SEXUAL HEALING

A classic Zane Presents novel with lots of steamy sex, complicated relationships, and over-the-top situations.

Gorgeous Arabia Knight is proud of her lifestyle as a "top shelf sidepiece trophy" of older, wealthy married men neglected by their wives. Typical of heroines written by Cairo (The Pleasure Zone, 2016) and Hobbs (No Boundaries, 2015), Arabia doesn't want love, just lust and money, and "happens to be a woman who is very comfortable in her skin, in her sexuality." So when she sees self-made millionaire Cruze Fontaine at a nightclub, she entices him with her sultry dancing, and they have a quick, hot coupling right then and there. Cruze is a playboy who doesn't get attached, yet he can't stop thinking about the mystery woman who gave him the orgasm of his life but not her name. When they do reconnect, Arabia and Cruze have a sweet rapport, even if it's usually in the midst of incredibly dirty talk and wild sex. The profane language throughout the novel will be an acquired taste for new readers. Cruze, a "young cat from the streets," is trying to rebuild his life on the right side of the law after running from a career in hustling back in Brooklyn. He owns HYPE, the Huntingdon’s Young People’s Enrichment Center, and coaches one of their basketball teams. Arabia’s materialistic and narcissistic personality overshadows Cruze’s more sedate one. She can be hard to take with her constant self-praise (she considers bottling and marketing her own "sweet nectar"), but her sisters and disparaging mother help bring her down to earth. Both Cruze and Arabia have multiple other sex partners, only sharing their feelings at the very end, which makes their sudden changes of heart a little dubious.

Little in the way of romance or plot, but readers who enjoy lots of raunchy sex with a confident and unapologetic female protagonist won't complain.