Cain Bonham is most definitely an alpha male, he works as the head security man for The Wicked Horse bar, as well as being a participant in sex fantasies in a sex club, The Silo, which is hush-hush, and affiliated to the bar. Cain also works at odd jobs; he needs money. At first, he appears quite shallow because it seems that only one thing holds his interest: sex. Sex, anytime, anywhere, with whomever, and never twice with the same person. Until the arrival of Sloane Preston. Sloane is a newspaper reporter, and she's been sent to check out a story about the possible involvement of Governor Hayes' daughter Callie in the sex club. When Sloan goes to The Wicked Horse and notices Cain, she is instantly attracted to him, and she makes sure he notices her. And does he ever! Sloane however tells him nothing about the reason she's in Jackson, Wyoming; she's undercover, she uses her mother's maiden name, she has a job in town. She plans to use him for her journalistic purposes, and he uses her for sex; they can't get enough of each other, but they never planned on things getting out of hand.

I don't know how Sawyer Bennett does it: Cain is the type of character I would not normally like: he's coarse, he could have been such a two-dimensional character; I almost wrote one-dimensional, being almost solely focused on sex, and yet I loved him. I loved how complex he really is; he is honest and true to his ideals, and loyal to those worthy of his trust. I should have hate Sloane: she lies to Cain from the get-go; she is educated, she does not belong in Cain's world, and yet she does.

WICKED LUST is an inordinately compelling book, and Ms. Bennett's superlative writing skills turn what could have been an unpleasant or preposterous story, as far as I'm concerned anyway, into one of the most fascinating reads in several months. There is, unsurprisingly, a lot of sex, in every way possible, everywhere, and those passages are insanely erotic. But Sawyer Bennett's characters are very authentic, flawed; they seem like living and breathing entities who just happen to exist in the context of a fictional world. The chapters of WICKED LUST alternate between Cain and Sloane's points of view, and the voices are so distinctive that you could open the book anywhere, read a sentence, and know exactly whose chapter it is. Regardless of how many books this series will comprise, I will read every one of them because the characters are so remarkable, I want to read all their stories. WICKED LUST is an outstanding book, and Sawyer Bennett can make anything work!

Book Summary