Sabotage

Sabotage

by Shantel Tessier

COLTON

Raylee Lexington Adams is my stepsister and the one woman in the world who can make my blood boil.

She’s vindictive, a lot of crazy, and absolutely stunning. I hate everything about her except for when she’s on her knees begging me to use her as my own personal toy. We’ve been playing a game of cat and mouse for far too long. We have used each other for our own sick pleasure. I’ve ruined every relationship my little princess has ever had. A sure way that she’ll come crawling back to me, begging me for what only I can give her when another man fails her. But I’m tired of watching others get a piece of what is mine. So, I did what any rational man would do—I staked my claim, showed the world that she belonged to me, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make her believe it too.

RAYLEE

Colton Remington Knox is a man I despise but can’t say no to. He’s what any girl would call a walking red flag. But I’ve never claimed to be a smart woman when it comes to men. Why should he be any different? I’ve always managed to hold my own against him. But this time, he’s gone too far. Posting a video of me on my knees for him, for what? To brag? Embarrass me? He’s acting like he doesn’t know me very well. Colt wants to play a game? I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I win. No matter what it costs me. People already think I have no dignity, so why let them down now?

​Spice Level: 5.5/6

Story Score: 6.5/10

Rating: 4/5

Recommended by a friend, I was terrified of this book. I didn’t like the Ritual. For all those that thought Ryat was a dream guy, I was NOT one of them. God, he was an asshole. And I expected this one to be right up there. But I’d just read some pretty heavy alien porn, which a shit ton of dubcon and noncon so I thought I was as warmed up for this as I would get.

Holy fucking hell. It wasn’t enough.

Listen, if you can make it through this prologue, you can figure out how the rest of this book will go. Does it get easier? Nope. Does it get gentler? Nope. My God. I was questioning my entire brain and belief system through this whole damn thing.

Ray and Colt are step-siblings. Only a year difference in age, they met in their high school years when their parents got together. Colt instantly wanted to fuck her and so he went about tormenting her because he couldn’t. He hated her for making him want to.

This book is a LOT of victim shaming. Oh, who am I kidding, this book is PURE shaming and humiliation and degradation. I’ll admit: those are NOT my kinks. I don’t like them. I didn’t enjoy them here. It felt more like a train wreck that I couldn’t get away from. I just wanted to finish it because I HAD to know if it got better. I binged this thing in a matter of hours, which sounds like I loved it, right? I didn’t. I feel like I got my brain fucked.

My God. It’s been two days and I’ve read another book since this one. A happy one. I still can’t get my thoughts straight about this one. I feel like I need aftercare. I need someone to sit down and comb through this book with me, piece by piece, and help me examine every response, feeling, and reaction I had to it. Because I have a LOT OF THEM. I feel like an abuse victim. A trauma victim. I’m traumatized, but I don’t even know how to feel about it.

This book is a straight up bully book. I’d say enemies to lovers, but it’s not quite that. They’re fucking the whole book. It’s a book of hardcore smut…and more kinks than I realized an author could shove into 220 pages. Triggers too. Wanna play the “how many can you count” game because you’re going to lose count before you get to the end.

-SPOILERS-

Ok, so this book starts with Ray on her knees, sucking Colt off, with her hands belted behind her back while his three friends watch. He shoves her to the kitchen floor, cums on the floor, and tells her to lick it up. She does. Then he throws her on the kitchen table and tells his three friends to do whatever with her and she agrees because he promises he’ll let her cum after.

Yup. I don’t get it either.

Fast forward to him releasing a sex tape of that blowjob.

Forward more, and he’s having her fuck herself on the neck of a wine bottle…and then telling her to lick it clean. I feel like she spent way too much time licking things clean in this book.

Fast forward again and he’s got her exboyfriend tied to a chair while he uses her like a fuck doll to show the ex how she likes it. This scene would’ve only been mildly traumatizing to me since by this point we know she likes being humiliated, but then, after he’s fucked her delirious and she’s asking him to take her home, he has his friends tie her to a table and he carves his name in her ass with a razor blade.

