I enjoyed this more the second time I read it than the first. I liked the twist/deception/secret of Chris is a man pretending to be a woman (on a dare) and he really tries not to get involved but finds himself hopelessly attracted. It's also more slow going than some of the rest of the series and I found that refreshing. Ok, so here's what annoyed me the first time: Manon's Cajun accent. So not that big of a deal but I did find it very annoying. This latest installment was a decent read for me and had a cute twist in Manon's story of getting his mate. It started out kind of exciting with Chris losing a bet and being forced to dress as a woman and parade himself in public at a straight bar for an evening. Manon comes to Chris' rescue when a guy at the bar won't take 'no' for an answer and discovers that the pretty human female is his mate. Chris is attracted to Manon, but is conflicted because Manon's attraction to him is based on the deception that he's a girl.The story progresses with Chris, who wants to be with Manon, foolishly agreeing to a date. Then do to a terrible beating that Chris took because of a gay bashing, Manon learns the truth.The plot turns solicitous as Manon cares for his mate and then steamy when Chris is recovered enough for the two of them to get it on. An incident in the woods leads to further developments that give them another piece to the scientist experimenters puzzle and an unexpected complication for Manon in his relationship with Chris.There was some excitement and some steamy passion, but for some reason I just had a disconnect from the story. It just didn't have the sparkle that some of the earlier ones had. Maybe it was because there was no really strong dangerous conflicts with the scientists and their super-charged humans like in the other stories. And because the lead characters weren't really the angsty sorts, there wasn't much in the way of conflict there- not that I'm complaining about that because I like to shake up the personalities of the heroes on occasion. Still love the series and look forward to the next book. I like the guess work as to who will get their story next.
