Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Fractal Enigma

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap (24 Years), BDSM, Billionaire/Mechanic, Opposites Attract, Romance

Length: 388 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

This review contains spoilers.

Blurb –

A failing garage. A mountain of debt. And a ruthless billionaire offering a contract that will cost him his pride… or his heart.

Twenty-four-year-old Caleb Reyes is drowning. Since his father died, he’s been working himself into the ground to save his family’s auto garage, but $340,000 in debt is a death sentence. Then comes the final blow: a wealthy developer has bought the block and is tearing it down. Furious, desperate, and covered in engine grease, Caleb storms into the CEO’s corner office ready for a fight. He isn’t expecting a proposition.

Dominic Ashford, founder of Ashford Ventures, doesn’t do sentiment. He builds empires and manages variables. But when Caleb marches into his office, Dominic’s legendary control fractures. He sees a young man collapsing under the weight of the world, and he makes an offer Caleb can’t refuse: all debts cleared and the garage saved.

The catch? Caleb has to move into Dominic’s penthouse for six months and follow his rules.

It’s supposed to be a simple transaction. Meals, sleep, and submission in exchange for financial salvation. But behind the locked doors of the penthouse, Dominic’s meticulous care and devastating praise begin to dismantle Caleb’s armor. Caleb has survived his whole life by fighting, but Dominic is determined to teach him how to surrender.

Terms of Surrender is a steamy, emotional MM age-gap romance featuring a fiercely independent blue-collar mechanic, a deeply protective billionaire, and high-heat D/s dynamics. HEA guaranteed.

Review –

Caleb, 24, is drowning. His dad died 14 months before, leaving him with a ton of business and medical debt. He’s working himself to the bone, barely getting four hours of sleep a night, and mostly eating ramen or whatever he can scrounge up with very little money. His dad, Miguel, opened a garage three decades before. Caleb is working himself to death simply to keep the lights on and the business going. He’s just received notice that his entire block has been sold to an investment firm, and he has 60 days to walk away from the business his father built from the ground up and loved. Furious, Caleb storms into the office of the firm’s billionaire CEO, demanding to know why his company is destroying so many lives.

Enter Dominic, 48. Dominic, even as busy as he is, takes time to listen to Caleb. What he learns is that whoever sent the demand letter didn’t do their due diligence and the sixty days could not lawfully be enforced. Six months, yes, but not 60 days. Caleb is a smart man, even if he’s not traditionally educated. He knows the facts, and that intrigues Dominic. Dominic invites Caleb to dinner where he makes a proposition – Six months with Caleb living in Dom’s penthouse, allowing Dominic to take care of him. Caleb is way too thin, and is so exhausted his hands shake. Dom sees it all. Everything will be laid out in a 41-page contract. If Caleb signs, every single debt he has will be paid off by Dom. His garage will be saved, and his father’s medical bills will be cleared. Of course, the contract isn’t just about settling debts. There will be D/s scenes between them, obviously including sex. Caleb literally has no choice, so he signs the contract and moves into Dom’s penthouse.

What starts as a business arrangement quickly turns into both men catching feelings. Dom had a bad relationship three years before, and Caleb’s past relationships never lasted longer than a quickie encounter here and there. Dom is hesitant to feel again, and Caleb reminds himself that all of it is transactional.

I really loved these guys together. They fell into a nice domestic routine that went beyond what was laid out in the contract. Caleb was eating three meals a day and finally gaining weight. He was able to focus on his garage without stressing about bills. He and Dominic cooked together, and they watched documentaries at night. There are a couple of ‘scenes’ early on, but the book surprisingly didn’t have a whole lot of sex. The blurb says high heat, but a majority of the ‘heat’ didn’t happen into long into the book, with the exception of some restraints and a little edging in the early scenes.

I really liked these guys together. If you’ve ever followed my reviews you know I’m all about substantial age gaps, and there are 24 years between these two guys. Dominic was simply perfect. Honestly. I adored him from the very beginning, and I adored him at the very end. He made a couple of bonehead decisions at one point, but it was done out of love and wanting to protect Caleb.

Every bit of that – not including the bonehead decisions – was good. They were good together, and there was never any issue about status or the age gap or anything like that. I wasn’t a big fan of Nico, Caleb’s cousin, but he did make good later. There’s the classic bad guy, Victor, who tries to destroy what Caleb and Dominic have. He’s dealt with in a very satisfying way.

It was seriously a really good book… until things got weird at 72%.

72% –

Caleb heard the truck before he saw it – the particular diesel rattle of Nico’s F-250.

Nico arrives in his own truck, a F-250.

Next page –

“How did you find me?” Caleb asked.

“Your truck’s got a GPS tracker. I installed it two years ago when you were working the bar at 2 AM and I was worried you’d fall asleep at the wheel.”

A few pages later, same scene –

“Your truck’s in the lot,” Nico said. “I drove it here. Your keys are in the ignition, because this neighborhood doesn’t inspire confidence and I wasn’t leaving them at the front desk.”

If the neighborhood was bad, and Nico was knocking on Caleb’s door anyway, why not just give Caleb the keys?

Next page –

“The GPS tracker only works if the truck is with you, and I’m too old for this shit.”

He left. The diesel rattled. The parking lot was quiet.

Did Nico drive Caleb’s truck to the motel? Or did use the GPS in Caleb’s truck to find him at the motel?  One minute Nico’s loud truck is heard by Caleb, then Nico says he found him via GPS on Caleb’s truck, and then ‘I drove your truck here, and the GPS doesn’t work unless you’re in the truck.’ Huh? If I read that wrong, I hope somebody corrects me, but I read it all several times. The same applies to everything listed below.

73% –

Caleb was in his garage, then walked out, locking the door behind him.

He locked up the garage. Walked to the parking lot. His truck was there, keys in the ignition, new tires gripping the asphalt. He stood there beside it in the January cold and looked at the sky – gray, clearing, the first stars visible through the gaps in the clouds.

A page or so later, he was climbing into his truck and driving to his garage.

He got in the truck. Started the engine. The new tires hummed on the asphalt, steady and sure.

He drove to the garage. Parked. Let himself in through the side door.

This is literally in the same scene where he’d just walked out of the garage and was standing beside his truck. When did he leave and come back? He couldn’t have because it was the same scene.

76% –

“I love you,” Dominic said.

Three words. Sixteen letters. 

So, how did eight letters turn into sixteen? And the bigger question is, how was that not caught by somebody before the book was published?

There’s a lot of repetition in this book. A lot of different phrases either used verbatim or worded differently but with the same meaning. This made it way too long. But in my opinion, 388 pages for any romance book without any type of fantasy world building is too long anyway.

The things listed above really made me mad because this was a solid 5 star read until 72%. Even the first thing, I could overlook, but not when it kept happening. I seriously thought this was going to be one of my favorite books of 2026 so far. And it was, which is what makes me mad. I seriously loved Dom and Caleb together. Their relationship was genuinely beautiful. Everything just took a nosedive because of the inconsistencies and inaccuracy.

This author is an amazing storyteller. I love the way he brought these two complete opposites together, and gave them a beautiful love story. You honestly feel what the characters are feeling, and the author’s descriptions will suck you in. You feel like you’re part of the story. I just wish another set of eyes or two would’ve caught what I did. I seriously hate being the bad guy here, and I swear I would’ve let it go had there only been the first thing. I would’ve mentioned it without going into a whole lot of detail. But then the other stuff happened, and I simply couldn’t.

I’m still giving it 4 stars, but it could’ve easily been 5 had those things been caught and fixed before it was published.