ARC Review: Make Me Yours by Rebecca Brooks (Men Of Gold Mountain #4)

Title: Make Me Yours

          (Men Of Gold Mountain #4)

Author: Rebecca Brooks

Release Date: October 9, 2017 (ARC)

Publisher: Entangled Publishing ~ Brazen

Category: Contemporary Erotic Romance

Type: Digital

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Rebecca Brooks Website

Blurb:

Claire Collins has always been good—except when it comes to bad boys. Or one bad boy in particular: a tattooed musician as skilled with her body as he is with his guitar. But he wasn’t ready to be a father, so she left him to raise their daughter on her own. Only fate had other plans, and suddenly, Ryan is back in her life, disrupting everything. This time, though, she’s determined not to lose her heart…even if she still craves his touch.

Ryan Thomas never expects to see Claire again—especially not in a small mountain town in Washington on the last show of his comeback tour. But when the lights come on, there she is, more beautiful than ever. One incredible night with her won’t be enough… But he’ll have to prove he’s not the man he used to be, if he wants to keep her—and his family—for good.

Each book in the Men of Gold Mountain series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed out of order.
 

Series Order:
Book #1 Make Me Stay
Book #2 Make Me Beg
Book #3 Make Me Want
Book #4 Make Me Yours

Favorite Line(s):

“Everyone on this hall is going to know my name by the time I’m done with you . If we don’t get noise complaints, I’ll know I let you down.”  ~  Ryan

Dialogue Highlight:

“What have you got there?”he asked, unable to stop from being nosy—and from inhaling the sweet lavender scent of her skin while he was close. She didn’t answer. But she didn’t have to. Ryan saw the framed photograph on her desk and picked it up. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Another man, to be honest. That clean-cut guy she deserved. But it wasn’t a man.

It was a child. A girl, pumping her legs on a swing set. She had long, dark hair and an enormous grin that made her gray eyes squint. The credit card machine finally spat out the receipt, but neither of them moved.

He kept having to swallow as if something were clawing up his throat. Not vomit—not exactly. More like his entire heart.

She wasn’t saying anything. Why wasn’t she fucking saying anything?

“Claire.” He thought of himself as a pretty steady guy. He’d been through a lot, and he’d still come out the other side. But suddenly his voice was trembling, just like his hands.

“Her name is Maya,” Claire said, so quietly Ryan had to lean forward to hear her, relying on the edge of the desk to hold him before his legs gave out.

“She’s beautiful,” he said.

“I know.”

“She looks like you.”

Claire shook her head. “She has your eyes. Your hair. And definitely your temper.”

“My what?”

She smiled with a trace of sadness. “Don’t pretend you’re a saint.”

Yeah. She had him there.

“Claire,” he said again because that was all he could manage. She wasn’t telling him what he needed to know, what should have been obvious except he still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “She’s…mine?” he had to ask, even though it felt so stupid to utter the words.

“Christ, no,” Claire said, a sudden fierceness ripping through her, and Ryan stepped back, startled. Had he totally misunderstood?

But then she said, “You may be the father, Ryan. But that child is all mine.”

Just hearing the word father kicked his pulse into overdrive. Was she kidding? But nothing about her face, or her words, said this was any kind of joke.

He swallowed, heart pounding. This couldn’t be real.

But he looked at the photograph again, at that small, beaming girl with Claire’s smile, Claire’s joy, and something heavy and solid flipped over in his stomach. Or maybe it was he, himself, who’d been turned upside down.

“How could you not have told me?” he said, a million emotions crashing through him at once.

Her eyes widened in shock. “Are you kidding me? Of course I told you!”

Now he was even more confused. He ran a hand through his hair, trying not to totally freak out. Trying to think through what had happened. “You didn’t,” he insisted. “You just…left. I came home that day, and you were gone and I—”

“You didn’t come home,” Claire said. “You were there when I packed. You were just passed out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he genuinely meant it.

“At some point, you were puking.”

Fuck. “Also sorry.”

“After you walked out on me the night before.”

“Again, still sorry.”

“And when I asked you what we were going to do about the baby, you said—”

He winced and held up a hand. He shouldn’t have tried to revisit the past. He really didn’t want to hear what he’d done.

But Claire obviously wasn’t the same eager-to-please girl she used to be, because she kept right on going.

“You said, and I quote, Christ, Claire. Don’t you know I have a headache?”

He dropped his hand. “I said that?”

“It’s not the kind of thing a person forgets.”

Excerpt:

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.

If you are under the age of 18, please exit this site.

Ryan must have known exactly what she was thinking because he leaned even closer than they’d been before the waitress came. “I know what you want,”he said devilishly.

“Cheesecake?” Her voice practically squeaked.

“Nope.”

“Tiramisu?”

“I’ve always thought of that as such a tease. Sure, it’s got chocolate, but barely. Why waste time with all that foreplay?”

Oh, please. Claire leveled her gaze at him. “You don’t believe in foreplay?”

He reached over and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She could guess it was all over the place, no matter how hard Abbi had tried to tame it. She never should have given Ryan a chance to talk to her more. She never should have come. Now here they were, so close to each other, as though no time at all had passed.

