“You’re the only one I want to control. The only one whose submission I want, need, and crave with every part of me, every second of every day.” – Christa Tomlinson
Author: Christa Tomlinson
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages/Word Count: 426 Pages
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb: Sergeant Logan Pierce: Head of Houston’s elite SWAT team. He leads his squad with cool efficiency, taking down rough criminals while keeping his team safe. But behind closed doors he sets a darker part of himself free. He’s a Dominant in the world of Bondage and Domination. As a Dom, he’s controlled many submissives, but never had one for his own. That’s because there’s only one man he wants: Corporal Clay Foster.
Corporal Clay Foster: Highly trained SWAT officer. He’s always the first one to face the dangerous situations of their job. Over the years he’d noticed his Sergeant’s secretly admiring glances and suspected his attraction. One night, with one kiss, he’s proven correct. Clay dives headlong into the rough passion of BDSM that Logan introduces him to. He submits to Logan’s control, accepting the sweet shackles that bind him to his Sergeant. But secrets, both his and Logan’s, force him to leave the newfound safety of his Dom’s arms.
Logan refuses to let go of what he’s wanted for so long, Clay as his own, proudly wearing his collar. Clay wants to be his. He knows it and Clay knows it too. Can Logan safely guide Clay through the obstacles that separate them until he can claim his submissive once more?
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Review: This is the first book I have read by Christa Tomlinson, and I hope there are many more in my future. This author knows how to write sex scenes between two men that make a woman run for her BoB. I am not ashamed to admit that The Sergeant, both the book and the character for which it is named, are super nuclear hot. The book gets bonus points for having a good story and other likeable characters.
Sergeant Logan Pierce is the cool, calm and collected head of Houston’s SWAT team. Which is funny because last week I read another book about another Houston SWAT team with a different leader. Go fiction! Logan is also a Dom. He has had many submissives over his career as a Dom, but never one that he claimed for his own. Never one that he wanted to collar. Over the years, he has come to know and admire Corporal Clay Foster as a police officer and a man. He has also developed a deep hunger to Dominate him, even to claim him for himself.
Clay knows nothing about the world of BDSM, including the fact that his Sergeant, the man he lusts after, is involved in it. Clay has noticed Logan watching him with heat in his eyes, and he returns that heat. He dives into the unknown depths of BDSM without a backward glance. Before you know it, the pages have burned your fingerprints off, and Logan and Clay are a committed, collared D/s couple. Of course, that was too easy.
The happiness and security Clay feels as Logan’s sub fairly radiate off the pages of this great book. The loss he feels when he has to take off Logan’s collar to go to work literally made me cry. He felt adrift and lost without that weight around his neck constantly reminding him of Logan’s love for and care of him. When submitting so quickly looks to Clay to have been a mistake, both men realize that they have kept too much from one another to make this relationship work. Its foundation is flawed. Not built on lies, but on half-truths, it isn’t strong enough to support a vanilla relationship, let alone one requiring so much trust.
Logan has a long time best friend on the force who is also a Dom and whose partner and collared sub is a police officer as well. Clay is surprised when he finds allies in both members of this couple. He needs to learn all about D/s from the bottom up (joke not intended, but tee hee none-the-less). He is fortunate enough to have another sub to share his insecurities with and another Dom to ask about his possible limitations. Logan is the one he really needs to share these things with, though.
As these two strong men try to find their way back to one another, it breaks the reader’s heart. They struggle to overcome their secrets and pasts and put it all out there for each other. They are so sad when apart. Ms. Tomlinson is able to translate their every moment of torment into words for us to savor, as we hope they are each able to be what the other needs. They still have to work SWAT together, so it isn’t as if they can just spend some time apart until they work out their issues.
Sometimes fictional couples in this situation are written in such a way that they easily get through the black period (time apart in every romance novel) and find a common bond in the end. Logan and Clay are not written that way. They had it easy in the beginning. Now they have to fight tooth and nail for it. Their longing is palpable and extremely well written. They are pitifully sad and lonely apart. It is with an accelerated heartbeat that the end of the book approaches so you can find out if they were able to come through their black period together or apart.
I recommend that you storm the bookstore in search of The Sergeant.