TITLE: The Good Girls Guide to Rakes
SERIES: Last Chance Scoundrels #1
AUTHOR: Eva Leigh
RATING:
STEAM:
THE SYNOPSIS
When Kieran Ransome’s latest antics result in a massive scandal, his father issues an ultimatum: find a respectable wife or inherit nothing. But as one of London’s most inveterate scoundrels, Kieran doesn’t know any ladies who fit the bill. Or does he?
Celeste Kilburn is a society darling, beloved by influential members of the ton. But keeping a spotless reputation leaves little room for adventure and she longs to escape her gilded cage, especially with her impending engagement to a stuffy earl. When Kieran—her older brother’s best friend and an irresistibly attractive rogue—begs for her help, Celeste makes a deal: she’ll introduce him to the right social circles if he’ll show her the scandalous side of London.
In between proper teas and garden parties, Kieran escorts Celeste—disguised as “Salome”—to rowdy gaming hells, wild fêtes, and sensual art salons. As they spend more time together, their initial attraction builds to a desperate desire that neither can ignore. But when someone discovers their midnight exploits, Celeste’s freedom and reputation are endangered, and Kieran must save the woman he loves… respectable or not.
THE PLOT
Brothers, Finn and Kieran, help their best friend, Dom, flee his wedding….to their sister! As punishment, their parents tell them they have to settle down and get married to respectable women within a year or loose all money! Kieran asks Dom’s sister, Celeste, for help mending his reputation. She agrees but in exchange she wants him to take her to some disreputable places so she can live before her pending wedding announcement to Lord Montford. Through their adventures, both respectable daytime events and late night parties, they discover that both of them are not what they seem and start to fall for each other.
I thought the plot was clever and had such depth. As it started, I assumed it would be a simple friends to lovers tale, but the way the characters completely morphed and revealed themselves when around each other was so amazing and sincere. Celeste and Keiran are the first to see each other as who they really are and want to be. It definitely pulled at my heart strings; doesn’t everyone want someone to truly SEE them as they really are and not just what they present to the world?!?! Eva Leigh did a great job of making their discovery of each other sincere and not rushed or even surface level.
THE HEROINE
Celeste was born in poverty but her family has since moved up the social ladder. She lives a very nice, comfortable albeit boring life that she compares to be being trapped in a cage. She is almost-engaged to a handsome, boorish man, but he doesn’t make her heart flutter like Keiran does. She feels (and reinforced by her father and brother) that it is her duty to be a perfect, respectable lady so they don’t loose their social standing, including marry well, specifically Lord Montford. I really liked Celeste’s character. She knows what she must do, but she vows to live for herself and experience things before she can’t.
THE HERO
Kieran’s family has put him in the box of rake, trouble maker, spare to the heir, but he is so much more. He acts the way he does because his family believes him to be that person and nothing more. They tease him about his poetry and even burn his notebooks. His mother barely notices him. Watching Celeste morph into her real self, he realizes who he really is as well. He is completely deserving of having major angst as a character, but Eva conveys just enough of his inner turmoil that I wasn’t annoyed or felt sorry for him. It made me love him all the more!
THE STEAM
Yes. Yes. Yes. Eva Leigh is a master at describing not only the physical, but the emotional as well. Again with the sincere and believable, at times I felt I should look away because it just felt so intimate…but of course I hung on every word!
STAND OUT MOMENT
Goodness, their were several! When he tells her in great detail what he would do to her if he were to seduce her, her reciting, from memory, scenes from a scandalous book, the entire evening at the theater when he reveals himself a poet…
WHO WOULD LIKE THIS
Those who desire a very steamy read but with characters that have real depth. You don’t always get both with romance books!
FINAL THOUGHTS
The storyline was amazing, the love genuine, the sex descriptive, the characters deep…I can’t wait to read it again!
TROPES
Historical Romance, Ton Society, Season/Marriage Mart, Alpha Hero, Artist Hero, Rake Hero, Virgin Heroine, Angst Romance, Class Difference, Best Friends Sibling, Childhood Crush, Forbidden Romance, Blackmail Trope
HistoricalRomance, TonSociety, Season/MarriageMart, AlphaHero, ArtistHero, RakeHero, VirginHeroine, AngstRomance, ClassDifference, BestFriendsSibling, ChildhoodCrush, ForbiddenRomance, Blackmailtrope
QUOTES FROM THE BOOK
“One self-serving act of dependability hardly negates a lifetime of suspect behavior.”
“All this time,” she muttered, “I believed other people kept me in line, reining me in, but perhaps they’ve done such an effective job of telling me what I can’t do, now I tell myself what’s impossible.”
“Love’s a complicated thing,” she said. “It seldom exists in its purest form.”
As Celeste rallied herself, finding that inner core of strength and adventure, she transformed far more than she had with the cosmetics she’d applied earlier. Resolve shone in her eyes, and an appetite for the world’s experiences. She looked like a woman on the verge of transformation, a phoenix that would emerge even more magnificent from its own flames.
