, and she sure as hell doesn’t do love–not anymore. After her fiance cheated on her while deployed, she has vowed never to fall in love again, especially with a soldier.

Sergeant First Class Kale Emerson is home on his mid-tour leave from Iraq, but he can’t wait to return to finish leading his soldiers on their mission. He’s got no time for a relationship…but casual sex, that’s a different story. And when he meets Ronnie, a snarky, gorgeous, take-no-prisoners kind of woman, a fast fling is all he can think about. But when Kale realizes he’s met his match with a bombshell woman who is hell bent against love, will just sex be enough? And will winning her over both body and soul be the toughest battle he ever fought?No description available.

Ronnie thought today would be just another day at the office, more hearts and name tattoos for the lovesick that she’ll just have to cover up in a few more months anyway, until a real life Captain America strolls in. When he flashed those intense baby blues at her, she felt the heat of his stare start to melt something insider her, but there was no way she was going there ever again. Her ex-fiance , was a soldier too, and she would never trust her vulnerable heart to a man who would cheat on her just because he was on the other side of the world. He was the first person who ever to make Ronnie feel like she was loved, that she was special, and his betrayal broke something in her that she didn’t want fixed.

Ronnie was certainly drawn to the handsome Kale and maybe it was time to get back on that horse. Kale was only home for a week before he would be deployed again, so why couldn’t they agree to just sex and when he left, they could go back to their separate lives.

Kale believed in love worth fighting for, a love worth committing to wholeheartedly. He just hadn’t found anyone he wanted to make that commitment to. So all the women he gets involved with understand that their time together it is just for now. Yet something about Ronnie and her sharp wit and prickly attitude reaches something deep inside him and he wants to know more about her. The harder Kale tries to get to know her, the more he realized that Ronnie might just be that one person worth fighting for even if he has to fight her first.

THOUGHTS:

I LOVED this story!

I like to choose the occasional story that I think is different from my usual reading so I don’t get stuck in a reading rut. I thought from the description that this was going to be one of those erotica/sex books but some inner voice kept telling me to request a copy. But anyway, I hoped that there would be enough of a story to at least keep it interesting. I was completely wrong about this story. It wasn’t a sex book, it was a wonderful romance. In fact, for a story about an arrangement for casual sex, there wasn’t much more sex than your average romance.

This was a great story of a woman from a broken home who moved around with her soldier fiance, her first love, until she found at that while he was deployed he was cheating on her. Now she is determined to keep her heart safe from love, and men and especially soldiers. And into her shop walks her very own Captain America and although he is gorgeous, she is keeping him at a distance.

Kale sees the woman underneath the cool exterior and wants what he sees. He has no interest in relationships because he has never found a woman he was interested enough in to make that commitment. He knows what the life of a soldier and separation does to the families at home as well as the soldiers themselves, and he doesn’t want to make that kind of commitment. He has no family so he has no one he misses back in the states. His life is just his soldiers.

Ronnie might just be the woman who makes him change his mind. Kale is of course the perfect man (it is a romance) who pushes at her boundaries, but knows how to back off before he pushes too much. He doesn’t break down her walls so much as creep around them. The chemistry between them is off the charts so Ronnie eventually makes the arrangement with him for casual sex, but nothing more, no dates, no flowers…but Kale is subtle in his attempts to bring more to the arrangement.

If you like romance, you really need to grab a copy of this story.

Received a copy from the publisher. Thank you.

Favorite Scene:

“I just want to get this done with.†She bit the words out to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Ronnie.†He whispered, and the way his lips caressed her name sent a shiver down her spine, one that she couldn’t ignore. One that didn’t just create a path of goose bumps down the center of her body, but one the raised a soft tickle between her legs.

“I need a break; I’ll be right back.†She stood up and walked out of the room needing to put some space between them. Ronnie headed for the back door that led to the alley where everyone at the shop took their hourly smoke breaks. She didn’t stop to grab her coat from the design room and the cold winter air zapped her heated body, bringing her down from the mental high she seemed to be on. Ronnie just stood there, breathing the biting air into her lungs, allowing the night to lull her. She never had such raw sexual tension with someone before. Maybe it was because she knew she couldn’t allow herself to give into him, or maybe it was because, for the first time since she was seventeen years old, she was allowing herself to think about being with another man.

Ronnie met Brandon, her fuck-face ex-fiancé, the end of her senior year of high school when he rode in on his motorcycle, whisking her away on the back of his bike with promises of forever, just like every other trailer park girl’s fairy-tale ending. Too bad Brandon came from the same neighborhood as Ronnie and his juvenile record and GED weren’t getting him into college anytime soon. Ronnie was barely able to pay her tuition at the community college for art classes.

Brandon was determined to make something of himself. He was determined to get the fuck out of that one-horse town and do something better with is life, to give Ronnie something better. She was swept away by the idea of it all, and she was in awe of Brandon’s ambition. The Army did him good, too. Six years in and he was a sergeant fast-tracking his way up the promotion ladder, but his roots grabbed hold of him and swung him back down to be like every other piece-of-shit man that grew up in her neighborhood. He fucked around on her and who knows if it was even the first time. The Army had separated them a lot over the past six years.

Good, that was what she needed: to be reminded just exactly why there was no way in hell she was getting involved with a soldier again, even if it was just for sex.

Ronnie took a deep breath and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to get the frozen blood in her veins moving again. She needed to stop being a fucking girl and get back in there to finish her job.

Ronnie pulled the heavy door open, her sweater covering her hand as she gripped the cold handle. The warm air of the shop stung her cheeks when she stepped inside. The moment the door shut behind her she was slammed against it, her back straightening against the pressure. Instantly a pair of hands gripped her waist and at the same time, a pair of lips closed in on hers. Ronnie didn’t have a second to process the chain of events that was taking place before her mind went into a dull fuzz as the blood left her brain and flowed quickly through her body, sending every nerve ending into a crazed sensation of complete pleasure.

Her eyes automatically closed, and her own hands reciprocated the touch and skimmed up the heavy bare chest that was pressing against her. She felt a shudder unfold beneath her fingertips, and it made her heart thud against her ribs. Kale was kissing her. No he wasn’t just kissing her, he was consuming her. He was touching her, and everything about the way his hands felt on her body was right, at least right now; and she decided to ignore the annoying angel still perched on her shoulder, giving in to the damn devil that was smirking in satisfaction.