Under His Touch

Kennedy follows Going Under with this strong contemporary BDSM romance. Ambitious financial assistant Amber Dolors suspects her boss, Alec Knight, might share her love of kink. Alec, a British transplant to New York who’s still glum about his recent divorce, is captivated by his young assistant but is unwilling to do anything to jeopardize either of their careers. As their attraction grows, Alec and Amber must decide what they want from life and each other. Kennedy seamlessly mixes domination play and genuine equality without ignoring the potential problems that kink and romance could bring to the couple’s power dynamic at work and vice versa. Internal and personal tensions drive the narrative. Some external obstacles are thrown in as afterthoughts late in the book, making them less effective than they could be, and contemporary references may date this sooner than desired, but the core of the story is the development of a gripping and realistic relationship between two well-drawn characters. (Jan.)