Forbidden Fantasies

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Synopsis

Alex and Jessica Meyers have been married for fifteen years, and while they still love each other very much, their sex life has gotten a little stale. Jessica has discovered a hot new fantasy world inside the pages of erotic romance novels that fuels her imagination, but because of her sheltered upbringing, reading them and thinking about them during sex leaves her feeling guilty. Alex loves it when Jessica starts acting a little bolder in bed, but when she shuts down emotionally afterward, he's left wondering what's really going on. Soon his imagination is running wild with speculation, thinking that perhaps she's cheating on him. When the entire situation gets out of hand, Jessica finally confesses all her naughty fantasies, which heats things up even more, so Alex books them a weekend getaway at Bondage and Breakfast, a special B & B catering to people who are looking to take a walk on the wild side, to make all of Jessica's fantasies come true.

Review

Forbidden Fantasies is a short novella that is the first book in Jodie Griffin's Bondage & Breakfast series that has scenes that take place at a specialty Bed & Breakfast of the same name that caters to partners looking to spice up their sex lives. Alex and Jessica have been married for fifteen years, and while they still love each other very much, their sex life has become a bit routine. After Jessica discovers erotic romance novels, she starts to fantasize about what it might be like to do some of the things she's been reading about, but her sheltered upbringing makes it difficult for her to talk to Alex about it, worried of what he'll think. When Jessica becomes a bit wilder in bed, followed by emotionally shutting down, Alex starts to wonder what's really going on with her, thinking that she might be having an affair. After the situation gets out of hand, Jessica finally confesses her naughty fantasies, which leads to even hotter sex between them. Then Alex books an overnight getaway at Bondage & Breakfast, where he plans to make all of Jessica's dreams into a reality.

Being that this is a fairly short story, we don't learn as much about Alex and Jessica as we would if it was a longer book, but there's just enough for me to generally like them and find them to be pretty relatable. They married straight out of college and have been together for fifteen years, with two children. Things are still good between them, but perhaps not as good as they could be, or so Jessica realizes after reading her first erotic romance novel, something that quickly becomes a guilty pleasure. And when I say guilty, I mean that she feels really guilty for even liking some of the things she's reading about. This makes it all but impossible for her to talk to her husband about them, leaving her even more guilt-ridden and all but emotionally shutting down after a few slightly wilder sex sessions. This is where it would have been helpful to know about her background growing up with prudish parents a lot sooner, because it was difficult to understand why she was behaving that way at first. Once this came out, it made a little more sense, but after Alex and Jessica being together for as long as they have been, one might think that she'd know him better and trust him enough to be more honest. For his part, he starts thinking the worst, that she's having an affair and having wild sex with him to assuage her guilt. Again, I felt like he should have known her better and trusted her more. I'm happy to say that this improves a great deal after they finally come clean and start communicating. Then it becomes all about them reconnecting, experimenting, and revving up their sex life.

Forbidden Fantasies got off to a slightly slow start for me. I detected some passive storytelling (the dreaded telling not showing) and some info dumping in the first few chapters that was dropping it down into the three-star range. Then Jessica stubbornly refuses to tell Alex about her fantasies, which was a bit frustrating. Trust is everything to me, right up there equal with love for a successful relationship, so having both Jessica and Alex being distrustful of one another made me want to shake both of them. However, like I mentioned before, once they started really communicating, it was much better. I love how they discussed the books Jessica was reading and which things she'd read about that she'd genuinely like to try. I also loved how supportive Alex was. He never shames her in any way like she was expecting or rejects any of her ideas. In fact most of them turn him on, and he's eager to give them a try. It was great how he surprised her with the stay at Bondage & Breakfast, showing that he'd truly paid attention to the things that turned her on the most. Their love scenes, especially during the getaway, were hella hot and steamy, wrapping up the story in five-star territory. So I compromised with a four-star rating overall. This was my first read by Jodie Griffin, but it was certainly good enough to make me want to continue with the series.

Note: This book contains explicit language and sexual content, including mild domination, bondage, and spanking, mild voyeurism/exhibitionism, a scene involving discreet fingering in public, and anal sex, all of which could be objectionable to sensitive readers.

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Jodie Griffin

Themes

Babies & Children
Men in Uniform - Law Enforcement