This was not Dom’s sister—she was her own woman. The realization seemed to hit Kieran and Celeste at the same time, drawing them closer while she discovered the very beginnings of her own power.
The best he could do was give her what joy he could, for as long as he was able.
If you could have anything, anything at all for yourself, what would it be? If there’s one belief I want you to hold, it’s that you can always speak your mind with me.
It had been foolish to touch him in that way, creating a sharp hunger where before she’d merely wanted a taste.
Those eyes filled with the light of a thousand stars when she was joyous, and it crushed him to see that radiance dim when she talked about her unwanted engagement and marriage. How could anyone steal her brilliance? It was a crime.
The cold truth of it was that she might inspire his poetry, yet he could be nothing but a footnote in the story of her life.
“When I tease,” he said, his voice lowering so that she could feel it stroking over her flesh, “you’ll know it.”
“I’ve got you,” Kieran murmured in her ear. Her eyes drifted closed at the feel of his breath fanning across her skin. The last time he’d been this close, they’d held hands. She wanted more, so much more.
“Pleasure is pleasure,” he answered, turning her in his arms, and her heart spun within her. When she faced him again, his eyes were intent and dark as he stared down at her. “However we find it, and whatever bestows it. I’ll never sneer at pleasure.”
“Depending on others to bring us happiness leads to disappointment.” “Thus, you give it to yourself,” she said with approval. “A wise strategy.”
A piece of her stung for that boy he’d once been, the child who had been forbidden from showing emotion, and the rakehell who now gave himself the comfort that no one else thought he deserved.
Salome, I see now, is you. She’s part of you. Bold. Daring. A touch naughty, and completely in command of herself. I can even hear you in her voice, that touch of Ratcliff that your father wants to repudiate but is so important to who you are. All of that has always been within you, but as Salome, you can finally embody that part of yourself. You’re setting Salome free.”
But Frank wasn’t Kieran. It was like staring at the sun through many layers of gauze. There was brightness, but it was far dimmer—and less dangerous. Yet she craved the burn, and the searing afterimage in her mind and body.
Because tonight she followed her heart, and it wanted the man she couldn’t have.
Because he’d wanted to kiss her. No, he’d needed to devour her. He ached to cover every inch of her body with his, surround her with himself. Be inside her.
"His mouth trailed down my neck,’” she said, her voice soft, “‘with little stinging bites and slick swipes of his tongue. By the time he reached the hollow of my throat, I burned with need.’” Kieran gaped at her. She wasn’t reading from the book. She recited it.
“A virgin who knows filthy literature by heart.” Her smile was ripe with secrets. “The masculine gender hasn’t cornered the market on dimensionality and contradiction.” “We men like to believe ourselves the apotheosis of complexity, but we’re just crawling infants in comparison to the women running past us. All we can do is gurgle and hope we don’t soil ourselves.”
“We can be unwise together.” When he was still and silent, she offered tentatively, “Perhaps you don’t have to actually do it. You could simply tell me what you’d do to seduce me. But if you truly don’t want to, we can leave this alcove and pretend that the desire between us doesn’t exist.”
“All good seduction involves waiting, love. A little teasing builds anticipation, which is part of the joy of it. But,” he went on when she was certain her body would be reduced to cinders, “after telling you what I want to do, I’d lightly, very lightly, stroke my lips along your throat. As gentle as a sigh, but you’d feel my breath against your skin, and then I’d touch the tip of my tongue to your flesh.”
She stroked the seam of his mouth with her tongue. Growling, he opened to take her in. Their tongues met in hot, slick strokes that reverberated through her whole body. He tasted of wine and tobacco and sugar, and kissed her as though he’d been fashioned for this purpose alone. She was the center of his world...
“Because,” he explained, looking her in the eye, “if you touch my cock, that’s all I’ll ever want, and I have to make it through the rest of my life without it.”
Her fate was settled, and that fate included nothing she wanted for herself.
She smiled up at him, and the damned sun chose that particular moment to emerge from a cloud, so that her face was bathed in golden light. He clenched his jaw, certain that nature itself conspired against him.
“Why is it that the people we share blood with are the ones who understand us the least?”
Naturally, the whole purpose of coming to this event was to present him to suitable women he might be able to court. Yet none of them would be half as fascinating as Celeste. None would have her zest for living, or possess her incisive and clever mind, or burn to create real change in the world.
“Men think that they’re champions if they don’t behave like beasts. Hurrah, you’ve done the absolute minimum.” She smirked at him, even as her heartbeat became a roar. “Believe me, love,” he rumbled, “what I’d like to do with you is the maximum.”
For how else could he have known that she was indeed as celestial as her name, and that he would be guided by her? The destination was unknown but he welcomed the journey.
He knew what desire was, but never like this, never this all-consuming hunger to be inside someone, to join with someone.
...with arousal even as warnings shouted in his mind. “A better man would say no.” “I don’t want a better man,” she said wryly. “I want you.”
