Third One (Those Other Books #3) by Roe Horvat

Buy links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Blurb

It could have been just an innocent crush. Something guiltless and fleeting. But Luke spends every day with Marcus; they talk, touch and dance together, they create and perform together. They know each other inside out. As a consequence, Luke has been in love with his very much taken choreographer for years. Seeing Marcus and his partner Liam together has become increasingly painful, and Luke needs to leave. His dancing career is nearing an end anyway. He will start university, reinvent himself, forget Marcus and find happiness elsewhere.

Except Marcus loves him back. And Liam knows. Liam’s dark eyes and his imposing silhouette begin haunting Luke’s dreams. Drowning in both lust and sadness, Luke is swept into a passionate triangle with two men who couldn’t be more different. Suddenly, instead of fear or caution, there’s just a mind-numbing desire for more.

Review

“This is how I look when I’m happy.” – Luke

Third One is the third book (but fourth story) in the Those Other Books series. In my review of One In Between I wrote: “I do hope there will be a Liam, Marcus and Luke story.” And what do you know? Not only did I get my wish, but the story I wished for surpassed all my (very high) hopes and expectations.

Like all of Roe’s characters Liam, Marcus, and Luke feel deeply, love fervently, and enjoy sex/make love with a burning passion. This author always takes his readers deep into his main characters. Not a thought is hidden or vague, every feeling is described in terms that awaken the same emotions in the reader. It’s impossible not to feel Marcus’s need, Luke’s desperation, or Liam’s occasional (and uncharacteristic) doubt. The language allows the reader to emerge themselves in the story, lose themselves there, and find some much needed and deeply appreciated relief from the real world.

Few authors I know write sex with as much depth, feeling, and eroticism as Roe Horvat. The words ‘this story made my Kindle steam’ are a cliché and yet, that’s the only way I can describe it.  Every touch, and the reaction it elicits, is vivid to the point where the reader can almost experience them personally. There is no shame, sex is never dirty. Quite the opposite in fact. Touch, penetration, claiming, surrendering, are so much more than a hot act on these pages. They describe the growing feelings between these three men with maybe more clarity than their thoughts and words do. In each other, in their shared passion and release they find each other as well as themselves and it’s a beautiful sight.

Not that this novella is ‘just’ a sex-filled romp. Becoming a throple is always going to be more complicated than two people coming together. When two of the three have been an established and happy couple for a decade before their third enters the relationship, it only makes things more fraught. And yet, while there certainly was some concern on Luke’s part about being the ‘odd one out’, when these three men come together it heralds the end of their angst rather than the start. Not that all concerns instantly vanished, as if by the magic of peen’, but once these men open up to each other (in more ways than one) and start talking, the stomach-churning disquiet, eased both for the characters and for me. And the moment Luke fully realizes he’s found happiness had tears stinging my eyes.

I could go on…and on…and on… But, in the end all that matters is that with Third One, Roe Horvat once again delivered a beautifully written story about men finding their perfect happy-ever-after. The fact that he also managed to push me out of my reading funk is a very welcome bonus. Not for the first time I highly recommend this book by a wonderful and favourite author.

“It all began and ended with Liam. Without Liam, his love for Marcus made no sense. By giving himself to Liam, he was redeemed.” – Luke

Related reviews: The Other Book | Adam Only | One in Between