Bound to Please is an erotic romance featuring an older woman and a younger man. It’s erotic all right, but romantic? I guess it depends on the reader – I didn’t think so.

Ruby Scott is 37, and a successful event planner in San Francisco. Several years ago, she lived with Ash, an artist who is famous for his photographs of women bound with ropes. Because of his photos, most people think Ash and Ruby had quite the kinky sex life, but they didn’t. Their sex life was actually quite bland – vanilla in Ruby’s words. Secretly, Ruby wants to be dominated and spanked although she won’t admit it. She also yearns for fidelity and commitment – something she hasn’t had in her other relationships.

At a party she has planned, Ruby meets Mark St. Crow the head of an up and coming band, the Dark Riders. Mark is 10 years younger than Ruby, but emotionally he is as grounded as she is uncertain. Mark is a dom and knows it. He collects erotic art and recognises Ruby as the woman in a photograph he bought. He also senses that Ruby really, really wants to be dominated and sets out to show her that he can do it.

Mark and Ruby have one hot encounter at the party and agree to meet after his latest concert to have an entire night together and get each other out of their systems. It doesn’t work that way. They find they want each other even more, more so on Mark’s part than Ruby’s. To him, Ruby is the perfect sub that he has been searching for, and tries to make her see that. But she is still fearful and she worries that someone like Mark won’t be able to give her the committment she wants so much.

Well, if you want an erotic romance, emphasis on erotic, this is your book. The sex scenes are plentiful, burning and not at all vanilla. A lot of them involve spanking, whipping, binding and other trappings of BDSM. This was not at all erotic to me, and I found some of the descriptions painful rather than arousing. However, the author excels at getting into the character’s heads and we do understand them quite well (I still don’t find pain at all erotic).

Ruby may have been the older of the pair, but she was not really worldly wise. She had a touch of naiveté that was a bit odd considering her life, her lifestyle and her wish to be dominated and hurt. I think, in her heart of hearts, Ruby really wanted a house with a white picket fence. Granted, the fence would have to have spikes, and the house would need to have a dungeon in the basement, but despite the kink, I sensed Ruby had more than just a touch of the old fashioned girl in her psyche.

Mark was very sure of himself and has been so since he was a teen. He’s a dom and he likes to make subs happy. He has been uber-promiscuous for a long time – a very long time so when he and Ruby finally pledge to be a couple, I couldn’t help but think that what they have is not a happily ever after, just a happily for now until Mark finds another sub who takes his fancy.

Bound to Please is well written, the characters are vivid and we get to know them intimately. Technically, this book quite well done which is why I give it the grade I do. But as for liking it……well, I didn’t. I’ll admit to being old fashioned, and I really like vanilla.