This was my first Lucy Lennox book and it did not disappoint.
Jett Marian is sex on a stick. He was burned by a couple of bad romances so he avoids them with causal pickups to feed his sex drive. He is also an intelligence operative for a secret international organization. Locke Maris is controlling, self isolating and emotionally shut down. He is aggressively straight, bedding women to feed his sexual appetites but not really making emotional connections with them. He is a billionaire head of a huge international shipping company.
Locke accidentally gets caught up in an op where Jett is undercover as a sex worker in a strip club. Jett bets Locke he can get Locke turned on in a private dance. Jett is attracted to Locke from the beginning, and Locke loses the bet, which leads him to contemplate why he is attracted to this man. They meet by accident over the years, Jett maintaining his stripper cover story each time he meets Locke. Locke hires him for sex, to try to get Jett out of his system. Spoiler alert: he doesn't get Jett out of his system. Locke still maintains he is straight, despite being attracted to Jett, but due to some of the circumstances of their meetings, he believes Jett the stripper is possibly in abusive relationships or is being trafficked.
Locke has a trip to Italy in the works, to host a secretive Paxis tournament for some of the world's wealthiest movers and shakers. Locke's current casual girlfriend can't be trusted to keep her mouth shut, so he decides not to take her. In a chance meeting with Jett, he offers him a large sum of money to accompany him to Italy. He still thinks Jett is a sex worker and this is a business arrangement. Jett will be his assistant helping make the guests comfortable, but also be secretly available to provide Locke "stress relief". Jett is still recovering from an intensive undercover operation, and is forced to take a vacation, so he decides to take Locke up on his offer because he is still strongly attracted Locke.
They arrive a few days before Locke's guests to get ready for the tournament. Jett is easy going, snarky, and teases Locke, while endearing himself to the staff. Locke slowly thaws, but it is in fits and starts, sometimes reverting to his controlling and distant behavior. Locke has a hard time keeping his hands and eyes off Jett, which is a distraction once the Paxis tournament begins. The tournament is tense, and Jett realizes there is more going on than just a meeting of "chess nerds". Locke is not forthcoming with information and Jett sees clues that perhaps these people are involved with something shady. He wonders if Locke is dirty and if he should contact his boss at his job. He is torn, he loves Locke but feels a duty to report him if his suspicions are true.
As Jett is relaxing at the villa, he starts letting slip bits of his real life which do not match his stripper cover backstory. Locke had a simple investigation of Jett's supposed background and begins to wonder if Jett is something other than a poor sex worker, possibly a plant by someone looking to interfere with the tournament. At the same time he wants Jett and wants to protect him from harm.
As they try to navigate their relationship through their mutual misunderstandings of each other, potentially devastating world events take place which seemingly involve or parallel what is happening with the Paxis tournament. Can they trust each other to be able to join forces to survive the game and world events?
This was a fun read. I enjoyed the spicy bits and the intrigue. There were some couple of things that took me out of the story a little. When Locke started to emotionally thaw, it happened quickly. Seems like at one point he was dismissive and distant and the next he was not really caring who noticed they were lovers. Jett is a highly trained undercover operative. He'd just come out of a nearly year long undercover operation where it was imperative he maintain his cover. After that, I had a hard time believing he would just start randomly throwing out stories of his own life which contradicted his cover story when talking to Locke at the villa. And he knew Locke thought he was a sex worker and was hiring him as a sex worker, not as a lover or even friend. Why would he get mad at Locke for treating him as an employee, knowing how Locke treated his employees? At times Jett had trouble maintaining his proper role - assistant by day, and lover only in private. These are small points in the overall story and didn't detract too much from the enjoyable read.
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