Exercising a Demon, Possessive Love by H.L Day

A demon who doesn't like torture but having you suffer while exercising is right up his alley. When Jacob agrees to help Valvach fit into the human world, he doesn't expect his friendship with the sexy demon to become anything more. But sometimes what you're looking for is right in front of you and you have to be willing to risk anything to keep it. Exercising a Demon is part of the multi-author Possessive Love series, but can be read as a standalone.

From the blurb:

Love comes in all shapes and sizes. And sometimes it has horns and a tail.

Jacob’s in love. Again. Only, his future husband likes muscular men, and Jacob, well… isn’t. A few sessions at the gym, and he’ll have the leather-clad motorcycle courier eating out of his hand, though. And no, he won’t switch his attentions to his hot new personal trainer. Honestly, he won’t.

Valvach’s not your typical demon, preferring books over torture. Which goes down about as well as you’d expect in Hell. A move to the surface gives him the opportunity to start anew. To stay, he’s going to need to make a friend, someone to help him blend in. And sweet, curly-haired Jacob is the perfect candidate. If he can’t lick him, he can at least spend time with him.

When friendship blossoms into a passion that knows no bounds, Jacob and Val believe they’ve found the perfect match in each other. However, Hell isn’t so accommodating, and they find themselves with a fight on their hands to prevent being torn apart and relegated to different planes of existence.

Exercising a Demon is a MM paranormal romantic comedy featuring a demon who’s more of a lover than a fighter, a human who might finally have found the man/demon of his dreams, steamy sexual liaisons involving a tail, and a sweet demon/human pairing who accept each other for who they are and embrace each other’s quirks.

SNik's Review:

Part of a multi-author series (Possessive Love) but all are standalone stories. Paranormal. 

Valvach is a demon who doesn’t really like the job of torturing people in hell, so he negotiates to go live on the surface pretending to be human, as he works as a personal trainer, feeding on the suffering of his exercise clients. Jacob really wants to get the attention of the buff work courier, but he’s a numbers guy, not a gym guy, but he wants to try to work out to get the man’s attention. Fortunately, Val agrees to help him as his trainer, and Jacob agrees to tutor Val on all things human. 

This is a sweet fish out of water story, with Val really clueless about human idioms, social norms and conversational skills, and Jacob is so invested in helping Val acclimate and he enjoys teaching him. Their friendship grows, but the clock is ticking on the possibility that Val will have to return to hell. 

Both Jacob and Val were funny and kind and committed to their friendship, and once they were intimate the falling in love was easy. 

Reading this story was highly entertaining and I enjoyed the humor and friendship, as well as the steamy interactions.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

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Exercising a Demon is available to buy as an ebook or to read with Kindle Unlimited subscription.