Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Nelson & Caleb
SERIES: Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #5
AUTHOR: Kaje Harper
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: 87 pages
BLURB:
Novella number 5 in the MLR Press Series, Storming Love – One Storm, Twelve Men.
Nelson Dunn has a settled routine – an evening security-guard job, days off for his therapy dogs, occasional club sex, and good books. He sometimes dreams about more, but he’s made himself content. So when Hurricane Lauris strands Caleb Robertson at his house, Nelson has mixed feelings about having an attractive guy in his space. Especially when nothing more can possibly happen.
Caleb went to the hospital to get the cast off his broken foot. Instead, he finds himself waiting out the storm with Nelson, his three dogs, and a very wet cat. It’s less of a hardship than he’d have expected.
REVIEW:
When Caleb finds himself stranded at the hospital with a hurricane coming in, a broken foot, and not a taxi to be seen anywhere, Nelson offers to drive him home. At the hospital to let the kids there play with his therapy dogs, Nelson kinda jumps at the chance to help rescue Caleb–a man he knows from his day job as a security guard. But with roads washing out and winds picking up, they are unable to make it to Caleb’s…so it looks like Caleb will be bunking at Nelson’s till the storm passes by. So with three dogs, no electricity, and a surprise cat (or three) the men set about waiting out the storm. And, well, there is not a lot to do with no electricity and the world going to soggy, windy, hell outside…except entertain themselves however they can find.
I quite liked this short by Kaje Harper. I haven’t got a chance to read the other novellas in the series yet, but I found this one cute and very well written. And I did enjoy that little twist quite a bit.
Nelson certainly has his issues, which are probably earned from all the dickheads in his life prior to Caleb, but he was more than what I was expecting. Security guard by day, cartoonist by night–I have to admit I never saw that coming. Didn’t see a lot of Nelson coming, in fact. Which was cool.
And I loved that they were both bottoms–and that that didn’t stop them from trying for something more than a quick bj in the bathroom. It will certainly make their lives interesting, that’s for sure. I’m sure they can find many a creative way to use all that stuff in Nelson’s little drawer of fun.
The animals in this story were cute as well. Even the temperamental kitty cat. And my cat so totally does that ‘pick food out of a perfectly good bowl, drop on floor, then eat it.’ I can’t decide if it is cute or annoying, but that usually depends on whether I end up accidently stepping on it later.
This was a very good story–but it’s Kaje Harper so I didn’t expect any less. I really need to go read the others that are out in this series and see what they had to offer, because this was a lot of fun.
RATING: 
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