Title: Three Hard Lessons
Author: Nikki Sloane
Genre: Romance, Fiction
What Its about: Payton gets a message from her best friend, Evie, apologizing for cancelling on her on Black Friday. She tells Evie that it is okay, even though it is not, and then she goes ahead and messages Joseph at the club that she will be working tonight. He tells her that it is a slow night, but she takes him up on it anyway. She arrives at the club and gets mechanical about the preparations as sex in blindfold doesn't excite her the way that it used to, at least not since her threesome with Evie and Logan. She craves something more, something that will make her feel more, and especially something like what Evie and Logan have.
Blindfolded and tied to the table, she's ready for her client. She listens as her sales associate talks to the man who walks in. He does not negotiate and agrees to the $30K price tag that the sales associate puts up for her. Once the girl leaves, he says his name is Dom, and she calls herself "sub" thinking it's a game, but he tells her that his name is actually Dominic, shortened to Dom. He tells her that he hasn't had sex in over a year and that he lives in Japan, but came to visit his family for the holidays. He also adds that he was supposed to meet his friend, the same one that proposed a little while ago to his girlfriend.
They end up having sex, and Payton has to tell him that it's "real" a couple of times when he asks her certain questions. He also uses "real" to tell her the same when something is real for him. She gives him her name as Paige, and tells him that it is fake for obvious reasons. She makes him come twice and begins to feel connected to him, which has not happened to her before. She cannot, in good conscience, take his money as a result of her feelings, so she goes up to Joseph. She asks him to cancel the payment and that this does not feel right for her. Joseph tells her to get down on her knees and suck him off, but she says no. So he fires her and kicks her out of the club. The bouncer at the gate tells her the the guy had been placed into a car after being roughed up because he was looking for her.
Payton goes home, freshens up and debates how she will pay rent including maybe selling her car. She then calls Evie and tells her that she is coming over, because it's all Logan's fault. Payton brings coffee and tells Evie that Logan owes her an apology. A few minutes later, after Payton had explained to Evie what happened, and Evie not making heads nor tails of Logan's guilt in this, Evie wakes Logan up who explains to her how he messed up. He calls Dominic, and says that he does not sound roughened up.
Suddenly, Dominic walks into the apartment with donuts, which he promptly drops on the floor upon seeing Payton, who in turn reveals her real name. Dominic tells her that he was asking for Logan's help in finding her. Payton also finds out that Dominic did not pay the 30K, but only the club's cut.
She goes back to Dominic's hotel, they have sex and he invites her to go to Japan with him, since she had said she wanted to go. So they book her on a flight and Dominic upgrades his seat for a business class seat so they can be together. They tell Evie and Logan at dinner what the plan is and Evie is skeptical, but Payton assures her that this is what she wants.
The next day, Payton drinks two alcoholic drinks at the lounge in the airport because she is a nervous flier. Dominic sends back the third one and once they are on the plane, they talk, which is his way of distracting her. When they arrive in Japan, he takes her to his home, and shows her around. he then tells her that they will sleep in the same bed, but Payton doesn't do cuddling. Once he falls asleep, she sneaks out of the room, and goes to the guest room. When she wakes up she is in the master bedroom. Dominic tells her that he carried her back and she reminds him that she does not do cuddles. She sneaks back out tot he room again, and when she wakes up, Dominic is cuddling with her in the tiny guest bed.
Over the two weeks of her trip, she snuggles with him in bed, and they have a lot of sex including at his office. She explores some, and at the end of the two weeks, she does not want to leave. So when Dominic asks her to extend her trip a couple of times, each time she says yes and ends up being in Japan for six week.
During this time, Dominic and Payton get into some of the harder BDSM things as Payton expressed interest in this. The first time they do it, Dominic has a person there, who catches Payton when she tips over. He later explains to her that he had started researching BDSM and realized that he was in over his head, so he reached out to a Master named Akira, who had come over to help him find the limits in a safe way. He's the one who caught her.
Payton also meets Yuriko and Akira one night when they come over. Yuriko is Akira's submissive. She is tasked with getting Payton to come as a bet, and when Payton doesn't come, Akira pushes a different limit with Yuriko, consensually. The couples end up having sex within view of each other, and they meet a time or two again.
Payton also attempts to get a visa to stay in Japan with Dominic, but the US Embassy tells her that they cannot grant her one as visas are generally granted from outside of Japan. She comes home, and then sifts through the letters to clean up, when she comes across one from Chase Services. She reads it and finds out that it is a commitment bonus--$100,000.00 in a check. In her anger at what this means, she packs her bags and waits for Dominic to come home. When he returns and sees her with the suitcase, he is wary. She demands an explanation from him about the check, and Dominic tells her that he felt homesick and had put in for a transfer back home after his first year, but then Payton came into the picture and made it better. He thought that he could make it work. She asks him when he made the decision, and he lies to her by giving her a different date than the one on the letter. She leaves, demanding that he book her tickets for the same day.
She returns home, talks to Logan a bit while he drops off flowers and her cars--flowers that Dominic had picked for her. She does message Dominic and tells him that she's not able to talk to him because she is still pissed. Then a little while later, once she's cooled off, she talks to him on the phone.
Payton doesn't know what to do for work, so she chooses to meet up with Joseph and he offers her a job--to run his escort club for a night since he needs it off, and she knows it just as well as he does. Payton agrees, noting that Joseph looks tired.
While she's working, Dominic calls her and she tells him where she is. He tells her that he will be right there. She decides to recreate the night they met, by going Tinto a room and getting tied up. Dominic comes in and after they haggle the price, which Dominic basically says he won't do, Payton reveals that she was actually only working in the office, not these rooms as Dominic sounded pissed off on the phone--in order to make money to get back to him in Japan; that she only wants to have sex with him. Dominic slips a ring on her finger and when he takes the blind off, she says yes.
Payton returns to Japan on a work visa courtesy of Chase Services, Dominic's employer and begins working there as an English teacher.
My Thoughts: Payton's love story is not as steamy as Evie's and Logan's--there is obviously a lot of sizzling sparks and romance, but it feels a little disjointed. She sounds sexy on paper, and with everything that she goes to do with Dominic, she really does sound like she'd be into everything, but to me she falls a little flat as a character in the story. It's not really my favorite book in the series thus far, but I still enjoyed reading it, especially for the sexy scenes.
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