Now listen, I’ve read books with knife kinks. I have. I’ve read Den of Vipers and I’ve read Melt for Us. (There have been others, but those are the two that stand out.) But this girl is like 85% drunk and 85% fucked to exhaustion, and he just CARVES HIS NAME IN HER ASS! I’m not okay.

Why are you okay?!

I don’t…I’ve just read some serious alien non-con and this still bothered me more! Maybe because as much as they hate each other and as much bullying as he’s done to her, I felt like she trusted him with her body. You have to trust someone with your body to be able to surrender the amount of control that she does. And he takes advantage of that. I’m not over it. I don’t know when I will be over it.

Then, she gets kidnapped by her ex as retaliation for said humiliation and he rapes her. Honestly, her fight in this scene was probably the best thing about Ray. She fucking fought and she survived and I was so proud of her. But she’s not okay. I don’t know what in the world has caused the amount of fucked up this girl’s brain is, but it’s an ungodly amount. I also get the whole ‘I need you to take away his touch’ attitude. I do. The concept of overwriting trauma with better memories makes sense. And not wanting the person who loves you to treat you differently afterwards because that may break you more, I understand. But there was still something about it all that HURT ME. It hurt me so badly that days later and books later, I’m still hurt.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to move on from this.

I don’t know how the fuck I didn’t dnf this book.

I don’t know how, in the end, I didn’t hate this book.

Maybe it’s the whole “your crazy matches my crazy” thing.

Maybe I need a therapist.

-UPDATE-

Ok, I’ve spent days dwelling on this book. To the point that I had to talk to my husband about it. Things I’ve decided:

1. I wasn’t okay with being okay with the things that I was okay with in this book. That’s something that I generally HATE about FMCs. I hate when they like something but are ashamed of it and this book caused me to question what I was okay with and I didn’t like how that felt.

2. On top of that, it was hard for me to distinguish between the things that I liked and didn’t in this book. I was okay with the degradation and humiliation because SHE liked it, BUT it was intermixed with so much dubcon that it was hard to draw lines in between them.

3. Total power exchanges are hard for me. In this book, Ray gave Colt COMPLETE control over her person, over and over again. And I feel like he took advantage of that and that he let her down. Period. She trusted him with her body, allowed him to degrade and humiliate her in front of her ex. She was drunk and delirious and then he ABUSED that power by carving his name into her.

4. At this point, this book was hard to accept as a romance novel. His “love” for Ray was…just poof. He had his epiphany that he loved her and it was just supposed to be something I accepted, but I didn’t. Ray was UPSET that he carved into her and his only remark was that she was his, they were supposed to be together, and she was welcome to do the same. How fucking kind of him to give her PERMISSION to do something that he didn’t allow her to give permission for.

5. The “body modification” issue is just DROPPED after she’s kidnapped and raped. Sure, Colt showed up to pick her up and got her to a doctor, but does that excuse the rest? I feel like he should’ve been punished or had to beg or SOMETHING to get back into her good graces.

6. I still don’t like unintended-for-use foreign objects being shoved inside a woman.

7. I feel like Ray has more mental health issues than anyone wants to admit in this book and I felt like she was masking and avoiding and that bothered me. Of course people can like these things without trauma and issues, but after she’s raped, the person that Ray is DOES have trauma and she was just picking fights and so much bullshit.

8. Wording makes a difference to me. Some of the things he said and the WAY he said them were hard for me to get over. I’ve figured out that I’m much more of a rough love, soft words kind of gal. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dirty talk, but I hate to be made to feel bad about myself. I’m good enough at it on my own. Ray didn’t have this issue, so I’ll try not to hold it against him.

Standalone

​219 Pages

Trope Challenge: Taboo

“I want my cum dripping out of that sweet cunt, princess. That way, when you wake up in the morning with Nate’s head between your legs, you know he’s tasting me.”

- Colt, Sabotage by Shantel Tessier

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