When they were in college, Allie, Kitty, Wade and Cameron spent a lot of time at their writing professor's home. Now the professor is dead and he's left all four of them his house - with the stipulation they spend one month living there. Granted that sort of thing wouldn't hold up in court, but they're all tempted and can take the month away from their real lives to relive the past. Walking through the door also means finally addressing old baggage - most notable being that Allie is hopelessly, desperately in love with Wade. In college he spent all his time being "friends" with her while shagging every other girl within a 50 mile radius. Allie isn't the most sexually adventurous person on the planet (she's considered a bit of a prude) but she sees this month-long forced proximity experiment as her chance to finally get Wade to open his eyes and see her. Instead what she gets is an eyeful of Cameron. Turns out while she was pining for Wade, Cam was pining for her. Gee, what do you think is going to happen next?
I love Stein's voice, but her writing style does take some getting used to. She's a bit stream-of-consciousness and it usually takes me a chapter or so to really sink into her world-building. The plot here is a little on the thin side (it's never really explained to my satisfaction the professor's involvement in all of this), but if you're a sucker for house-party tropes, this one scratches that itch all while giving you debauched sexual shenanigans. Dude, how peanut-butter-and-chocolate can you get?
Yes, erotic writers need to write "good sex" - but the very best erotic writers excel at writing "longing." Stein pulls out all the stops here, especially with Cameron, who you practically bleed for on the page. I didn't know whether I wanted to lick him from head to toe, hug him or take him home to meet Mom. He's that delicious. There are some S&M elements at play here (Cam would be in the M role), but the author doesn't drop the reader exclusively and extensively into that "world." This is more like two people enjoying each other and finding out what flips their respective switches. Honestly with the proliferation of "lifestyle" and "sex club" stories, it's really nice to read about two people just having some fun and experimenting on their own. Because, you know, isn't that usually how this sort of thing plays out in real life, or is everybody a member of an exclusive BDSM club and they just haven't told me yet?
Naturally Wade and Kitty get in on the act, but even with two more partners added to the mix I never felt like the focus was taken away from the growing attraction between Cam and Allie. Yes, Wade and Kitty are fun - but at the end of the day, Cam and Allie need to man-up and admit what they have with each other.
I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending (I wanted more blood on the page), but it ends with a lovely happy-for-now and it's entirely believable, in my own imagination, that these two are going to make it. Cam certainly has some issues (he's not exactly emotionally open), but him and Allie together are better than him and Allie apart.
Final Grade = B
