There's just something about the way that Claire Thompson handles books that have to do with BDSM and D/s. It's hot and sexy and enticing, but it's also very intimate and special and somehow sacred between the two people, even if it's done in public. It's almost like the reader is a peeping Tom and is peeking through windows.

Josh is an aspiring writer. He's had some shorter pieces published, and his first book has been sent and is on contract to a publisher, while he's working on his second book. While all of that makes him sound very successful, the fact is that his writing isn't paying for itself or for anything else right now. He has to come up with a to supplement his teaching job, so when he finds an ad for a pro dungeon that needs subs, he knows that this is something that he might be interested in.

Michael is a Dom who has had a bad experience. He wants to play but he doesn't want a romance right now. So when his friend tells him about this pro dungeon where he can spend an hour with a sub and do just about anything, outside of sex, Michael gives it a try. And he finds slave j.

While the dungeon and sex scenes are really hot, what really got me was the romance between Josh and Michael. That story is just beautiful. It really is very intimate and handled in such a great way. I just love how Claire Thompson handles her work. ( )

I know my friends that someone of you is tired when I start a post on a BDSM book telling that it's not my thing, but I should warn you and also for me it's a compliment to the book and the author who manages to write something that I, for principle, should not like, and instead read in "only" one night.

Plus, the engine of the story is even more shocking for me, since one of the heroes is a sub for hire, someone who accepts to be paid to suffer... well if I can hardly accept that someone accept to suffer for love, you can imagine how I can react to someone who does it for money!

So yes, Sub for Hire didn't have the "right" premises for me, but as soon as I started it, I found that it was more on my plate than expected. True, Josh is a sub for nature, he likes all the D/s thing, but he is also a romantic man who is searching Mr. Right, only that for him, Mr. Right is a Dom from dream, someone who can intimately know him and his needs, and give without being asked, someone to whom Josh could lean and love. Since he has yet to find him and he is in need of money, he accepts a work as sub for hire in an exclusively dungeon: no sex is admitted with customers, in fact it's highly discouraged, and so Josh thinks that he can do that. He is a writer struggling to make meet both ends and he thinks to be able to discriminate with a temporary work and his searching for love.

Michael is just out a bitter relationship with a cheating sub. He has no desire for commitment in this moment, and he only goes for no strings attached relationship. Then a friend tells him about Dungeon Dreams and he thinks "Why not?". Since he is a bit uptight and not ready to trust a man after his past experiences, he never expected to fall in love at first sight for a sub for hire.

But this is what happens to both men: Josh knows that Michael is the one, and Michael can't stop to think to Josh's face, so honest and direct despite his works. But it's not simple for the two men make things work, since they are both proud and stubborn. Lucky for them, Josh is willing to give a change to them, and Michael is willing to pass over certain things.

All in all I like Josh, even if I have some problems to understand his relation with pain, and the fact that he can enjoy it from strangers, even after he has met Michael, his true love. But Josh is also the one who is ready to risk more, the one who really opens himself to the other and who always makes the first step forward the happiness of both men. Michael maybe is a bit prim and proper, he probably have never had a real bad experience in his life; true he suffered for love, but maybe the pain was not so much and other than that, he always had a comfortable life and he was also lucky with his business. Probably for this reason, he is not a bad-ass Dom, he is more a man who sometime likes to play the dominant role. The real D/s relationship in the book, the one between Josh and Michael, is a mild one, and maybe for this reason I can appreciate it.

The book is a good romance, with a Cinderfella like style story. There is also a God-Mother fairy (Michael's friend...).