Keeping Secrets from Sir by Nese Lane

While "hatchet man" Drew Chandler is both feared and revered in the boardroom, he is completely ruled by his need for submission in the bedroom. Dominance and pain give him that edge vital to his corporate success, but Sir has been unavailable and Drew's hold is slipping...

The D/s bond that Kane Devlin shares with Drew is the icing on the cake of their relationship. When problems at work force Kane to sacrifice time usually spent with his sexy sub, the loss of that connection becomes a source of frustration. His patience is tested further as Drew begins to keep secrets, but Kane plans to get to the bottom of things, from the top.

This book is going one that has a mixed rating for me. On one hand, the smut factor of the book was off the charts (as you will read later on in the review), but on the other hand, the storyline itself was a bit off to me personally. Overall the story was interesting, and I really felt like it could have been expanded upon a bit more than it was. At times, it felt like it was just a scene out of a full length book, instead of a story of its own.

But onto the smut! Holy wowzer! There are some scenes that do take place during the story that were just amazingly hot. If you are looking for a quick smutty read, then you should really check this one out! One thing about that that I did enjoy was there was one certain scene that you don’t really read about a lot in books. And taking that into fact, I think that the author did a great job writing it.

The characters themselves could have used a bit more development but for a smut read, I think it was done extremely well. There was some hints near the end of the book that made me think that there will be more from this couple in the future, and I can say that if that is the case, I will be sure to check them out when that happens.

If I was rating this book solely on the smut factor, it would be a 5 star read from me.

For the plot/storyline factor, it would be a 2 star read.

So my overall rating is a 3 star.

I had a difficult time connecting with this book and the two main characters involved.  It was clear from page one that Drew was the submissive in his relationship to Kane and he needed the pain and daily involvement with Kane to survive even his professional life. 

The story starts that Drew is not able to function because Kane had been busy with his job and hadn’t been with Drew for five weeks.  Instead of talking to Kane, Drew decided to be a brat submissive and take matters into his own hands.  When Kane walks in to find Drew satisfying himself, Kane was upset because Drew had blatantly broken the rules and now he must be punished. 

The rest of this short story was Kane trying to get Drew to tell him what was wrong.  With all of the punishment Kane gave, Drew soaked it in and continued to keep his secret from his Dom.  Finally after more breaking rules and punishments, Drew tells Kane he feels neglected and they end up making promises and having sex.

Okay, my biggest issue was who hasn’t felt this way in a relationship and since when do we go to such levels of being a brat to make our point?  While I could connect with the fact of feeling neglected while my spouse was working hard at his job, I couldn’t connect with trying to push him into making him do what he didn’t want to just so I could get some of his attention.  The two characters talked about communication a lot in this book, yet what I saw was Drew trying to push Kane into doing something Kane didn’t want to do, and Kane trying to up the punishment enough that Drew would stop enjoying the pain and start talking.  Just wasn’t my kind of story but the writing was well done and for a short story you were able to see the characters personalities.  It just felt more like a scene from a novel than a complete story.  I was left shaking my head wondering if this is how they handled all of their issues in the relationship. 

This is a seriously hot read. While the focus of this novelette is a scene between a sub (Drew) and his master (Kane), the author manages to provide enough information via the characters' thoughts and conversations with one another that the reader comes to quickly understand the dynamic of the relationship between these two men. This is not a "wham bam thank you man" sexual encounter, but rather an intense and very stimulating (fans self) scene between two men in a loving and committed relationship.

Ms. Lane has crafted a well written book and I look forward to reading more of her work ... a full-length novel about Drew and Kane would not be remiss (hint, hint).