Shayla Black, Delicious

Delicious

Shayla Black

Heat, Mar 2010, $15.00

ISBN: 9780425232422

In Lafayette, Louisiana, famous stripper Alyssa Devereux owns a popular strip joint, but is also is opening a restaurant. She has persuaded celebrity chef Luc Traverson to serve the first day meals.

Luc has doubts as he had the sexual time of his life with Alyssa three months ago, but fears a repeat performance as he still wants her. Alyssa shocks him with her business skills and her education. However, even more stunning she tells him he is the only man she slept with in several years and would like a repeat performance. She also wants to know what dark secret he hides form her as she senses he is concealing something personal. He is sterile, but wants children while feeling morally her lifestyle rules her out. When she is threatened by local activists, Luc defends her, but will he admit to himself and then to her he loves her?

The third Wicked Lovers heated romance (see Wicked Ties and Decadent) is a terrific tale of a man who keeps humming to himself I'm Not In Love (10 CC) because the adulation of his affection is a stripper. Alyssa proves to him and readers she is much more than a stereotyped stripper as her business acumen is superb; though that is two edged as it simplifies Luc's personal moral dilemma yet also makes the heroine wonderfully complex. Fans will enjoy this deep Bayou Wicked Lovers' saga as Luc loves Alyssa although she is not his the opposite of the image of his paragon mate.

Harriet Klausner