Cruz and Mara have a deal. They have sex and that's it. They aren't in each other's lives, they don't ask how the other is doing or feeling and they certainly aren't friends. Except that the more time that they spend together and learn about each other, things get familiar. For Mara, maybe too familiar. She doesn't let people in because she likes to protect her secrets. But when more of secrets come out and her emotional and physical safety are threatened, will she be willing to let other people in to keep herself safe?

I loved both of these characters. They've been wounded by people in their lives who didn't live up to their ends in relationships. Both Mara's mother and Cruz's sister had mental illness and both were manipulative because of it. In Mara's case, it made her closed off and she keeps her relationships superficial (well, she tried, she wasn't as good at it as she thought she was). For Cruz, he tries to keep his family separate from everything else. But even when they were proclaiming they were just "benefits", you could see the little ways that they loved each other. Watching them bond with each other and then learning how to connect with others was enlightening.