Need Me

Nika has trained her body into a deadly weapon--the better to take what she wants from any world, especially the well-protected planet Belton. But the...more Nika has trained her body into a deadly weapon--the better to take what she wants from any world, especially the well-protected planet Belton. But the moment she sees Lt. Brendon Marshall, her weapon is turned against her. A man like him could incinerate a woman's priorities with one look. And since he's guarding the very object of her desire, it could be so simple to use him and never look back. As long as she can ignore a more intense pleasure than she's ever known--and a wilder need than she's ever imagined...

Brenden is a slut. He'll bed any willing woman he can get his hands on. And it's that fact that jump starts the book as the lieutenant gets caught screwing his superior officer while they're both on duty. So he gets his dumb ass demoted and *still* has not learned his lesson.

His saving grace though, aside from that he just amuses me (as well does his friends), is the same thing that melts me for every typical man out there. Once Brenden meets Nika, and she screws with his head a little bit, no other woman will do it for him. When he even tries to take another to get his mind off of Nika, the chick only disgusts him.

But don't get me wrong. The man is a slut.

Nika is a former love slave who found her freedom after the war ended two years ago. Since then she has been trained by a planet of women to be a warrior, and in this instance, a thief. She has been chosen to steal the sperm of the royalty of Brenden's planet.

Go ahead and lol.

And as fate would have it, there's a certain male slut that's been charged with guarding those ever so popular sperm.

Nika tickled me. She kept screwing up. First, she gives Brenden her real damn name although she has secured a very nice alias for herself then she goes on to curtsy like the whore she was, which announces to Brenden and his male superior that she was -being redundant- a whore.

And we're back to Brenden being a slut cuz when Nika is forced to flip the script (and yes, I just vocally said 'flip the script' and continued to type it) he does not back off despite the caution tingling his insides. Oh no. He's taking what he can get.

*sigh*

Around the middle of the book, Brenden starts to piece everything together which yes, took him entirely too long to do, but anyway.. it was so sad. With each part of the puzzle he was fitting together you could just feel bits of his heart breaking away. It was then that it actually dawned on me that Brenden needed be a slut. Crazy huh? Seriously. Most of the time it's just a fun little detail that just creates a more interesting character, but Brenden's history really brought every response he had to Nika's deception together. Also loved how he kept going back and forth between calling her Rebecca or Nika. He truly had no idea what to think. It all made him so human. So real. Really really real.

Snippets...

"I loathe you, Nika," he muttered brokenly, even as his grips loosened. "I hate what you've done to me and to the military. But especially to me."

"But why?" Ryder's tone sharpened. "What is she to you, besides just another woman you've bedded? Wait, I can answer that. She is a thief. A woman who used her body to seduce you and steal from the military."
Brenden shook his head, fighting the urge to resort to his inner child and cover his ears to stop the onslaught of bitter words.
"She betrayed you in one of the worst ways," Emmett continued. "And still you would try and protect her? To save her?"
"Yes."
Ryder's brows rose and he shook his head, looking genuinely confused. "But why?"
"Because I love her."

and for my sadistic side...

"You're even more beautiful," he (Leo) murmured, his face moving closer to hers, "when you have fear in your eyes."