I received ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
The Marine’s Temptation (The Adair Affairs) ♥♥♥

Synopsis

Carson is an ex-Marine who had to retire from his special forces team because of an injury. His father was recently murdered, so everyone assumes he will accept control for the family business. Carson has not decided what he wants to do yet.

Georgia’s stepmother Ruby was once married to Carson’s father. The marriage fell apart after their child (Carson’s half-brother) was kidnapped.

Georgia and Carson are trying to find out what happened to this child Carson never heard his father talk about. There is no doubt that Carson and Georgia are attracted to each other. Georgia is resistant because Carson’s family is so wealthy. Carson’s goal is to convince Georgia that money will not be a hindrance to their happiness.

Opinion

My absolute first thought: Can a cute rich guy take me on shopping trips and buy me lots of things?

Carson was the right mix of a down-to-earth, hunky, alpha male with a little wealth thrown in for good measure.

Truth be told, it took me a minute to figure out that Georgia and Carson were not blood relatives in any way. I first read Ruby was the mother and I totally skipped the crucial “step”. So then when I read that Carson was attracted to Georgia, I was like “Wait, wait.” I went back and re-read the first couple of pages to be clear who was who and how each person was related to the other. I would not have been able to enjoy the story if it was any icky-kissing-cousins type of thing. There are too many people in the world for people to date their cousins **getting off soapbox now**

Georgia is so anti-rich people. As far as she is concerned, they are the devil. Carson amused himself by pushing her buttons and buying her outrageously expensive gifts that she would be hard pressed to refuse. He was also trying to prove to her that wealth was not all bad.

Again I repeat, “Can a cute rich guy take me on shopping trips and buy me lots of things?”

 I thought that Georgia was too traumatized by a situation that she did not experience. The way she reacted to her attraction with Carson, you would have thought that she has been the one spurned by a wealthy lover in the past. I wanted her to give the relationship a chance since it was obvious that she was attracted to him.

Because there seemed to me that was a great deal of build up with all their sexual tension; I found it surprising that little page time was dedicated to the actual love scene. They started and then they were done.

That is not to say that I wanted explicit detail of what they did to each other when they got physical. I am just saying it was unexpected. I also did not anticipate all the suspense. Between the drive-by shootings, car bombing, and other dangerous happenings, I wondered if they were going to survive long enough to declare their love. The author packed a lot of nail-biting situations in a relatively short time period.

All the story’s action kept Georgia off balanced just enough that she had a hard time remembering her reasons why she had decided not to like him.  It was difficult for her to continue stonewalling him for being rich.

She wished he’d stop being a normal man, a normal sexy, hot man. 

“Why should seeing him armed with a gun be so erotic?”

Should you buy? Sure. If you are looking for a sweet romance with suspense and humor, this is a great choice. I was pleasantly surprised how the story unfolded. It exceeded my expectations because I did not expect the plot to be as complex as it was. Plus, there was not a lot of cursing or explicit love scenes.

I liked this book and I am looking forward to reading the next installment of this series.