// Laura Kaye

She's always been off-limits...

Former Army Special Forces Sgt. Marco Vieri has never thought of Alyssa Scott as more than his best friend's little sister, but her return home changes that...and challenges him to keep his war-borne demons at bay. Marco's not the same person he was back when he protected Alyssa from her abusive father, and he's not about to let her see the mess he's become.

...but now she's all grown up.

When Alyssa takes a job at the bar where Marco works, her carefree smiles wreak havoc on his resolve to bury his feelings. How can he protect her when he can't stop thinking about her in his bed? But Alyssa's not looking for protection—not anymore. Now that she's back in his life, she’s determined to heal her forbidden hero, one touch at a time...

Dear Laura Kaye, please stop writing novels that keep me from going to bed at night.  I mean, I'm kind of a sucker for the damaged hero with a military past, but add in the best friend of her older brother?  Come on, that's just not fair.  Its like you have the list of my favorite tropes and you're ticking them off one by one...

As many of you know I don't read contemporary romance all that often.  However, you guys can thank Entangled Publishing (and more specifically their contemporary romance line 'Indulgence') for the recent wave of contemporary romance reading. (my fantasy books are calling for their blood, I placated them with chocolate since chocolate never exists in fantasy novels)

More seriously, Kaye wrote just the right amount of Damaged Soldier and Optimistic Cheerful Girl Who Heals With Love for me.  Yes he was a jerk.  Big time.  No his injuries and trauma did not excuse that and thank god no one said they did.  Alyssa may not have understood all his pain, but she didn't let that blind her to the fact he was not acting right.  On that token Marco was often the first one to internally beat himself up for being a jerk.

In a rare feat of introspection (at least as far as romance hero's are concerned lately) he understands that his actions are damaging to himself and to Alyssa, but he can't help himself.  His justification is usually either she's his best friend's younger sister or she deserves better (more often both at once), but he doesn't make excuses.

And this isn't say that Alyssa is Miss Perfect.  She's a nosy person, prone to thinking she can fix something without asking for help and lacking some vital common sense moments.  Due in large part to her past, which is mostly given in vague swaths of 'it was bad. really bad.', Alyssa wants to prove herself.  Not just to show Marco and Brady (her older brother, Marco's best friend) that she can do that, but to show to herself that she can.

The miscommunication trope is used quite a bit, but its largely easy to ignore because Kaye uses it to focus on problems they both face.  Marco is very believable as an injured (mentally and physically) veteran who feels useless now.  He starts to insist on taking care of Alyssa partly to assuage his own guilt at not being out on the battlefield like Brady and partly because he can't help himself.

The resolution is tense, though the revelations are a bit quick feeling.  I'm not sure how they got from the aftermath of the picnic to the ending quite so...easily, but by that pointI wanted the happy end for them both so I wasn't above letting it slide to achieve it.