Note: I received a complementary copy of this book in exchange for a review.
Noah is overwhelmed after the sudden death of his father. The man was the owner of a successful kink club that catered to the age play set, and he left it to Noah, who has no head for business or how to manage people. In desperation he reaches out to Sawyer, his late father's best friend, and a “daddy” Noah has had a crush on for years. Sawyer definitely wants to help. It's the daddy in him, as well as something he feels he owes his late friend. The only problem is that Sawyer is as attracted to Noah as the young man is to him, yet Noah's father extracted a promise from him never to go after his son.
“His Middle” is one of those stories where there's no doubt about where it's going to go, but it's still interesting to see how they get there. Sawyer and Noah are both quite typical characters for these stories, but still well defined. Noah is a very sympathetic character, trying to cope with not only the death of a loved one, but the sudden responsibility of running a business for which he's wholly unprepared. It doesn't help that he has an eager-to-please personality that avoids confrontation.
Sawyer is your typical daddy-dom type, fiercely protective of anyone he considers “his boy” and dedicated to giving anyone he cares about all he can. I do like that we get enough of a back story about Sawyer to see why he has the time to help Noah out. It helps make him much more of a believable character. All too often in D/s stories, the Dom seems to have an endless supply of time and money to spend on his sub. The specific kink of this story may not appeal to all, but it works well as a romance with a difference.
The story arc is rather linear. There's a Big Dramatic Event implied in the blurb, but it's more of an incident that doesn't really alter the course of the story. However, this also means the story lacks any artificial drama and come off all the more naturally because of it.
“His Middle” is available from Amazon.