Bare For You by Lexxie Couper

Bare For You: Jeremy Craig and Ryan Taylor

Outback Skies #3

Summary:

Not all cowboys ride horses.

Jeremy Craig is on the cusp of being named the deputy prime minister of Australia. Which means he’s got to play his cards right and stay deep in the closet. Australia is a lot of things, but there’s no way the country is ready for a gay prime minister. So far, it’s been an easy ruse to maintain. Until he meets Ryan Taylor. Then all bets are off.

Ryan is sick of the Brokeback Mountain jokes. For starters, he’s an Australian stockman, not an American cowboy. For another, he spends most of his working days alone in a helicopter, not on the back of a horse. As Wallaby Ridge’s only contract heli-musterer, he gets to escape any small-town scorn high in the sky. He’s happy up there. Lonely, but happy. Who needs passion and wild sexual pleasure in their life when they have the boundless skies of the Outback, right?

Then Jeremy Craig climbs into his chopper…

Review:

I really enjoyed this book, I’ve read one other of Lexxie Couper’s M/M novels and really enjoyed that one so I felt pretty confident that this one would be just as good and I was right. It’s a quick read, it only takes a couple of hours to get through and the characters and story are engaging making the time go quickly.  Poor Ryan, he’s an openly gay man in the outback where openly gay men are sparse. His love life is in the toilet and it is not looking like it will get any better. At least he has a weeklong easy gig coming up shuttling around some politician.  Jeremey has a secret, he’s a gay politician, he is convinced that his country is not ready for a gay man in office so he’s locked the door on that part of himself for most of his life. He’s resigned himself to that fate until he gets off the plane and looks at his heli-musterer for the week. His breath is stolen, his heart races and he knows his carefully structured life is about to be changed, forever.   The initial attraction is scorching hot, it practically blazes through my Kindle.  Ryan knows the politician is out of reach so he fights his desire but he knows it’s a losing battle. Jeremy knows he’s about to risk his whole career but he knows this is not something he can fight, it’s too big. While the book is short we still get a fully developed story with great characters. Both Ryan and Jeremy are enjoyable, I liked them both equally. I enjoyed watching them fight their losing battle against their attraction but liked it even more when they lost the battle, but I think the end was my favorite part. Talk about romantic gestures! If you enjoy M/M novels you won’t be disappointed with this one. If you’re new to the genre but have wanted to give it a try this is a good place to start, it mild enough that it’s a good starter.