Title: Dirty English
Author: Ilsa Madden-Mills
Publisher: Little Dove Publishing
Release Date: October 12, 2015
Genre: Erotic Romance, New Adult
More Info: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon US
Purchase: Amazon UK
Purchase: Amazon CA
Purchase: Amazon AU

A scarred fighter.

A girl with rules.

One night of unbridled passion.

There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Bennett: she’s smart as a whip, always in control, and lives by a set of carefully crafted rules. She’s learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end.

But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex.

A tattooed British street fighter, he’s the campus bad boy she’s supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.

She gives him one night of unbridled passion, but he longs for more.

With only a cardboard-thin wall separating their bedrooms, he dreams of possessing the vulnerable girl next door forever.

One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime.

Meet Declan and Elizabeth in Ilsa Madden-Mills new fighter romance!

Dirty English is a modern love story inspired by Pride and Prejudice.

Excerpt

 “Come to my apartment and spend the night with me.” I touched his face, my fingers stroking the softness of his sensuous lips. “Just one night and we can make this shitty world disappear.”

He exhaled. “A one-night stand?”

“Yeah.”

He cupped my chin. “Someone hurt you, didn’t they?”

My lips tightened. No one at Whitman knew about Colby except for Shelley and Blake, and I sure as hell wasn’t telling him. He’d judge me like everyone else had in Petal, North Carolina. “That’s none of your business.”

“I see.” His eyes searched mine until I felt like a bug under a microscope. “What if I wanted more than just one night?”

“Then your hands can let go of my hips now.”

He removed his hands slowly, the tips of his fingers grazing mine. “This may surprise you, but I don’t sleep with every girl I kiss.”

I’d been rejected. Again. “Blake said you got around, that you used—”

“And you believed him?” His voice was incredulous. “Dude is in love with you and he saw exactly how we looked at each other tonight—”

“Looked at each other? What are you talking about? You refused to dance with me and then you ran off with your girlfriend. Not to mention I just kissed you and you didn’t even care.” I threw my hands up.

“I wanted to fuck you the minute you walked in that party,” he snapped.

“Then why don’t you,” I bit out, tossing back my shoulders.

“You think you want me?” he said tightly. “You can’t handle me, Elizabeth. I can see it in your eyes. You’re scared of something, maybe not me, but something.”

My eyes went to his black eye.

He let out a harsh laugh. “Ah, that’s what you’re afraid of. You want the real truth? You told me tonight you didn’t like violence, but I’m an arsehole who uses his fists. That’s who I am.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze was intense, dark and low, his face struggling as he fought to find the right words. “I’m in a fight club for money. I show up at warehouses and fight other blokes. Sometimes I beat them so bad they need medical attention. A few times, I’ve been beat to unconsciousness. I’m everything you need to stay away from.”

I inhaled, anger and lust and excitement all riding me. Anger that he was pushing me away, lust for the alpha male in him, and God help me, the fighting thing repelled me and excited me at the same time. “I don’t want to stay away from you. I want you to fuck me and stop making excuses for why you can’t.”

My words seemed to snap his taut restraint.

He pulled me back in his arms, his lips fusing with mine unerringly. His tongue plundered me in a sensual way my body had craved for years. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my anger morphing into all-out desire as he turned us and pressed me against the wall.

Yes, yes, this is what I craved.

A passion to remind me that I was real, not just some sad excuse of a girl who chose to exist on scraps of love.

Before I knew it, he’d shoved my robe off, his hands sculpting my shoulders, massaging them as he ravaged my mouth. I reveled in the warmth of his hand on my neck as his mouth skated down, kissing the hollows of my throat, sucking on my collarbone.

“Like this?” he asked, his voice dark and gravelly. “You want me to take you up against this wall?”

“Yes,” I moaned. Gone. Past caring as long as he kept his hands on me.

Out of control, my brain whispered, but I beat back the dark warnings as his warm hand found my breast and squeezed, his fingers rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

I gasped in pleasure and arched my back to get closer to his body, ignoring the fear that pricked at the surface.

The rules girl in my head stamped her foot and yelled at me. I ignored her.

But even if I wanted to stop right now, I couldn’t. My tongue tangled wildly with his, my hands pulled at his hair, spurring him on, his hand palming my breast and then tugging. Sharp sensations of need went straight to my core.

“Is this what you want? Something quick where we just take what we want and forget each other the next day?”

No. Not that. Not like the way he said it, like it was something dirty.

“Yes, like that,” I whispered against his shoulder, my mouth on his skin, tasting him as my teeth bit down.

My Review

If I were to give this author a tagline it would be: Good things come to those who wait. She may not churn out books at a rapid rate like so many others do, but you can be sure that when you get one of her stories in your hands it is pure quality. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the preconceptions I have going into her books. From the teasers and excerpts and just general buzz, I always think I am going to get one type of story and what I end up experiencing is entirely different altogether in the best possible of ways. She is the true definite of don’t judge a book by its cover, even though her covers are absolutely stunning! I guess what I’m saying is don’t judge them superficially and be reading to be blown away.

Clarity happens to all of us when our heart jumps ship, and mine was no different.

On the surface this is a story about a headstrong, broken girl who is all but hiding from life, that meets and subsequently tries to booty call and forget her hot British fighter, gym owning neighbor. But things aren’t always as they seem and as with all of Ilsa’s other books, there are layers upon layers to peel back before you get to the truth. Some go into books looking for the heat, and while I will admit to being one of them, what makes me stick around is the emotion. Without it a story just will not hold my attention for very long. Among many other things, Ilsa excels in bringing this to the forefront. She allows you a ticket into her character’s heads and hearts and from the beginning you know these are people you won’t soon forget. You genuinely care how their story unfolds and when things happen to deter from that path, you are legitimately upset with them and the situations.

Big moments happen with the smallest of actions, and sometimes it’s not until later we connect the dots, but in that instant, I knew that somehow, someway Declan was going to own my heart.

At the heart of this story, it was all about love. Two characters searching for something they either had never really had unconditionally or hadn’t had in a very long time. My heart broke for Elizabeth in the purest of ways. She’d been cast aside her entire life, seemingly never enough for anyone. After the events in the prologue, I was ready to rip folks apart. I was livid and could feel the hate running through my veins and I just wanted justice for her. I hate that she shut herself off from the world, but I certainly understood why. I loved that even though she was skittish in some aspects of her life, in others she was completely headstrong. The strength she allowed to break through was breathtaking and with each challenge she overcame, I felt myself cheering her on louder and louder.

I wanted her in my bed at night and every morning.
I wanted her in my skin.
I wanted her in my soul.
And I wanted in hers.

Just like Elizabeth, Declan didn’t feel like who he was or what he wanted was enough. Not having the unconditional love of his only remaining parent and feeling tossed aside and replaced, I feel like he yearned for validation. He knew what he wanted and he wouldn’t stop at anything to get it. I admired how headstrong he was and how he would do whatever it took to achieve his goals. The protectiveness that he instantly felt towards Elizabeth had my heart melting. Though he tried hard to hide behind a cocky attitude, at the core of him was a legitimately caring guy that would give you the shirt off his own back. He displayed this time and time again and all it did was cause me to fall more in love with him.

There’s no point in chasing a dream if it doesn’t want you back.

Though this was ultimately a love story, I really felt like the heart of the book was these two characters truly finding out who they were and coming into their own. When you find your other half, you make each other better, you lift each other up. And though they fought tooth and nail against it, true love cannot be denied. But oh, how I enjoyed watching them try to resist the pull. This is definitely a story I will be revisiting again soon!

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