“On the contrary,” he said, and then his voice dropped. “But that doesn’t mean every taste shouldn’t be the real deal.”

His eyes locked with hers, the gray darkened to the deep blue of a midnight ocean in the corner where they sat. Was he always like this, so impossible to resist?

She looked away, scanning the rest of the menu frantically, trying to come up with something other than what she obviously wanted. What he knew she wanted. What under any other circumstances, with any other person, she might even have let herself have.

“I think I’ll get the carrot cake,” she said lamely.

That grin again. His lips moved only a little, but his eyes shifted, the gray lightening. A flicker. A tease.

“Now, why are you so hell-bent on denying yourself? The Claire I knew was fed up with being good.”

“The Claire you knew was practically a kid.”

Dammit. She shouldn’t be bringing up the K-word.

But he only pressed his lips together. “So, is this Claire all grown up now?”

His question hung between them. Of course, she wanted to shout. All grown up with a mortgage, a business, an admittedly tiny retirement account—but hey, tiny was bigger than zero—and a five-year-old who made late nights, leftover pizza for breakfast, and twenty-four-hour Law and Order marathons feel like relics of the past. But no, because she was pretty sure that wasn’t what Ryan meant when he gave her that heavy-lidded look. It was clear Ryan Thomas was all grown up, too. The way he held her eyes wasn’t just panty-melting. It was full-blown incinerating. She was saved from combustion only by the return of the waitress just in time.

Ryan, true to his word, didn’t order a drink. And Claire, feeling awkward about it, declined as well. They settled on decaf coffee.

“Anything else?”the waitress asked.

Ryan looked to Claire, eyebrow raised expectantly, daring her to actually order the carrot cake if she was so determined to prove he didn’t know how to get to her.

But carrot cake wasn’t a dessert. It had carrots in it! It might as well be health food.

“One chocolate orgasm,” she said through gritted teeth, not letting herself look at him.

“That’s more like it,” Ryan said, sitting back with smug satisfaction when the waitress left.

“You win,” she said. “I don’t like foreplay, either.”

“You forget how much I know that’s not true.”

Review:

Claire Collins has finally made a life for herself. She had left college and moved to New York with her aspiring rock-star boyfriend, Ryan. But chasing the dream, finding some success, and wild partying took its toll. Claire was left alone a lot and Ryan became an alcoholic. When he was around, she was cleaning up his messes and finally she left – for good. Now that she’s got a business, and a home in a town she loves, she is finally content. But she still misses Ryan and lives with a constant reminder of him in their daughter. When he shows up for a concert in her town unexpectedly, she is blind-sided. And when he wants to meet his daughter, she wrestles with how to handle the situation. But Claire has another problem – Ryan has cleaned up and their electric attraction has only gotten stronger. But leopards can’t change their spots, can they?  While the idea of a life with Ryan is everything she’s ever dreamed, she isn’t sure he can be trusted – with her heart or their daughter’s heart.

Ryan Thomas screwed up his entire life. On the road to fame, he lost it all – including Claire. When he sees her in a crowd, he knows he has to make contact. He needs her to know he’s changed. He had no idea about their daughter and is completely floored at the idea of being a father, but he is determined to prove to Claire that he is worth the risk. But Ryan isn’t sure he’s ready to leave the rock-star life behind and a near-fatal mistake could cost him everything – again. He has to express his emotions to Claire, but he’s always failed at that so he turns to the only way he knows how to say the words he feels.

I absolutely loved this book! It was both realistic and raw. Ok – maybe the whole dating a rock star thing is not quite what people deal with on a daily basis – but the characters were deep and engaging. Claire is everything I would imagine a single-mom to be – struggling to maintain some semblance of balance in her everyday routine, pay the bills, keep up her business certifications, be a good mom to her daughter, be a good friend … you know. Life. I’ve dealt with some of that struggle and I felt like her reactions, while sometimes over the top, were relatively in line with a woman in her position. And Ryan? I absolutely loved him! He hits bottom and claws his way back up. He struggles to make amends with past wrongs, and is in uncharted territory with suddenly becoming a father. But I adored that, through it all, even after hurting one another and living apart for years, their love remained. I also really appreciated how, in the end, everything is stripped down to the basics and all that remains is love and how it is communicated.

This is book 4 in a series and I am definitely interested in the first 3 books now. All couples from the first books were mentioned within this book, but this book reads wonderfully as a standalone. Ms. Brooks creates characters that you can’t help but love and want to see flourish. She magically crafts a world in which the good and bad balance out and love prevails. And don’t think for a second that this story isn’t super sexy – the sinfully delicious interludes between Claire and Ryan are beyond hot with an undeniable sexual chemistry. The added bonus of depth of character within such a short space of pages is a masterful talent, executed perfectly by Ms. Brooks. If you are looking for a quick read, with tortured lead characters who have to battle back for their happy ever after, coated in some seriously hot sex, look no further. You have found it.

Kindle version provided by NetGalley/Entangled in exchange for an honest review.