Format read: ebook provided by the publisherFormats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Strangers on a Train
Length: 64 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Date Released: April 2, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
The last train of the night might just be the start of something good.
A Strangers on a Train Story
Stung ego or not, Caitlin’s relieved her fizzling relationship is over, even if she’s just been unceremoniously dumped between the copier and a dead ficus tree. At least she has an excuse to ditch the lousy office Christmas party in time to catch the last subway home…to her cat, and early-onset spinsterhood.
Instead of a lonely, chilly ride, she gets an unexpected holiday treat in the form of a nearly familiar face—a handsome stranger she encountered last week at the blood drive.
At the end of the line, neither can seem to let their chance meeting end—until their extended flirtation finds them facing the prospect of spending a frigid winter night locked in an unheated subway station. And they wonder if keeping each other warm is merely a delightful form of rebound therapy…or a memorable first of many more dates to come.
Warning: Contains dorky, harmless flirtation that heats up into some spicy, third-base action.
My Review:
Caitlyn and Mark meet, not across a crowded room, but across a crowded Red Cross donation center. They’re both giving platelets. There’s some rather adorable eye contact, but otherwise, they don’t communicate. Caitlyn resists temptation because she believes she’s still in a relationship.
Her supposed boyfriend dumps her at the office holiday party shortly thereafter. So much for the relationship. Of course she meets Mark again on the train going home. Sometimes there is a karmic reward for good behavior.
But in their mutual desire to get to know each other, Caitlyn and Mark linger much too long in the very-late night MBTA station, and it closes around them, locking them in. In late December. In Boston. Brrrr!
Of course they have to snuggle together to keep warm. All night. And if all that snuggling, not to mention the very mutual attraction thing they have going on, leads to more active ways to keep warm, well, neither of them is complaining.
As long as this turns out to be more than just a one-night phenomenon.
Escape Rating B: This should be squicky. Really. And it’s so not. Instead it ends up being a completely hot fantasy ride. I think because (thank goodness) they don’t do the nasty on what has to be the totally disgusting floor of the MBTA station. That’s what keeps it in the realms of an adorable fantasy making out session with more to come later and away from “hells no”.
Caitlyn and Mark are both very likeable. Their banter is sexy and sweet. I did find some of Caitlyn’s internal dialog a bit over-the-top, but I still liked her, and I was rooting for her to find her HEA with Mark. He seemed like a way, way better man than what’s-his-name who dumped her by the dead ficus.
