“Fuck, Jess, what do you want from me? I stole you. At what point did I go from being the enemy to fucking Prince Charming?”
Anger and pain brought them together, but their passion might just set them free.
Dimitri wants only one thing: revenge. His stepfather, Hendrix, has caused him nothing but pain and heartache. At last Dimitri can take something—someone—important to Hendrix and make him pay: Jess.
Jess is feisty and strong headed. Her past haunts her and connects her to the dangerously dark Dimitri in an unexpected way. Dimitri keeps his secrets locked deep inside, and Jess is drawn to this broken man like no one before.
With little to cling to besides their haunting pasts, both could have been doomed to lives spent raging against the darkness that holds them prisoner. Instead, it seems that as their pain draws them closer together, it is their desire that will set them free.
Overview from Goodreads
See Where the Darkness Lies (Criminals of the Ocean #2) in:
MY REVIEW OF ENSLAVED BY THE OCEAN
ARC received via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review but it didn’t affect my opinion about this book.
Where Darkness Lies continues where Enslaved by the Ocean left off. Dimitri, Hendrix’s stepson, has abducted Jess as part of his against his stepdad whom he admired but left him when he was in need. He intends to use her to gain information on Hendrix’s whereabouts but she gradually became more than a pawn in his quest of vengeance.
When Enslaved by the Ocean ended with a cliffhanger, I was ticked. I liked Jess and I didn’t really expect that last part. It was an unwelcomed plot twist but I couldn’t deny that I was looking forward to what would happen between her and Dimitri.
The book didn’t live up to my expectations though.
Jess was still cool in this book. She was feisty and was better than Indigo when she was captured. And throughout the book, she didn’t do something annoying enough to make me do a facepalm. And that was a good thing.
But like Indigo, the first thing she noticed about her abductor was how attractive he was.
I think back to when I first looked at him. Somewhat like an angel all wrapped in black. To look at, he’s absolutely breathtaking. The kind of breathtaking that not only steals your breath but causes your entire body to stop working.
Let us not forget that Dimitri was six feet tall with a body of a fighter. He had dark-hair and blue eyes. Yes, he was handsome but he also looked frightening. If I were in Jess’s shoes, I would probably take note on how easy it would be for this guy to break my neck and not on how he could make me pregnant just by gazing at me.
As the story progressed, my emotional attachment for Jess wavered when she started to fall in love with Dimitri. She somehow forgot the fact that Dimitri had kidnapped her with the way she thought about him.
So it was quite obvious that Jess had Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, with the number of times she associated the word beautiful with Dimitri from the beginning made it quite obvious.
I stare at him, in complete awe. It’s hard not to when someone is as beautiful as he is.His eyes, though beautiful, hold a whole lot of pain.Now he’s nearly smiling at me. God. So beautiful.His beautiful eyes scan my face.My skin looks so pale next to his beautifully bronzed skin.His lips are wet and so beautifully red.He has his back to me, and he’s completely, beautifully naked.But he’s also beautiful, loving, and kind.God, he’s beautiful.
Yeah, right, Jess. Then this happened:
“I’m your captive, I’m sure there’s a condition created for the love between a captive and a captor.”
He tilts his head to the side, studying me. “Stockholm syndrome, and you don’t have it.”
“How would you know?” I say, crossing my arms.
He gives me an expressionless, almost bored look. “Your arousal is very real.”
Say whaaaaaaaaaat?
According to the Free Medical Dictionary, Stockholm syndrome is considered a complex reaction to a frightening situation. It has three central characteristics:
♔ The hostages have negative feeling about the police or other authorities. (Jess couldn’t approach the police because she was scared to be punished after what she did to her foster father. Still, she’d rather be Dimitri’s captive than to face life sentence.)
♔ The hostages have positive feelings toward their captors. (Noticing how beautiful he was most of the time.)
♔ The captors develop positive feelings toward the hostages. (Dimi being in lust with Jes.)
Three factors that are necessary for Stockholm Syndrome to develop.
♔ The crisis situation lasts for several days or longer. (Jess was a captive for months.)
♔ The hostages takers remain in contact with the hostages; that is, the hostages are not placed in separate rooms. (They slept in the same room and Dimi brought her in his fights.)
♔ The hostage takers show some kindness toward the hostages. (After Jess broke down, Dimi was all kind and shit.)
So yeah, balls to not Stockholm syndrome.
With Dimitri, I expected more anger, more hatred from him considering that he had been plotting his vengeance for a decade. But no, he was too kind for me. Not that I hated it, but I just wanted a little more though.
In the end, I was happy that Jess and Dimitri found each other. After what they’d been through, they needed someone who could understand each other.
2 comments
I read this book recently and I never noticed the whole 'beautiful' thing - glad you pointed it out!
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice it until they started doing the nasty, you know, because it started to annoy me. When Dimitri looks at her, his eyes are beautiful. When he was shirtless, his back was beautiful. Everything about him was beautiful for Jess and I was like, "What on earth?" Then I started searching for the word beautiful in the novel and then it amazed me how many times the word was repeated. :D
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