Barbarian’s Tease by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians #16
HOLY SHIT Y’ALL. THIS MIGHT BE THE HOTTEST BOOK YET.
Brooke and Taushen are the last of the unmated people on “Not Hoth” (to be renamed at the end of this book to Icehome and thus set up the other Ruby Dixon series). When they were taken hostage during the events of Barbarian’s Rescue, their abductors tried to force them to become mates by drugging Brooke with an aphrodisiac. They had wild, HOT HOT HOT sex complete with hair pulling and multiple screamings of, “harder!” (I recognize the dubious consent of this, but I also cannot deny that it felt consensual in the moment. She was aware and aroused and lead every development of the banging. Perhaps this is just a flimsy justification, but it didn’t feel any more or less consensual than when their khui would start singing and make them horny AF.)
Something about this sex scene, probably the ferocity of her want and the dirty talk made this the second hottest book in this series. First place will always go to the first sex scene in Book 1 where Georgie wakes up to Vektal going down on her. But it’s an honorarium first place. The scene in this book GOT. ME. NAKED. Then later on, the other scenes GOT. ME. NAKED. AGAIN. The sex scene to getting naked percentile was the highest of any book in this series. This shit was hot.
Things that Barbarians Tease shares with Ice Planet Barbarians, which might account for why they are so HOT:
First sex scene is like five chapters in. Early on hotness. Able to ride those good feelings for the rest of the book.
Human woman is a fish out of water, Sa-Khui male knows that he wants her, takes care of her, and will follow her lead.
That gets its own point: the human woman sets the pace of the relationship.
Cave sex (at this point, I think I’ve been Pavlovian trained to get aroused when a couple approaches a cave. My brain thinks, “oh, yeah, here we go!”
I guess I should talk about the B plot of this book because it’s also hella interesting. As you know by now, I LOVE a world-building book in this series and when this series really shines is when you can tell that Ruby Dixon is book-layering. What I mean by that is, though we follow Brooke and Taushen on their sex vacation, we know that the tribe is going through something that will be in another book, namely, they are waking up 20 slaves they found on the ship that tried to abduct them in Barbarian’s Rescue. That means 16 new human females and 4 new alien men. And by the end of Barbarian’s Tease, we get to meet some of these newcomers and hear of some of the drama they already endured, which doubles down on my overlapping book theory.
I’ve been keeping a list of these books in order of how much I like them, this one has jumped to the #2 slot. And with only four more books in this series to go, it’s looking to lock in that top three spot. -Ford
