Well Hung By Lauren Blakely

Summary

Well Hung is the third book in Lauren Blakely’s Big Rock series of sexy contemporary romances that are written from the first-person male POV about a group of friends and relatives living in New York City. I absolutely loved the first two books, so I was eager to continue. This one is about Wyatt Hammer, brother of Nick from the second book, Mister O, and Natalie Rhodes, sister of Charlotte from the first book, Big Rock. Wyatt has a bad case of lust for his assistant, Natalie, but after two bad experiences with exes, he made a promise to himself never to get involved with someone he worked with again. But when a wealthy client flies them both to Las Vegas to give an estimate on a project there and the deal falls through, they end up spending the entire night downing their sorrows and doing every cliché thing that people do in Sin City, including a quickie wedding with an Elvis impersonator officiating, as well as having lots and lots of steamy sex all over town. The next morning, though, they make arrangements for an equally quickie annulment, but once they’re back in New York, they discover they’ve been scammed and what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas after all. However, despite their best intentions, they still can’t seem to keep their hands off one another. Before long, Wyatt realizes he’s fallen in love with Natalie, but because of his past experiences, he starts to have doubts about whether he can trust her. His feelings may not matter, though, when she still appears to be hell-bent on continuing to pursue the dissolution of their marriage.

As I mentioned, Wyatt is Nick’s twin brother, and although they share some things in common, like volunteering at the same dog rescue, they’re two very different people. Wyatt owns a construction company where he prides himself on doing quality work and delivering on time. He owes a large part of his recent success, along with the fact that he’s now bringing in enough money that he’ll soon be able to expand the company, to his assistant, Natalie, who keeps everything running like a well-oiled machine. The only problem is that Wyatt can’t stop thinking about Natalie and all the sexy things he’d like to do to her. But because of two women in his past with whom he’d worked closely and who nearly ruined him by turning psycho after he broke up with them, he doesn’t do office romances and keeps a tight lid on his lusty impulses. However, when the Vegas deal goes south, leaving them with nearly a full day to kill before flying home, Wyatt suggests that they paint the town red, and they do so in a spectacular and pretty drunken fashion. In fact, the next morning, he doesn’t even remember everything that happened at first. Most of it starts coming back to him, though, and once back in New York, he just wants everything to go back to normal between them. At first, it’s awkward, but eventually things even out, except that they keep mating like bunnies every chance they get. Then there’s the whole annulment falling through thing that stirs the pot as well, but by the time Wyatt figures out he’s fallen in love, it might be too late. Wyatt is a pretty great guy, maybe not quite as exciting to me as Nick was, but still very likable. He’s outgoing, fun-loving, and adventurous, up for almost anything. I loved that he’s so supportive of Natalie’s dreams. But probably the best of all is the romantic gesture he makes at the end, which unequivocally stamped paid to their HEA for me.

After meeting at Spencer and Charlotte’s wedding in the previous book, Wyatt hired Natalie to be his assistant. She’s been working for him for six months and during that time, she’s become indispensable to him. Although she doesn’t exactly have experience in construction, she’s extremely organized and finds it fun to help other people get organized, too. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty either, sometimes helping Wyatt on-site when he’s short-handed and trying to be meet a deadline. She also has a black-belt in karate and teaches self-defense classes, but she has a dream of making videos and someday doing more than just subbing at a dojo. Natalie is equally as outgoing, fun-loving and adventurous as Wyatt, so when they’re stuck in Vegas, she’s eager to go along with everything, including the quickie wedding. But being the orderly, structured person that she is, she already has the quickie annulment lined up before Wyatt even wakes up the next morning. Her continued insistence upon dissolving their marriage and her hyper-vigilance about getting it done ends up confusing Wyatt, though, because she seems just as attracted to him as he is to her. Aside from a few text message exchanges between her and her sister, we only get to see Natalie through Wyatt’s eyes. In the first two books, this hadn’t really been a problem for me, but here she kind of confused me as well, making me wish I’d had better insights into what was going on in her head. It’s all explained by the end, though, and when it is, I couldn’t help but like her even more, because she was ultimately being very selfless and understanding. It was just a bit frustrating getting there.

Well Hung features a number of supporting characters who have their own books in the series. As Natalie’s sister, Charlotte (Big Rock) plays a significant role and her new husband, Spencer, shows up a couple of times, too. By the same token, Wyatt’s brother, Nick and his lady love, Harper, are key players and are also shown planning their wedding. Wyatt’s sister, Josie, and his best friend, Chase, a physician who’s just returned from a Doctors Without Borders mission are pretty important secondary characters as well. They both intrigued me, so I’m happy to report that they become the hero and heroine of the next book, Full Package. We also get an introduction to Chase’s brother, Max, who’ll be the hero of the fifth book, Joy Ride. Last, but not least, we get another glimpse of hunky single dad, Simon, and his nanny, Abby, who cross over to become the hero and heroine of The Sexy One, the first book of Ms. Blakely’s One Love series.

Overall, Well Hung was a fun, sexy addition to the series that I enjoyed, not quite as much as the first two books, but it was still good. Wyatt is a nice guy who’s good with his hands in more ways than one.;-) Natalie is a sweet, caring person who works hard to help Wyatt succeed. While their sexual chemistry is off the charts, they also connect in other ways as they discover all the things they have in common. The love scenes are blazing hot. Although there’s nothing kinky about them, Wyatt and Natalie do get a rush out of taking risks, so there are several semi-public sex scenes with them almost getting caught once. These two are very well-matched, complimenting each other perfectly. The only reason I dropped the star is because throughout a large part of the book, I felt like something was missing. I think part of my issue was the aforementioned lack of Natalie’s POV, so I wasn’t really getting why she was adamantly pushing to end the marriage. I think the other part is that while I understood Wyatt’s trust issues, I think perhaps his emotions surrounding them weren’t brought out enough for me to sufficiently connect and sympathize with him over his doubts about Natalie. But then again, this is a romantic comedy and while not quite as outright funny as the first two, it is pretty light and breezy. The ending definitely brought everything full-circle and tied it up in a neat bow for me, while making me a bit teary-eyed, so that helped to make up for some of my earlier frustrations. In the end, this was another good read for me from Lauren Blakely, and leaves me very much looking forward to reading Chase and Josie’s book soon.
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews