Gosh, this could have been so good.

Alas, it suffered from plot line overload, tried to do too much within the number of pages and needed a serious editor/proofreader to fix the numerous issues I had with this novella.

First off, the POV switches - that didn't work for me. I found it difficult to follow the mindset of Michael's first person POV to Blake's third person POV. An omniscient narrator would have been better for this to give this book a bit more coherency. 

Secondly, the characterizations for both Michael and Blake were uneven and choppy, with some whiplash-inducing changes that didn't always make sense. And while the abuse and PTSD from his childhood would account for Blake's personality switches, there's nothing in Michael's past, other than his heartbreak, that would explain why he is trying to dominate Blake and force him into submission. Hence the dub-con tag on this - I couldn't help but feel that Michael was in a position of power over Blake from the start and that any intimacy that happened between them wasn't fully consensual, especially not in the beginning. 

The editing/proofing of this book is atrocious. There's a really good story buried in there somewhere, fighting hard to get out, but overwhelmed by the POV changes from first person POV to third person POV for the other MC, mixed up pronouns, missing commas, misplaced commas etc. 

Fire your editor from a cannon, OMG. Yeah, I know this is an ARC, but come on! This reads like a first draft.