The First Real Thing by Cat Grant
This book was a little surprise since I’m not used to find pretty much classical romance in the Ellora’s Cave offer, erotica plenty, don’t get me wrong, but erotica not always equal to romance.
Moreover The First Real Thing is also a classical theme, the hustler who fall in love of his/her customer. What probably gave me the nicer contrast it was the cold and detached description of Cameron’s life as whore and instead the sweet romance of his relationship with Trevor. And in a way it’s better that the description of Cameron’s life as a whore is cold and detached, than dirty and down, otherwise there would be too much distance between the two side of Cameron, the whore and the lover, and it would be impossible for him to concile them.
The first encounter between Cameron and Trevor was a mistake, and so Trevor doesn’t know that Cameron is a whore; by the way, as Cameron himself will say, he doesn’t look as a whore, he is average handsome, very much elegant and discreet; he gathers to an expensive clientele, and he is proud of it. Cameron’s life as a high paied rent boy is not that bad, but for sure it’s a bit cold; when he, accidentally, has the chance to experiment what it means having a boyfriend and a steady relationship, he re-evaluate all his life.
When Cameron was young he liked sex, as probably many other guys that age; he was not interested in a long-term relationship, he was only interested in getting off and having fun; when money got short, becoming a rent boy was an easy and fast solution. Cameron is not dumb, and he was enough clever to understand the do and don’t of the profession. But at almost 30 years old, Cameron is also clever enough to understand that his career is reaching to final point. Now I’m not sure that Cameron falling in love with a nice man is strictly related to the fact that he, in any case, couldn’t continue for all his life with his chosen career, but for sure it was a good coincidence that those events matched.
Even if older, Trevor is not more experienced, on the contrary he is pretty naïve; he has no idea that Cameron is a rent boy, and when he wonders on Cameron’s lifestyle, he is smitten enough to believe to the tale of a wealthy family. Probably Trevor, who was in the closet for 16 years, married and with a son, is still astonished by the fact that an handsome man like Cameron picked him up in a bar, and not only that, Cameron also agreed to meet again; Trevor is enjoying the ride until it lasts, and when things get serious, he is too blinded by happiness. Trevor basically is a nice man, as they don’t exist today, and probably in his naivite he is the only man who can really accept Cameron and his past.
As I said the story is a really good romance, made of nice dinners, sweet kisses, and yes, also some hot sex scenes, but they are not so much, or too much, to ruin the overall feeling of romanticism.
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Amazon Kindle: The First Real Thing
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