Cindi's Reviews > Paid to Take Control

** spoiler alert ** I went into this book knowing to expect typos and (likely) an entire book of editing problems. Not-so-surprisingly, that's exactly what I got.

I liked Brio. I guess I liked Painter well enough. I couldn't understand why he, of all people, was considered a match for Brio. Brio, a sub, needed more than his previous Doms had ever given him. He had different needs for different moods. Painter had always done the one-and-done contracts with Delphic Agency. He got paid for sex and quick experiences, nothing more. He was strictly vanilla and has turned down all offers of any type of D/s contracts. 

But strangely, the matchmaking algorithm for the agency found him to be a Dom. And even more strangely, Ash (from the first book) felt that Brio (his business partner) needed an inexperienced Dom like Painter. Oh, he had training at the agency but the entire thing was Brio being a special case. For an inexperienced Dom to take him on? Yeah, no.

This book never really read like a romance to me. There were BDSM scenes. Some of them were pretty intense. Even so, I never felt them either. 

Other than the page after page of typos, the one thing that really bugged me about this book was that Painter would take off when things got bad, instead of hanging around to see what will happen. Even worse, he left Brio when he was most vulnerable and Ash had to sweep in and make things better. He left for good when it got to be too much - when he was starting to feel things that went beyond him being a paid escort to Brio. I get where the author was trying to go with that but it didn't work. How would that be acceptable with Brio's known emotional problems? And nothing from Ash? No yelling or anything at Painter? 

And now to the ending. Rushed endings drive me up a wall. Painter quit and became an instructor at the agency. Okay, I get that. Kind of, though I didn't agree with how he handled it. But, then? Nothing. Well, until Brio makes an appearance at some point (no clue how long it had been since he'd seen him) at the agency to see Painter. He says he loves him and - nothing. Book ends. There's a kinda/sorta/not really epilogue that also said a whole lot of nothing.

I've read both books and the 2 shorts in between. Book #1 and book #2 felt unfinished and I felt cheated. There was no real resolution. Sure, for Ash and Richard, but I got more about them after their book than in it. For that reason, I'm probably done with the series. 

There are SO many 5 star reviews of these books. What am I missing? In all those reviews, I've seen exactly TWO that mention the editing. Did we read different books?

2 stars because of the poor editing and how I never got a feel for these guys and I felt like the story needed more at the ending.