Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Blog Tour: Bounty by Kristen Ashley







Justice Lonesome has enjoyed a life of bounty.
Even so, she’s inherited the curse of the Lonesome. A poet’s soul. Which means she’s still searching for something. Searching for peace. Searching for the less…that’s more.
And when the foundation of her life is pulled out from under her, grieving, she goes to the mountains to find her oasis. She hits Carnal, Colorado and decides to stay.
Deke Hightower lost everything at the age of two. He lost it again at fifteen. His life has not been about bounty. It’s been about learning to live with less, because there’s no way to get more.  
Deke’s also watched all his friends go down to the women who gave them what they needed. He wants that for himself. But he knows that search isn’t going to be easy because he’s a rider. His home is the road. That’s the only place he can breathe. And the woman who takes her place at his side has to do it sitting on the back of his bike.
When Deke meets Justice, he knows she’s not that woman. She’s cute. She’s sweet. And she’s into him, but she’s got it all and Deke knows he won’t fit into that. So he holds her at arm’s length. Establishes boundaries. And Justice will take it because she wants Deke any way he’ll let her have him.
But when Justice finds herself a pawn in a dangerous game, Deke makes a decision.

When he does, he has no idea he’s just opened himself up to bounty.






3 Stars
Review by Jen Hagen

Justice Lonesome comes from a family of musicians. She is 34-years-old and although she has everything she could ever want and plenty of money in the bank to boot, she still searches for the thing that money cannot buy – the solitude one can find in being carefree happy. Justice met Deke 7 years ago but their planned hook up never happened. It is by pure fate that she is placed in Deke’s path once again, but this time she takes a severe blow to her ego. What burns more about the nonchalant introduction is Justice wrote a gold record song about the first time she met Deke. 

God, he didn’t only not remember me, he had no interest in me. 

Deke is part of the Colorado Mountain Men series and he is a nomad. He has an airstream camper that he hooks up and departs when the time feels right. He’s returned to the Carnal area to make some money before setting off again into the unknown. Deke doesn’t require a lot of frivolous things in life. He learned at a young age not to ask for anything because he wouldn’t get it. He was too busy helping his mother make ends meet to think about material things. It should be noted that it was fault that his mom lost her job (damn teenage boys and their hormones!).

Deke and Justice have a work relationship – and that’s as far as it’s going to go – at least according to Deke. He will not cross any lines drawn in the sand…he is strictly a professional in the construction business…he doesn’t have time for women…a woman doesn’t fit his freestyle life, etc. etc. You can pretty much fill in the blanks as to any excuse Deke will use to keep Justice at arm’s length. But eventually he starts to see her as somebody he cares for…of course there has to be a danger to the heroine for him to see this. Nothing screams you care more than the thought of your woman getting hurt. In typical mountain man fashion, Deke doesn’t need to speak when his actions convey more than words.

“I’m not givin’ you a lot of words, Jussy, because I don’t know how to say them.”

It’s a good thing Justice Lonesome made her money writing songs and can get the words out that need to be spoken. There’s no more time to dance around each other. The time is now to put it all out there. Justice was searching for peace and tranquility when she moved to Colorado and in the process she came away with a whole lot more.

I had not found my oasis. I had not found a home. I’d stumbled into Heaven on earth where miracles could happen.

Now here comes the part I don’t like to write…the part where I say I feel like I’ve read this story before. Lately I feel like Kristen Ashley’s characters are just a replaceable name with a familiar story. The ramblings of inner dialogue is way too often and much too word causing me to lose focus on where the sentence was taking us before we hit all that nonsensical verbiage. I have only felt this way with her newer works. When familiar faces came out in this story I could say to myself “I loved that story” but yet I can’t give this one more than 3 stars. There’s nothing new to Deke and Lonesome – it’s a been there, done that story. I have a couple of Ms. Ashley’s works on my all-time favorite list so I am hopeful that her future works will take me back to the good ol’ days.






A lip brush then a whispered, “Relax, Deke.”
His hand resting on my hip slid up to my waist and squeezed.
It did not push me away. It just squeezed.
“Jussy,” he muttered. “Now’s not—”
I went in for another lip brush, another whisper of, “Relax, honey,” and then I went for it and slid my tongue out, gliding the tip along the crease of his lips.
God, he tasted yummy.
I had just enough time to have that thought before I drew in a soft breath when I suddenly found myself on my back, Deke’s weight on me, all of his lower half pressing me into the bed.
“Jussy, don’t,” he growled, his words contradicting our new position. “Now’s not the time.”
Now was totally the time. If I didn’t feel that “now was the time” gathering between my legs (which I did), I could feel that indication hardening on my thigh.
I moved both my hands to his neck, its back, fingers up in his hair and I used those hands and his stiffness to pull me up and I put my mouth back to his.
“Now’s a great time,” I said softly. “You’ve been taking care of me. It’s my turn to take care of you.”
“Jus—”
“Shush,” I whispered.
“Jussy—”
I cut off whatever he was going to say by sliding my tongue in his mouth and touching it to his.
His head jerked back.
My body went solid.
He didn’t move.
I held on to his neck and stared at him staring down at me.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it. Maybe now wasn’t the time.
Hell, maybe I was even wrong about the whole thing. Maybe Deke was that guy who went the extra mile to look out for his friends. And maybe the evidence that was growing hard against my thigh wasn’t evidence of what I thought it was, but just that I was a girl, he was a guy, we were in bed in the dead of night and that was the natural order of things.
I started to feel weird, scared, embarrassment creeping in, and I was about to let him go when it happened.
Thunder rolled in my bedroom, feeling like it was emanating from his stomach, through his chest, his lips, swelling in the room, over my skin, straight between my legs.
Then he shifted one of his hands that were in the bed at my sides, his weight up on his forearms, so it was wrapped around the back of my neck and his mouth slammed down on mine.
I opened my lips and his tongue thrust inside.
Oh God, yes, fuck yes.
He tasted yummy.
Another fierce growl released from Deke, sinking down my throat as he slanted his head and took the kiss deeper.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Damn.

The man could kiss.


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