Each year Branchberry Village hosts a segment of the highly popular X-treme Games.  Henry Delloit is a local who loves to come into town and watch the skiers and boarders do their stuff.

Life is a nightmare for Christian ‘Ecco’ Rasmussen, a boarder.  His manager, Blake Dobbs, considers Ecco his property to beat, abuse, and even rape.  Things are getting so bad that Ecco fears one day Blake will go too far and kill him.

The moment Henry spots Ecco in a crowd of boarders he wishes that the athlete would spend some time with him.  It must be Henry’s lucky day because Ecco agrees to meet with him.  As the two get to know each other Henry realizes something is terribly wrong in Ecco’s life and wants to help him any way he can.  Plans must be made to get Ecco’s life back on track and Blake off his back without anyone getting hurt.  Timing is everything, but then again, so is love.

Readers will find hot passion and a powerful love in the pages of X-Factor.  There’s a clear line drawn between the life honest and decent Henry leads and the life forced upon Ecco by circumstances he feels he cannot control.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the relationship between Henry and Ecco unfold and blossom, their love is something special.  The negative character of Blake, however, is never really fleshed out. He’s simply a one dimensional bad guy.  While there are reasons given as to why Ecco puts up with the abuse, they aren’t strong enough considering how much is heaped upon him.  It just doesn’t ring true.  X-Factor has an awesome romance here with the computer ‘geek’ and the boarder, but the conflict doesn’t work right, at least for me.