Bared to You

Sylvia Day

388 Pages

Berkley Trade, June 2012

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness …

He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily …

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds … and desires. The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn’t tear us apart.

I got curious about Bared to You once I saw the sequel, Reflected in You, in Bahasa Indonesia translation placed in the stand with a little sticker, ‘for adult only’. Why they should put it up something like that? What kind of story that the book tells? What differentiate it with other adult romance books? I have to read it to find out! *grin*

Bared to You tells a story about Eva Tramell and her new job in New York. A day before officially working, Eva visits the building. She happens to she bumped into a super looking good man. He’s Gideon Cross, a billionaire and the owner of the building. Gideon wants to do some dirty thing with Eva’s body and asks it directly. Eva declines it because she thinks that she has to know someone she’s sleeping with. Then they make an arrangement but they can’t help it and fall in love with each other. When they relationship became a public known, Eva tells Gideon about her haunting past. Because she does want keeping any secret and knows that Gideon has one too.

"I’ve always seen you, angel. From the moment you found me, I’ve seen nothing but you."

So, Bared to You is erotica fiction! And I can’t help myself to compare it to Fifty Shades of Grey. There are similarities and differences. The leading men, Christian Grey and Gideon Cross, like to control things around them, have a similar taste of the way they enjoy sexy time, dark past and look at their initial name! The difference is Gideon is more eager to work things out with Eva. While the leading ladies, Anastasia Stelle and Eva Tramell, are not so identical. They both can drive their men crazy but Eva know what she likes, especially sexy time, tend to control things too, easily jealous, has a dark past but she fights it. Despite all of that, the story is obviously different and this one is written better. So let’s focus on this one.

Because they both have unpleasant pasts, the relationship between Eva and Gideon are very tense. They fight a lot and make up a lot too in course of less than two weeks. I see that they use sexual intercourse as a cure, not only for their soul but also to open up about themselves. I didn’t know that. It’s kinda romantic, don’t you think? But the amount of it makes me tired. And I wonder why the Dominant & Submissive thing is not so much in this one? Luckily, an interesting thing (I won’t spoil it ;p) comes near the end of the novel and maybe it become the main plot in the next novel.  Am I interested to find it out in the sequel? Yeah, of course but I am not so excited.

At last, the complicated couple in Bared to You is interesting to follow, especially when it’s beautifully written.  I’m curious how they fights their pasts and I’m eager to see the Dominant & Submissive thing working out in them too. Any Fifty Shades of Grey’s fan understand and surely gonna love it ;p