Review: So Smart, Romantic and Sexy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 30, 2014
After enjoying the glimpses of charming Mike O'Connor in both Rush Me and Imaginary Lines, I was pretty excited to read his book. I just knew I would continue to love the red-headed, Irish-American running back. I did, but Mike also surprised me with the man behind the smile and easy-going nature. Running Back turned out to be quite different than the other books in the series, but I enjoyed it.What really surprised me was how little the story revolves around Mike's team. This makes sense since it's the off-season and a huge part of the story involves the land Mike and his sisters inherit in Ireland. Land Natalie Sullivan wants to excavate in search of a rumored lost city. After a series of awkward, tense encounters about the excavation (a given, in this series), Natalie heads to Ireland in hopes of talking Mike into letting her team move forward with their plans.As Natalie comes to know the land and the people of the land, she begins to fall in love, not only with her dream of a lost city, but of this place, exactly as it is. She also begins to fall in love with Mike, in Ireland for his uncle's funeral and to reconnect with his family. Natalie's feelings do not go unrequited. In fact, Mike O'Connor falls even harder with the determined, brilliant Natalie. The two have (spoiler alert!) issues, to navigate while falling in love. Mike's involve his family's troubled, secret history, and how he's run away from the issues for so many years. Natalie's skeptical about love, knows two people can fall for each other, but believes it never lasts. This belief in the fleeting nature of love has lead Natalie to a life of wandering, running from true connections. Mike wants make her believe in their love, and to take the beautiful life that's within her grasp. Oh...I loved, loved the ending to Running Back, full of swoons and smiles.It's a struggle, Natalie's journey is very inward-focusing and what I love to see for women of her age in novels. Once again, we have a New York Leopard who knows who he want, what he wants. We have a young woman working her way through the world, looking for happiness and learning to see it, accept it.I'm so happy I finally gave this series a try. If you're looking for a sports romance series with players who are even bigger heroes off the field than on, New York Leopards will fill that spot.Favorite QuotesIf I pulled up just the smallest bit, if I pushed up on my toes... I kissed him. His mouth moved against mine with the ease of long familiarity, as though we’d been kissing for years, as though this was a kiss that had been and would always be part of who we were.I could have stayed there forever, with the wind, the waves, the sun, Mike’s lips moving against mine.He kissed me. His hands slid along my back, pressing me closer and his tongue met mine in a slow, perfect dance and I no longer cared what was right, who we were. Not tonight, with a dome of fast stars blazing far above us. Not here, on this portal into a different world, a different reality, one that was just us and warmth and beauty. I wanted to have him, for him to have me, to belong to each other here in this wild land on the edge of the world. So I packed my reasons for coming to Ireland away in a little box at the back of my mind, and when he lay down on the cold hard stone, I followed."Mike. Michael O’Connor. I love you. When I hold objects from thousands of years ago, I get this feeling, this glow that spreads through my chest and warms spots I didn’t know were cold, that makes me smile without realizing it—and it is nothing compared to how I feel around you."He lowered so his forehead rested against mine. In the shadows of our faces his eyes gleamed like amber. "You are not broken. You are not too much work. And I believe that we will be together until I die. I believe it enough for the both of us.""That's too heavy," I whispered."Then I will change your mind. I will stay with you, and love you, until you know that this is not going to change, that we will not fizzle, that we are every single chemical out there and that they are bound together so tightly that they will keep us warm."