Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Paulina Ian-Kane

Genre: Gay Erotic Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap (6 Years), Kink, On Page Torture/Murder, Mystery, Romance, Series

Length: 326 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Oliver “Ollie” Truman

My purpose in life has always been to protect my little brother. And the only way to do that is to do what my dirtbag of a father says—easier said than done. So my plan is to save enough money to grab our backpacks and leave these miserable days behind us. There’s no harm in having a little fun in the meantime though, is there? And the growling beast who flattens his opponents with a single punch looks like a perfectly hot diversion to me.

The crowd calls him Hulk. Dark intense eyes, large hands, scarred back, huge rocky pecs, thick arms, and tree-trunk thighs. And the bulge in his pants is not a mirage, a very proportionate…appendage.

He growls, I snort. He rejects me, I stalk him. He threatens me, I kiss him. He orders me around, I…that depends, are we in or out of bed?

His broody, rough demeanor dares me to get closer, and his crude, hard words turn me on like nothing ever before. My sassy mouth has gotten me in trouble more times than I can count but he seems to have found a very delicious way to shut me up.

But when I discover his protective side? His possessiveness? The secrets? The rage and destruction?
Can two broken souls find their missing pieces among the dark, bloody, jagged ones?

WARNING-This is not a sci-fi angel story, unless you see eager vigilantes with a dark side as angels.

This is an action packed romance with an HEA and no cliffhangers. It features an over the top posses-sive mountain of a man, and a bratty, determined twunk with a sassy mouth. There’s violence, blood, torture (only of very bad people), dark humor, amazing side characters and very rough, spicy scenes. Morality’s grey area is quite stretched in this story. Please check the triggers at the beginning of the book.

This is book two in the Angels of Wrath Series. Each book follows a different couple.

Review –

Take note of trigger warnings in the beginning of the book if you want to read this. There’s quite a bit of graphic, on page violence.

Like One (The Angels of Wrath, #1), there’s a quick prologue telling the reader a little bit about Rague who, along with his foster brothers, were all part of a secret experiment twenty years prior. At the end of One, it was mentioned that Rague and Rami were going to go undercover in a fighting ring. This is how Rague, 29, and Oliver, 23, aka Ollie, meet and come together.

Teenagers, between fifteen and nineteen, are being beaten and killed. Rague and his family strongly believe that a local fighting ring has something to do with it. The plan is for Rague, who is 6’5″ and 250 lbs., to participate in some of the fights in hopes of getting close to the main guy they believe is responsible for the deaths of the kids. Rami gives him the fighting name of Hulk, though he’s been calling him that outside of it for years.

After one of the fights in a rundown warehouse, Rague is in the bathroom trying to get his breathing under control when he’s interrupted by a guy offering to blow him. It’s obvious that the guy, Ollie, had recently been part of one of the fights because he’s a little bruised and bloody. Rague immediately shuts him down. He has a ten-inch penis, and he only hooks up with professionals who can take him. He also tends to lose control during sex, and Ollie is much smaller than him.

Ollie doesn’t give up, offering again and again after other fights. Only when Rague gets word that Ollie will be fighting a guy much bigger and stronger than him do things really ramp up between the two men. The other guy is called Scorpion. Rague orders Ollie to back out of the fight. Ollie has one of those, “Who does this guy think he is?” moments, but Rague can’t be swayed. If he has to kidnap and tie him down, no way will Ollie be going against Scorpion.

Somehow this argument turns into Ollie giving Rague a blowjob.

That happens a lot, by the way. There’s not much time in the book where the two aren’t doing something sexual. People being tortured in the next room? Sex. Ollie seeing the aftermath of one of Rague’s red haze attacks? Sex. Needing to have serious conversations? You guessed it, sex again.

