Play Me: The Complete Story

By Tracy Wolff

Synopsis

My name is Aria Winston. I’ve fought desperately to escape the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas. Now I’m on my own, in control of my own life and my own destiny . . . just the way I like it. Until Sebastian Caine changes everything.

Working as a cocktail waitress at one of Vegas’s hottest five-star casinos means putting up with a ton of bad behavior from the big spenders. But it pays the bills—and that’s all that matters to Aria, who needs every last dollar to escape from her father’s destructive grasp and the brutal man he expects her to marry. But when she lashes out against a billionaire who won’t take no for an answer, she nearly loses everything—until Sebastian steps in. The owner’s son and handpicked successor, Sebastian is dark, sexy, and kinder than any rich man should be. And when he apologizes and offers to keep her job safe, Aria can’t help the way her body reacts to his. Suddenly her job, and the security it brings her, isn’t the only thing Aria wants.

Review

Play Me: The Complete Story was originally published as five serial novellas: Play Me Wild; Play Me Hot; Play Me Hard; Play Me Real; and Play Me Right. Each novella takes about an hour to read and is the story of Aria Winston and Sebastian Caine. Part way through the series, Ethan Frost (from the Ethan Frost series) makes his appearance asking Sebastian for help on a private matter, which Sebastian is happy to give, even more so when he finds out the people involved hurt Aria. So I guess you could categorise this as a spin-off series.

I liked both Aria and Sebastian, but Sebastian was definitely my favourite. He’s dominant, he’s an alpha, but he has a kind heart and good morals. He cares about his staff and abhors the harassment they face on a daily basis, which is how Aria appeared on his radar. He did hurt Aria, but he was in a bad place at the time and didn’t realise he was hurting her until it was too late. And when he realised what he’d done, he was very angry with himself and desperate to make amends. He likes control in all things and doesn’t react well when he doesn’t have it. Aria is strong, doesn’t take crap from anyone and she stands up for those that can’t or won’t stand up for themselves. But there is a hidden fragility to her that calls to Sebastian. The chemistry between these two is off the charts. And the sex? Wow, the sex is totally hot. I mean seriously hot, fan yourself and change into a new pair of panties hot.

The only issue I had with this series is the repetition of dialogue. Something bad happened to Aria 14 months ago that caused her to walk away from her entire family (with the exception of her very sick younger sister), giving up the family’s name and money. You know something bad happened to her because she thinks about it several times throughout each novella. After a while, I stopped finding this suspenseful and just found it annoying, especially when it’s not until right at the end of the series that we find out what actually happened to her. There’s also a tonne of talk about control, which to be honest, I started skipping over as I couldn’t make sense out of it some of the time.

Play Me sort of ends in a HEA, but at the same time, it sort of doesn’t. They have sex, Aria reveals her deep dark secret, Sebastian vows to avenge Aria and the series is over. There’s no prologue several months or years down the track to see how they’re going. It just ends, which gives the series a bit of an incomplete feel to it. But at the end, there is a notation that says to look out for Sebastian and Aria’s cameo in Exposed (Ethan Frost # 3), so maybe it’s been left incomplete for a reason.