My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Set against the backdrop of the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Navy SEAL Brock recounts his secret, eight-year friends-with-benefits relationship with his teammate and best friend, Adam DuBois. While Adam has only treated it as physical, Brock has secretly fallen completely in love with him. Their hidden dynamic is blown wide open when Adam is captured on a mission. Desperate to bring the man he loves home alive, Brock is willing to risk everything—including exposing their forbidden romance and his own career—to rescue him.
This was such an intense and dramatic story, packed with all the high-stakes danger you would expect from a Navy SEAL romance. I really appreciated how the book tackled the heavy emotional weight of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era, showing just how difficult and restrictive it was to hide your truth while serving. The plot shifts into even higher gear when Adam becomes a POW, which ended up being a powerful turning point for their relationship. Being forced into that terrifying situation actually gave Adam the necessary space and clarity to truly understand and confront his feelings for Brock. One of my favourite aspects was seeing how the rest of the team and their allies already knew about them and rallied together to show total support. The story is overflowing with raw, clear, and easy-to-understand emotions from start to finish. My only minor struggle was with the frequent switching back and forth between the past and present timelines—even though they were clearly marked with date headers, it sometimes pulled me out of the immediate flow of the narrative. Still, it is a deeply moving, thrilling, and romantic read.
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