Review: Beneath The Skin

Beneath The Skin by Daryl Banner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5 "I'm your fucking fire" Stars

I loved Brant in Read My Lips and I just knew I had to have his story. Lucky for me, I'm a huge slacker and didn't finish Read My Lips until right before Beneath The Skin was released. So I got to do the one-two punch with this series.

Brant is the manwhore. He has a reputation. He rarely sees the same girl twice. And his first encounter with Nell isn't a pleasant one. He's naked, having just experienced a near death, sexual encounter.

I suppose it's tricky to come when all your energy's spent resisting a fight-or-flight response due to a very genuine fear of being fucked to death.

After this little hook-up, he is left alone in a classroom, his clothes not within reach. Naturally the next class starts to file in. Enter Nell.

Nell is the dark artist who puts her pain and her dark and her fire into her work. Her passion is her art. She's the dark and broody character in this book. Brant is cheery and a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Nell is the exact opposite. She also seems to resist all of Brant's charms.

That's where this story takes off. We see artistic Nell and trying to find himself Brant. We see the cat-and-mouse game they play. We see the push and pull. It's so much freaking fun. What the other book had in seriousness, this one has in humor. That's not to say it doesn't get serious, it's just a funnier book.

"Learn anything about the stars in astronomy today?" Eric asks, his voice a bit too sweet for sincerity.
"Yeah," I grunt back. "They're all fucking crossed."

Then there's Venus, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love or whatever, and it's the only planet that rotates in reverse. Which I guess makes sense, because why the fuck wouldn't the planet named after the goddess of love betray the rules of its own solar system, rebellious little bitch that she is.

We get to see Dessie and Clayton again. Nell's first meeting with Dessie is one for the books, that's for sure. We get to see Eric and Dmitri and Sam. And I LOVE Sam! She's so...blah. Her monotone, deadpan ways have me dying to see where her story will take us. Oh, wait, we're talking about Brant and Nell....

This book is...I need more words for "hot" because that's becoming inadequate. These two are on fire in this book. I expect nothing less from the self-proclaimed lover, Brant. And Nell, with all her darkness, just screams "freak in the sheets" and when they come--(see what I did there?!)--together it is magnificent.

And when Nell's darkness is too much, will Brant be there to see her through? Will this relationship survive the demons that reside inside?

"Then let me into the dark with you."


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