Samhain Publishing, $3.50, ISBN 978-1-60504-034-9
Contemporary Erotica, 2008

You’ve read this story before, I’m sure. Young lady decides to show the guy she has a crush on for so long that she’s now a grown-ass woman ready to play. Yeah, yeah, you are probably saying, you have read at least six Harlequin Blaze books with the same theme in the last three months. But given that Maya Banks writes such erotic love scenes that make her stories a potential health hazard when read on a very hot day, I’m pretty sure that Reckless will be good for at least one thing, heh.

Nikki Durant, tired of Sheriff JT Summers being so hard to get despite her various attempts to lasso him into her bed, decides to get herself arrested. That way, he can’t avoid her any more. When JT still insists after that on playing the protective big brother, she decides that it’s time to play hardball.

Alas, this story isn’t a non-stop sexual marathon like I’m hoping it to be. Hey, don’t laugh. If I say that this book is a hot sexual marathon from first page to last, you’d run off and buy this one too, just admit it. Unfortunately, this story also features scenes involving many characters from previously related story Brazen. While the publisher website claims that this one can stand alone, I’d advise readers to read Brazen first because the characters from the previous story show up here and take up a considerable amount of screen time considering that this is a short story. I suspect that anyone who hasn’t read Brazen may end up feeling annoyed from trying to figure out who those people are and why Nikki’s friend is sleeping with her husband’s brother.

The sex scenes are hot, but alas, there aren’t that many of them here. I can’t help feeling that the author should have cut short some of the chase and bring on more rumpy-pumpy fun instead. After all, this is a short story marketed as a raunchy erotic read. What are we waiting for, Ms Banks?