Double Up by Vanessa North
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Gawd, the FEEELZ...
This book is set in the world of wake-boarding, an extreme sport I'd never heard about before. (apparently, it's kind of like water ski, only on a board instead of skis and with a lot of tricky jumps over the pulling boat's wake, hence the name)
Ben is a veteran of the sport who gave up pro-wakeboarding after he hurt his back in a fall years ago. Now he's working at his friend Eddie's wakeboarding supplies shop and coaching other riders. Davis--Dave--is a complete newbie who wants to learn the sport so he can reconnect with his younger half-brother, Ridley, whom Dave's homophobic mother and stepfather have kept away from him.
There's instant attraction between Ben and Dave, and things get pretty intense pretty fast for them. But Ben has issues with his self esteem; he doesn't trust easily, not himself nor others and he also doesn't expect to be trusted. And now there's Dave who gives and demands openness, trust and honesty, and Ben doesn't know how to deal with that. He wants to, but he doesn't know if what he can give will be enough for Dave.
This book had some of the best-written, most emotional sex scenes I've ever read. Also, I fell head over heels for side-character Eddie, who was deliciously flamboyant and the best friend in the world for Ben; his dry wit more than once kept things from getting saccharine.
For a big portion of the book, I had some issues with Dave, even though generally I found him a good guy; after all, he was kind of like the prince who woke Sleeping Beauty Ben with a kiss, quite literall. But Ben tried so hard, rose over himself to make Dave happy, and all Dave did was berate Ben for not being trusting enough, for not being good enough. However, Dave redeemed himself in the end, and if nothing else, his drama queen-ish tantrums made for some deep emotional angsty shakes on Ben's part, so it was all good.
Really, a very enjoyable, engrossing read, one of my close-with-a-happy-sigh-books. Highly recommended.
A "warning", though, it's written in first person POV present tense.
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