Abuse by Nikki Sex
Jeez, what it is to have an insight into the insecurities of others. This is not a story like you will have read before it is a diary of sorts into the pain and triumph of souls looking for someone to need and love and OMG is it a beaut!!!
Shit the prologue alone of this had me hook line and sinker!
I loved the style and composure of Andre Chevalier, the enigmatic Frenchman with a pone chance of being able to read people better than they could read themselves.
He oozed confidence and why not, what had he to be wary of, life was what he had made it and boy had he made it good!!
First up comes Grant Wilkinson, I was unsure as to how to feel about Grant, he was dismissive and judgemental or so I thought at first when he was in conversation with both his mother and then his sister, but when I was enlightened later as to the true extent of his family’s level of dysfunction I found that I could forgive him for the attitude. He had his cross to bear, his scars to wear and his troubles that were eating him up from the inside but unlike many before him, he was facing up to his issues and had sought out Andre for treatment.
This ex-sniper has seen more than he should have and coped with trauma that would have left bigger and better men than he in its wake but he has survived- although in some aspects –only just.
This handsome man now wears his trauma on the outside, his disfigurement cloaking him in a world of sniggers and supposition, of loneliness and guilt. A world that held no interest to him unless it was seen through the bottle of a bottle. But grabbing his opportunity to remedy himself he has been working hard on his issues and with Andre at the helm he is being steered towards a life that may just afford him some peace and comfort.
Gently unravelling this complicated man is a real labour by Andre and after not just days but months of incessant talking, knowing Grant is almost as easy as knowing himself, many of Grants issues barely require disclosure because Andre understands what it is that plagues him. He understands the damage that was done to Grant in his early years at the hand of his father and absolves him of the unwarranted guilt that he carries because of those events.
Secrets and insecurities aired, Andre addresses the one touchy subject left, the fact that Grant has zip when it comes to experience with women. His disfigurement has added to the fact that he feels that he has nothing to bring to a relationship and as such he has never got involved. Sex is something that he has only ever paid for.
Andre has the perfect solution, or perhaps this has been his plan all along because next step for Grant is sexual therapy with a sexual surrogate.
Who just happens to be someone that Andre took in years ago and who he knows is perfect for Grant.
Renata Koreman has been through more than most in her short life, escaping the care system she ran with her foster brother and survived living together on the street until on morning she woke to find Jamie dead. Her best friend, hell her only friend was gone and for not the first time, she was truly alone, she ends up in a psychiatric hospital and they manage to track down a distant relative who has no desire to take responsibility for Renata.
Through recommendation from a friend he ends up at Andre’s door with Renata in tow and an open cheque book, no money is too much for him to pay in order to make Renata and her embarrassment to him go away.
Three years later and she has flourished under Andre’s care and now has a degree in Phycology and is a fully fledged sexual therapist. Working with patients recommended to her by Andre, she is good at what she does but she needs to be needed and dreams of finding someone to love and settle down with, someone to have her happy ever after with.
But dreams are just that dreams for a reason, things to be aspired too. She has no inkling that the next man too walk through her door may just be the man she has been thinking about all her life, the one to make her dreams come true.
There is another character’s story that runs in conjunction with Grant and Renata but not through connection with Andre but there is a connection with Grant and his family, one that is pertinent to the cliff-hanger at the end of the story… a WTF moment that raised more than an eyebrow!
I thought telling everyone’s stories separately and then gradually pulling them into one tight little bundle was a stroke of genius. It encouraged engagement with the characters and kept my interest completely focussed on the events as they unfolded.
A highly engaging story that has me anticipating what comes next …can’t wait.