boeklogboek: Kimberly Raye – Sometimes Naughty, Sometimes Nice

The second book in the Farrel Sisters series, published October 1, 2004.
Genre: contemporary romance
Cover: I like it.

SOMETIMES NAUGHTY
To Xandra Farrel, men are only good for procreation and pleasure-and sometimes they even need help with that. As proprietor of erotic aid manufacturer Wild Women, Inc., she's ready to launch her best product just as soon as she tests it out. Her subject: Beau Hollister, once the sexiest, most popular bad boy in high school, and the man responsible for the worst sexual experience of Xandra's life. If Xandra can have one mind-blowing night with Beau, the commercial success of her product is a sure thing.
SOMETIMES NICE
When Beau started his home renovation company, Hire-a-Hunk, being Xandra's boy toy was not what he had in mind, especially since he blew it way back when. Then Xandra turns up the heat and turns on the seduction. As wills clash and hearts collide, can unexpected love prove that being naughty is sometimes the nicest way a girl can have her Beau… and keep him too?

I was restacking some of my books yesterday, and my eye fell on this one, and after reading the blurb, I knew this was the book I was looking for to read right now. Something light and fun and sexy.

When in highschool, Xandra loved her life at home, helping her grandmother in the kitchen. Her mother is a famous expert on sexology and gives lectures all around the country. She is of the very strong opinion that marriage means slavery for a woman, and that women are superior to men. She has a kind of living-apart-together arrangement with the father of her children (and is certainly not married to him!) Their father is a busy college professor. So Xandra and her two sisters were basically raised by her grandmother.
Her highschool was torture though, as she was the fat girl. She never once had a boyfriend, but one time she got bold, and asked the local bad boy to the dance. Only, she did not ask him to the dance to dance with him, she wanted to get rid of her virginity. What she did not expect, thanks to his reputation, was the fact that it all would be over in 5 minutes, leaving her very unsatisfied.

Beau Hollister’s mother died when he was seven, leaving him to help his father raise his three younger brothers, and help out at his service station. This made the other kids look down on him, as he had to work before and after school. Beau did not have the time to sit in the local diner and drink cola. He was the one boy the mothers warned their daughters for, not to date. Which of course made them sneak around just to be with him. Xandra had always been nice to him, smiling at him, greeting him when her grandmother came to the service station for gas, so when she asked him for the dance, he accepted. And when she suggested they go parking instead of dancing, he happily obliged. Instead of the baggy clothes she usually wore at school, she was dressed in a black mini skirt and a top, and she was the hottest girl he had ever seen! Which made him so eager, he lost it in the back seat of the Impala, ruining everything. He could not stop thinking about her, making him flunk his tests that would have given him a full scholar ship to university. Now he only had a partial, which means he had to work his way through college. All because of her.

So meeting with her when she hired him and his company “Call a hunk”, was not something he was looking forward to. His company was on the brink of a major change, and he could not afford to be distracted by Xandra again. No matter how hot she looked, and how much she tried to seduce him. He would resist. He was not in the market for a relationship.
Well, neither was Xandra, she just wanted to test her newest invention on him. If it could make sex with someone who was so bad at it, special, she sure had a winner on her hands. But Beau just keeps resisting her, which was not doing good things for her self esteem at all. Perhaps she was getting old at 29, especially now that she has found a grey hair, down south …

I really loved this book a lot. It was exactly what I needed to read. It was fun, it was different and unexpected and sexy. The thing that made it special was of course Xandra’s mother and her beliefs, which she tries to impose on her daughters. I liked Xandra a lot, even though she is the owner of a very successful company that makes sex toys especially for women, and she tests everything out herself, she is not a loose woman. She just lost her boyfriend of 8 years, and that hurts, even though she was not in love with Brian. She found out how she had stopped being herself, just to please him, and now she wants her self back.
The secondary characters, her employees, added some fun and secondary romances to the story as well, I really enjoyed their interaction.
Beau is trapped in a life he doesn’t really want, but his sense of responsibility doesn’t let him quit. People are depended upon him. Until Xandra opens his eyes, and shows him how it could be. I liked him a lot, he is a good man. Even as he keeps refusing her, trying to scare her off without being a brute. Though the things he does to scare her of, are really rudely male, and would for sure make me end all things while on a date. Having him renovate her new house though, makes sure they keep meeting each other daily.

Xandra’s mother and her beliefs really made this story more original. Xandra tried to stay true to her mothers’ beliefs, but she envied her sister who just got married (to her mother’s horror!) and who is trying to get pregnant.

I enjoyed Kimberly Raye’s writing style. This is the first book I have read by this author, but it certainly won’t be the last. Her characters are very lifelike and loveable, I really read this book fast, and I love her sense of humor.
Now the bad news: After finishing the book, I immediately went to Bookdepository, to buy the other two books, but the prizes had me blink my eyes in surprise. Extremely expensive, to say the least. Amazon was just as expensive, and those are mass market paperbacks! Why? So, I’ll just have to find those two second hand, because I do want them.

9 stars.