“I’m not gentle. I’d use you when I fuck your throat. I’d be rough and fast, and my hand tightening around your neck could make you lose consciousness. But I wouldn’t stop, I’d keep stuffing your mouth until I get my whole load inside your stomach. And after I was done I’d forget about you.” I growl the last sentence because I don’t really think I could ever forget him, even if this is the only time I’ll ever see him. It’s a weird, visceral feeling.

As for the red haze, it’s when Rague blacks out and loses complete control of his anger. People usually die.

Then there’s Sully, Ollie’s seventeen-year-old brother. Sully is a senior in high school and is only a short time away from getting away from his and Ollie’s dad and his cronies. His dad and those cronies are knee-deep into the fighting ring. The home is very dangerous for both guys, especially Sully.

Sully is what people call a klutz. The clumsiest and most uncoordinated person I’ve ever seen.

Ollie is determined to get them both out soon, even it means killing their sperm donor. He’s making a little money doing the illegal fights, and he has a part-time job at a fertilizer warehouse. Protecting Sully is all he cares about.

Sully is safely away from his horrible dad on a school trip when Ollie and Rague’s story really takes off. Ollie gets kicked out by his jerk dad, and told he better be ready to fight Scorpion when the time comes. After sleeping in some pretty shady places, he gets really sick and somehow ends up where he can be rescued by Rague. Rague takes care of him, and before Ollie realizes what’s happening, he’s practically living with the big man.

Of course there’s still the matter of the teens who were kidnapped and beaten to death.

Something bad happens to Sully, bringing Rague and Ollie even closer. This is when Ollie sees the true Rague and the reason he’s called Hulk. This also shows the true extent of what Rague went through as a child in the secret facility.

Sully turns out to be okay, by the way. Well, not okay, but he gets there.

As with Michael and Raphael in the first book, Ollie and Rague have a… unique… relationship. Those brothers are all about being protective of their men, to the point of torture and murder if they’re threatened in any way.

Only Raph is a true psychopath, and my other brother, Uri, is a sociopath. We’re all fucked up, though, in one way or another. Years of torture tend to leave a mark. Or two.

I liked these guys together, mostly. Ollie is a bit on the flighty side, and Rague growls a lot. I did love watching Rague’s softer side come out. I also liked seeing the other brothers and their mothers, Meg and Linda.

Other than Ollie, Sully, and Sully’s friend, Brad, Lori was also introduced. Lori is Ollie’s best friend, and to call him flamboyant would be a serious understatement. Lori was funny a few times, but I’m not sure how much fun his ‘Lori-isms’ will be in his own book, Five (Angels of Wrath, #4). His love interest will be Gabe, the most stoic and serious of the brothers.

Gabe only kills people who abuse, hurt, or murder women and children. Occasionally, he will make an exception, though.

There’s also Pink, Sully and Ollie’s deformed cat. Pink is only in the book for a few moments.

Rague’s pet name for Ollie was Kitty, which is much better than Raphael’s pet name for Michael, Piglet.

Worst.

Pet.

Name.

Ever.

Exclamation points were again all over the place. I know I sound like a broken record, but too many !!!! are seriously annoying. I also noticed that a lot of the wording is outdated. Booty and culprit, to name two. Then there’s the banjo that big and hulky Rague plays.

A banjo.

That didn’t fit my image of Rague, or well, anybody, during a sexual or post-sexual moment. A guitar, sure, but not a banjo. I know the author was trying to show his softer side, but a banjo is a bit much.

Strike that. It’s way too much. I honestly found myself almost laughing during the banjo moment, and then I felt bad about it because of where the author was trying to go with the character.

I know that banjos are being used a lot more these days in modern music, but it just didn’t work for me in this particular context.

Overall, the story was good. Rague and Ollie get their HEA for sure, though there are still some unanswered questions about who is killing the kids. The sex was… something. It was rough, hard, and obviously painful for Ollie (I did mention the ten inches), which is just the way they both liked it.

I’m invested in the world now, so I’ve already starting reading Rami’s story, Three (Angels of Wrath, #3). He’s been my favorite character so far, so I’m eager to see him find his own man.