Review: gggrrrr . . . .deliciously naughty
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 5, 2013
A Vampire¡s Salvation by Virna DePaul(A Beyond Human Novella)Source: NetgalleyRating: 5/5 starsI guess I have to finally accept the clear and the obvious fact that I LOVE novellas and Virna DePaul¡s A Vampire¡s Salvation is no exception!  This quick, sexy, and suspenseful read had me hooked from the beginning and I only stopped reading when I got to the last page.Francesca (aka Frankie) Marie Stewart is a single-minded woman on a mission: continue to work long and relentless hours with the California governor to promote green initiatives.  For years, thanks to her lack of a social life, Frankie has been able to stick to her plan and has become an incredibly successful and trusted environmental activists and fund-raisers.  Frankie determined years ago, after a vicious attack by a trusted boyfriend that men generally aren¡t worth the time or the effort and for years this has protected the driven woman.  Then Jake Rios walked into her life.Jacob La Costa Rios is a formidable man who heads up the governor¡s security team.  Jake is stern, quiet, sinfully sexy, and absolutely committed ¡V body, heart, and soul ¡V to a few things: his job, his vampire initiative and, convincing the skittish Frankie Stewart that she is his one true mate.  Doing his job is easy, bringing vampires out of the darkness and into mainstream society will be a bit harder, and convincing Frankie of her role in his life, the hardest task of all.  As I said, Jake is committed to these tasks and unbeknownst to him, Frankie may be a little easier a task then he initially thought.From the beginning both Frankie and Jake are attracted to one another but are consummate professionals and refuse to compromise their professional standards.  That however does not mean they can¡t each secretly lust after the other during working hours, right?  Oh, so right!  Frankie is all but in heat over Jake and is even considering abandoning her self-imposed celibacy for a little rough and tumble with tall, dark, and sexy.  Luckily, Jake feels the same way and once the two express their shared desires for one another, there is no stopping the naughty.  After one mind-blowingly amazing night together, Frankie is ready to admit there is something more to Jake Rios and she is more than willing to go along for the ride.  Unfortunately, Frankie wakes up alone the morning after and with no contact from Jake, she is sure she has been used.  That is, until she discovers a nefarious plan that very nearly cost Jake his life and threatens her very existence.  You see, a ¡friend¡ from the past has returned to kill two birds with one stone.The suspense that surrounds Frankie and Jake¡s coming together only serves to enhance their budding relationship.  Threats and danger apparently make some folks very frisky.   Discovering the source of the threat to their lives and Jake¡s initiative becomes almost as important as sealing the bond between Frankie and Jake and everything moves at the speed of light though not so fast as to take away from the story.The Bottom Line: LOVED IT!!  I am a fan of one-true-mate kinds of stories and so I am OK with how fast and furiously the relationship between Frankie and Jake developed.  Jake is all kinds of beautiful and takes his responsibilities toward his mate and his race seriously which makes him even sexier.  Frankie is relatively calm, cool, and collected and even takes Jake¡s revelation of his nature in stride making her the perfect mate for him.  There is adequate time and pages to develop the characters, complete the short-term plot and leave just enough of a cliffhanger to let me know DePaul is so not done with this story of these characters.  YAY FOR ME!!!