Getting Hotter by Elle Kennedy

Why I read it: I was in the mood for a sexy contemporary and I remembered I hadn't read this one yet.  Rowr.

What it's about: (from Goodreads)  A good bad boy is hard to find.

An Out of Uniform story.

Seth Masterson has been lusting over Miranda Breslin since the moment he saw her on a Vegas stage. Now that he’s been asked to watch out for her as she opens a dance studio in San Diego, he’s all over it, figuring it’s his chance to get her in his bed. Except the stubborn single mom seems determined to deny their crazy-sizzling sexual chemistry. In typical SEAL fashion, Seth makes it his personal mission to prove her wrong.

Miranda got over her attraction to bad boys about the time one of them knocked her up at the age of eighteen. Seth’s mocking gray eyes and military-buff bod, though, are pure and utter temptation. And when a flooded apartment forces her and her twins to move in with him, she can no longer resist the urge to set off some serious fireworks between the sheets.

But give him her heart? No, thank you. Any involvement with Seth will be strictly physical—and temporary. So when Seth decides permanent is what he wants, Miranda must steel her defenses before she does something incredibly foolish…like fall in love.

What worked for me (and what didn't):  Seth is a bad boy with the hots for former Vegas showgirl Miranda, single mother of 6 year old twins.  The big problem is that Seth doesn't like children.   Well, that's not really accurate.  He doesn't want to get close to people emotionally, and he has a horror of getting close to children in particular (there are reasons) and he passes it off as not liking kids.  He basically ignores Miranda's twins until she makes it clear that if he wants into her bed anytime in the next millenium, he'd better be nicer to her kids.

I liked Seth's cluelessness about children and his masculine single guy humour -

As the twins began shouting out film titles Seth had never heard of—how was Puss in Boots age-appropriate? It sounded like porn, for chrissake—...

In the end, Seth's reasons for not wanting to be around children not only made sense, but also meant that there could be a happy ending for he and Miranda.  There are men who don't like kids.  But, I don't see them getting involved in any way with a woman with children though so I can't really imagine a romance novel where the hero has no hidden trauma, he just doesn't like and doesn't want kids but who in spite of that,  gets together with a woman with children and for it to somehow work for me.  I was curious how this was going to work, as Seth's underlying reasons weren't introduced until later on.   Because, a guy who is after a woman with children but who has zero interested in them?  Not sexy.

Fortunately, Seth does have his reasons and events in the book force him to address them or bail and his attraction to Miranda is such that he can't bring himself to leave.  (In real life I'm not sure I'd buy that - someone who absolutely wanted to avoid children wouldn't hang around long enough would they? - but in the context of this book, I could buy it.) Given how quickly Seth bonds with the children once he lets his guard down (and it is super quick), it is clear that it was never that he didn't like kids, rather that he wouldn't allow himself to.

Smothering a sigh, he took her duffel bag and set it aside. “Come on, I’m sure there’s something you want to do. We can watch a movie or go out in the backyard or draw a picture—pick anything you want.”
“Anything?”
He could’ve sworn he saw a devilish gleam in her eyes.
“Anything,” he echoed.
“Fine. I wanna play with my dolls and make their hair pretty so they can dance at the recital.”
God help him. ...

... “I knew you wouldn’t wanna.” She scowled. “You wouldna be good at it anyway.”
Seth raised a defiant brow, then squatted down so they were at eye level. “Sophie, I’m a United States Navy SEAL. Know what that means?”
She shifted uneasily, then shook her head.
“It means I can do whatever I set my mind on, and if you think I can’t give your dolls some awesome hairstyles, then I’m ready to prove you wrong.”

I enjoyed the humour in this book, for example watching Seth deal with unaccustomed jealousy:-

Seth did not enjoy the way Miranda’s hazel eyes roamed the broad expanse of Dylan’s smooth chest. He glared at his roommate in an unspoken order to go put on a fucking shirt—and pants, damn it—but the guy remained completely unfazed.

and I really like the way Ms. Kennedy writes men - they seem authentically male* to me in the way they think

Seth didn’t even hesitate. “The rugrats are smart, babe. Smart enough to know that you’re the only parent they need.”
“You think my kids are smart?” She sounded astounded.
Discomfort squeezed his throat. “Yeah, sure. Of course they are.”
Miranda continued to stare at him as if he’d just told her he’d won an Olympic gold medal for synchronized swimming or some shit.  

*Although I have to say that I've never met any men who are quite so sexually accepting before but I wish it were the norm.

This is a fun, sexy, sex-positive book and I think those who enjoyed Feeling Hot will like this one too.

What else? A fair part of the book is taken up with Dylan's growing attraction to Aidan Rhodes.  I've seen reviews which say that he kind of stole the book and I have some sympathy for that position actually.  He leaps off the page and I want to read about him more and more.  I'm hoping the next book is about about he and Aidan and I suspect there will be something to do with the brother's fiance too because in romance novels, isn't instant dislike of a scorching hot woman code for "I want to bone her"? :D  Given that Aidan and Dylan both "swing both ways" (their term), I can see a permanent menage in their future... ahem. Sorry, I got distracted there for a moment. 

As much as I liked Dylan, I also enjoyed Seth and Miranda's story.  It was, in fact, exactly what I was in the mood for.

Grade: B/B+ (I thought Getting Hot was a smidge better and I gave that one a B+)