When you owe money to a powerful mafia kingpin, you find a way to pay it back or you get hurt, and the only thing twenty-six-year-old Jimmy Poe has to offer a man like Boss Cold is himself. Cold agrees to give Jimmy a chance to have his debt cancelled, but it will mean surrendering his body to Cold’s rough, ruthless demands every night until the very last penny has been repaid.

Over the coming days, Jimmy learns what it means to be truly mastered, and Cold’s stern dominance arouses him far more intensely than he would have thought possible. But as their business arrangement grows into a romance, can Cold keep Jimmy safe in his dangerous world?

Publisher’s Note: Cold Hard Cash includes spankings and rough, intense sexual scenes. If such material offends you, please don’t buy this book.

How was it?

This story grew on me despite making my head spin a little. I should have read the blurb but I didn’t. At first, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going. It felt like a sob story about a down-on-his-luck young man named Jimmy, then it turned into a potentially BDSM story about someone who had to pay off his debt with his body – and that turn of events was interesting to me – but it quickly turned a bit cheesy.

Although I enjoyed the cheese, I wish the story had kept more of this harder edge before transitioning to the lovey-dovey stuff. It wasn’t smooth and was a bit jarring even if the heat kept its edge. When it comes to the main characters, Jimmy is lovable but he is the most inconsistent aspect of this story. He is said to be law school smart and he’s 26 years old! Yet he consistently does some of the stupidest things throughout the book. I was baffled by some of the things he did and decided that he was an 18 years old naive and trusting kid who wished he was smart enough to go to law school. He would have annoyed me otherwise. As for Cold, if it weren’t for how quickly their arrangement turned into a regular romance, he wouldn’t have lived up to the scary image Jimmy had of him. He seemed to be more of a guy who does what needs to be done because he has to, than the guy who relishes doing it.

The first entry in the Cold Hard Cash series is sweeter than one might expect yet still rough around the edges.