Review: YUMMM-EEEE
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 10, 2014
As a rule, I do not read a series out of order. Ever. Unbeknownst to me when I began reading, Staking His Claim, it  was the FIFTH book in the “Line of Duty” series. What?!?!?  In my orderly little book brain, that was almost sacriligeous. But, and a huge but here, this book does not read like the fifth in a series. It read like a stand alone, with the secondary characters there and not requiring any backstory. None at all.It made sense for Matt to do his best friend a huge favor by driving his younger sister, Lucy, and her BFF from school at Syracuse back into NYC.  Matt is the perfect, sexy, brooding ex-military sniper now working for the NYPD. At first I was put off a little by his immediate dominance of Lucy and her total, no questions asked, acceptance of it. A couple of hours from Syracuse, Matt’s car has a mechanical issue and they are forced to book a hotel room to wait on the needed part to arrive the next morning. By this point, Matt is so turned on by Lucy that he has go excuse himself to take matters in. *cough, cough* hand, so to speak. Just as he locks himself in the bathroom, he hears moaning noises from the bedroom. Catching Lucy watching porn pretty much erodes the last of his self control and he decides his best move at this point is to leave the room.Lucy put me off a bit by lying to Matt, telling him that she was actually her best friend, Sasha, and that Lucy had decided to run off with her boyfriend at the last minute. In my head, I knew where this story was ending, but the lying had me worrying about how it would get there.  It seemed to create a lot of extra angst that wasn’t needed. I did end up liking Lucy though.  I even cried with her at one point. As a recent graduate with a masters, she has job offers at a museum in NYC and one in Paris. She likes the idea of the NYC job so that she could be closer to her family, but after a heartbreaking moment, she decides to go to the Paris interview.  This leads to the sweetest, most romantic airport scene ever. Sniff, sniff. . .The sex was hot and Matt was dominant without going overboard. His dominance was relegated to bedroom only,  which I liked because the dominance stories that carry over from the bedroom with the heroine kneeling and calling the hero master totally put me off.I really enjoyed this story and have added the first books in this series to my wish list as well as recommending this to my fellow readers of hot, alpha sexiness.4 of 5 stars simply because I didn't like the initial lying.