Just This Once
King Family, Book #1
By Lena Hendrix
ISBN# 9798321588116
Author’s Website: https://www.lenahendrix.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
After things fell apart with her ex, Emily moved to the small town where her mom and stepdad live. She’s taken a long-term substitute teacher job in the junior high that she hopes can turn into a permanent position. And, her mom keeps setting her up on horrible blind dates.
After escaping one of those terrible blind dates, on Valentine’s Day, she encounters a sexy man while drowning her sorrows in chocolate in the middle of the grocery store floor. Whip offers to take her out on an impromptu date, and she throws caution to the wind and says yes. He can’t be worse than the date she was just on, after all. He shows her one of the local haunts where the well-known King/Sullivan feud is obvious. The two families each have their own side of the bar and will not venture to the other. Emily has a blast with Whip and she ends up at his place. Things are going great until she sees his fireman’s uniform hanging in his closet. Firemen are adrenaline junkies and can never be trusted to be in serious relationships. Not to mention, her stepdad is the fire chief in Outtatowner. He’s Whip’s boss. Emily booked it out of there as fast as she could, leaving Whip wondering what he had done wrong.
Of course, being in a small town the two continue to run into each other. Once Whip realizes that Emily is the chief’s daughter, he agrees that they can’t see each other anymore. However, it doesn’t stop the cravings the two of them have for one another.
“I was calling your name, but it looked like you were in a different world.”
Yes. A world in which I was pinned beneath Whip King as he drove into me over and over with that glorious bedazzled cock. ”
Eventually the two find themselves in a secret romance. But what will happen when the chief (and the town) finds out what Emily and Whip have been hiding?
This is honestly a pretty vanilla romance compared to most of the stuff I usually read. It’s sweet and a bit predictable, but was a nice read anyway. Whip has a fun sense of humor that he brought out on occasion. He was just a sweet guy all around. The full package: sexy, funny, a hero fireman, and loyal. Although I did expect him to be more of an alpha, he was pretty tame.
The family feud between the Kings and Sullivans was interesting. We got to see Whip’s devious side with the pranks he’d play against the Sullivans.
I thought Emily was quick to give up on them when things didn’t go her way. I felt bad for Whip. Of course, in typical romance novel fashion, they were able to figure it all out.
“How did I make you feel?”
His jaw ticked and my heart rate spiked. “Like I’d burn down my entire world just to have you.”
I’m hoping to see more of this couple, if I decide to read any more of this series. I was curious if there will be a Sullivan series as well. You need to have both sides of the feud covered, after all. But apparently there already is a Sullivan series, so I suppose this is the spin-off.
