The Only One Who Knows

February 19, 2014 by Pip

Title : The Only One Who Knows

Author : LA Witt & Cat Grant

Publisher : Samhain Publishing (BUY HERE)

Genre : M/M, Contemporary

Length : 220 pages (e-book)

Published : January 7, 2014

Rating : ★★★★

Blurb:

Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.

When Navy SEAL training pushed Lieutenant Josh Walker to his limit, Chief David Flint’s stern heart-to-heart—more like boot-to-ass—helped Josh realize his potential. When the holidays found them alone together and sharing a mutual attraction, they couldn’t help breaking a few regulations. And nearly breaking some furniture in the process.

Years after their short-lived fling, Senior Chief Flint returns to SEAL duty and finds himself under the command of the man he’s never been able to forget: Lieutenant Commander Walker. And Josh hasn’t forgotten David, either. Rules be damned, they can’t keep their hands off each other.

Despite their discretion, another SEAL catches on and threatens to expose their relationship, forcing Josh to bend to a blackmailer’s demands to avoid strife within the team just before a dangerous mission. David is the last man he can confide in…and the first to pick up on Josh’s tightly screwed-down stress.

When a life-or-death decision calls Josh’s leadership into question, coming clean could cost him what he values most. His coveted trident…and the man he loves.

WARNING: Contains a pair of Navy SEALs who don’t like playing by the rules, scorching-hot sex between two Alphas who like to be in charge, cursing as only Navy men can curse, lots of camouflage and badassery in the wilds of North Korea, and enough emotion to sink a battleship.

Review:

Action. Suspense. Steamy. (And when I say steamy that goes for everything from the MCs’ nights together to the jungles of North Korea in the summer). If you’re looking for tough characters – inside and out, but with a soft spot for each other, whose lives are defined by their military careers and influenced by policies such as DADT, who leap into everything with determination and passion, look no further! The Only One Who Knows is an edge-of-seat story – action, suspense, blackmail, tough decisions, but also, we have our two MCs, Flint and Josh, figuring out where they stand in the big scheme of things and how they feel about each other.

The story focuses on the good, rather than the mean, showcasing a fair and (relatively) open-minded side of the MCs’ fellow SEALs and commander. And even the bad guy is not completely bad, though bad enough. I like how this allows the reader to focus on what’s important in the story instead of cringing at characters.

There’s never a dull moment, and the training and action scenes had just the right amount of detail to make them suspenseful without overwhelming, or worse (personally, I don’t have a lot of patience for action scenes and usually tend to skip over when they go on for too long, which I didn’t feel the need to do here).

At first it seemed that both MCs were lonely and just needed each other’s company as a stress reliever, but after their first night together they discover that they push each other’s buttons just right and it slowly becomes more. Both Flint and Josh are hyperaware of each other, and it was heartwarming to watch Josh, towards the end of the story, think before he acts around Flint, and keeping Flint’s best interests at heart without making Flint uncomfortable. Josh’s actions show a level of maturity that made me proud of him. It will definitely be interesting to see these characters take on the huge changes coming their way.

Rated 4 stars by Guest Reviewer, KC