“Everything you do with me is exactly right. Whatever you’ve dreamt of, whatever feels good—it’s all perfect.” He bent and kissed her sweetly. “This is a safe and sacred place. Free yourself with me.” “I’m . . . a little afraid.” She pressed her forehead to his chest as she shivered. “Not of the pain, but what it might mean if I truly did set myself free.” “I swear to you that if you fall, I’ll catch you. But I know that you aren’t going to fall. You’ll soar.”
But these moments afterward . . . as she and Kieran stared at each other . . . as if the joining of their bodies had also aligned their souls . . . this intimacy was unexpected. And not entirely welcome.
She stared up into the face of the man who’d made love to her. Because of him, her first time had been extraordinary. There had been so much more than pleasure, and tenderness filled her to think of all that he’d given her.
“I’ve been given gems and gowns and every sort of luxury anyone could want, but never have I been given anything like that. Thank you, Kieran.” He smiled against her lips when she kissed him. “Whatever you want, love, you’ll have it from me.”
“There’s poetry, of course,” Kieran murmured, “which abounds with descriptions of emotion. Words, though, are sharp, delineated things. They only hint at something, something so profound as to exist outside language, beyond careful construction. You can very well say something pretty and evocative about living to see a smile bloom on someone’s face—but until you’ve actually experienced the answering blossom of light in your own chest when you do behold that smile, a poem’s nothing more than empty syllables.”
It was well and good to tell yourself that you wouldn’t involve your heart. You could make all the grand pronouncements you desired, yet it was hubris, pure hubris, to think that having your lover gently and tenderly press a kiss to the top of your head had no repercussions. The physical pleasure had been incredible—but the sweetness that had followed seeped into every corner of her being.
Strange to know that she was inflicting a wound on herself that she wouldn’t truly feel until later, stranger still that she saw it happening and didn’t stop. Never had she considered herself the sort of person who enjoyed unhappiness, but here she was, flinging herself headlong into future misery.
Something had changed between them. He now knew the taste of her, and how she held him with a ferocious grip when he pleasured her, and the sounds she made when she came. He’d seen her dance. And he craved all of it, all of her. His mind was full of rhymes and metaphors, his notebooks bursting with new verses.
Christ almighty, he was in love with Celeste. So much so he ached with it. Every face he saw was hardly worth a glance because it wasn’t her face. Anyone who spoke simply made meaningless sounds because it wasn’t Celeste speaking. A moment without her was a moment without joy, without purpose.
Love blossomed in his chest and spread its tendrils through him. He was dizzy with it, and she was the fixed point in his spinning universe, holding him steady.
She was being forced back into the box she hated. The independence that meant so much to her would be ripped away by a hand that wasn’t hers. All the things that she prized, all gone in the course of a night.
“What we had together will sustain me for the rest of my life. Goodbye, Kieran.” Celeste started to turn, then hesitated before she launched herself at him. Her lips fastened to his in a hard, desperate kiss.
Was it worse never to have known those pleasures, or was the pain all the greater because she’d experienced and lost them?
“It was a beautiful thing to see. She was beautiful. Free and fierce and I couldn’t help it—I fell in love with her. There was no way not to love her. To see her become all that she was, all that she could be, it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.”
When there was so much at stake, she couldn’t permit herself any hope.
She sucked in a breath, stunned at the enormity of what he offered her. “You aren’t going anywhere,” she said, leaning into his touch. “I choose you, for always.”
“When I’m with you, my muse doesn’t just speak to me. She sings. Yet never believe your sole purpose is to be my inspiration. Let me inspire you to reach the heights you were destined to climb. If I can be the smallest part of your journey, I’ll die a man fully content. Because I love you.”
“Celeste,” he answered, her name a vow on his lips. “I was made to love you.”
“When Celeste is home,” Kieran replied, “I’ll be home with her. When she’s out, I’ll be out with her. Wherever she is, that’s where you’ll find me.”
“I’d read so many poems about love, and pretended to know what it was when I wrote my own verses, but nothing could prepare me for what it truly means to love someone the way I love you.”
“I’d say contentment, but that’s too still and static. It’s like . . . it’s like the whole world has opened up to me in a way I’ve never experienced, but that world is here, in my arms.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “It’s ours to explore, you know.” She snuggled closer, the fit of her body to his perfect in every way. “That world belongs to us, the day and the night. We never have to adhere to anyone’s definitions of who we are, or who we ought to be. We’re simply us. In all our imperfect, searching, wonderful beauty. So long as we see each other as we truly are, we need nothing more.” “I don’t know how I existed before you,” he said, voice thick, “but now that you’re mine, and I’m yours, all I want is to take the next step.”
She did, and it read, To C. K.—Every line is for you. Tears welled in her eyes, and she clasped the book to her chest. Kieran gazed at her with happy apprehension. “It’s true,” he murmured. “There is no poetry in my life without you, love. There is nothing in my life without you.”
“There are so many blank pages ahead of us,” he said throatily. “We’ll fill them all with our adventures.” >
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