Red Hot Lovers: 18 Contemporary Romance Books of Love, Passion, and Sexy Heroes by Your Favorite Top-Selling Authors

by Milly Taiden

“When he shows up, and begs you to give him another chance. At least talk to him.”

  The DJ for the night was at the microphone, and I licked my lips, nerves squirreling through my body. “No, I don’t think so, even if I thought it would happen. He scared me, Hugh. It was like he was a different person, not the Jet I knew. How could he beat Reggie up like that, without holding back even a little? He’s his mentor, someone I thought he respected. ”

  “Listen, that’s all water under the bridge, they’ll work it out if they haven’t already. I’ve never seen him lose it that bad over someone before, and sure as hell not a girl. Ever. He’s always held himself together, but with you, it’s like he can’t help himself.”

  I didn’t want to hear this. “If you talk to him” —I leaned toward him and touched his ear, giving it a light twist— “you don’t say a word to him about running into me. Got it?”

  He held three fingers to his head, but his eyes were sad. “Scouts honor.”

  And then I was moving toward the microphone, guitar in hand. I’d called every contact Ryan had in his book, and they’d all said the same thing. If I wanted to crack into the business, a good place to be was at the Twice Bitten Bar’s open mic night. Open to any and all singers, and if you could get in and get on the stage, you had a chance. From what Ryan’s contacts told me, the bartender had the numbers of several music producers and if anyone showed any talent, he called them and they’d come listen. But only if you were good. I swallowed hard, pushed the nausea back.

  This was it.

  Lily ran up to me and handed me a bottle of water. “You can do this. Just sing for Ryan.”

  I got up on the stage, sat down in front of the microphone and waited as the music came on. I didn’t sing for Ryan though; I sang for myself.

  The music was everything in that moment and it stole my hurt, hid my fears, even as it opened me up and left me raw. Everything I had, everything I was, I poured into the song until there was nothing left to give. The last note, pitched low and keening, left my mouth and I held it, long past the music ending.

  Head bowed, I waited for the audience to react. Silence curled around me and I brought my head up, afraid of what I would see.

  No one moved; no one seemed to breathe. Had it been that bad, or that good?

  I moved to get off the stage—I was banking on it being that bad—when the first person started to clap, then in a rush the entire bar exploded into cheering and whistling, and I was pushed back onto the stage for an encore.

  Grinning, I took the microphone and sang one of Ryan’s songs a cappella, a song he’d written as he laid in a hospital bed, dying. He’d written it for himself, but it was mine too, the story the same. The fear of death, the fear of loss, everything I knew in my life.

  Death comes for us all

  In tiny little drops, stealing us away

  Cell by cell, breath by breath

  From the dreams of life as they fade

  We fight, we scream, we pray for respite

  But death comes for us all

  Stealing life, stealing life

  Only one thing remains, the spark

  A piercing star in the darkness

  Bringing us home to a place where our hearts

  Beat faster, cleaner, purer, the strength of passion

  A dream.

  A hope.

  A love that holds us, embraced in the belief for a moment

  That death does not come for us all.

  In tiny little drops, stealing us away

  Cell by cell, breath by breath

  From the dreams of life as they sing our dreams

  We laugh, we love, we pray

  Death does not come for us all

  Again, silence reigned for heartbeats after I finished, and again I was kept on the stage, much to the disgruntlement of the next person in line.

  The night wore on, and I covered popular songs, old songs, Ryan’s songs. Ryan’s songs evoked the emotion from the crowd, and more than once, I saw people wiping their eyes. Finally, I begged off and was allowed a break. Lily rushed me, grabbing my hands, jumping around me, squealing like a teenager at her first concert.

  “Oh. My. God. You were AMAZING!”

  Laughing, I tugged her toward our table, my legs wobbly like I’d been drinking tequila again. “I need to get some more water, Lily.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” Jet’s voice curled around me and I spun, staring up into his golden eyes, and for a moment it was like we’d never fought.

  Lily tugged at my hand. “You know this guy?”

  I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice, which should have been easy, but wasn’t. “This is Jet Sterling.”

  “This is who?” Lily asked, her tone telling me she’d heard me just fine.

  Jet’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Nice to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Jazzy.”

  Lily erupted. “Don’t you ever call her that, you asshole! You lying, cheating, piece of shit!”

  “Lily, stop,” I said. “Go sit with Hugh. I’ll be fine.”

  She jerked herself out of my hands. “I will not. You come home from Mexico a complete and utter wreck after just a few days with this douche bag—”

  Jet’s lips twitched and I frowned at him. Not the time to be the funny guy.

  Lily went on, oblivious to our exchange. “And if you think for one minute I’m going to let him break your heart again, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  A huff of air puffed out of her as she crossed her arms over her chest. Hugh came up from behind her, scooped her into the air and carried her screeching back to our table. I wasn’t worried; I knew Hugh wouldn’t do anything he shouldn’t. Or at least, I hoped he wouldn’t. Lily would kill him if he tried anything.

  “What do you want, Jet? And how the hell did you find me?” I glared at Hugh, who shook his head. Not that it mattered. Jet had made himself very clear on how he felt about me, abundantly so.

  He took me by the arm and guided me out the back door into a well-lit, clean alley.

  His hands were tucked into his jean pockets, and he kept his eyes downcast. “I didn’t know you were here; I came to meet up with Hugh.”

  See, he wasn’t looking for you at all. This was an accident. Not planned.

  “Did you and Reggie make up?”

  “Yeah, we did. He . . . he forgave me.” He looked above my head, as if searching for a script to read from on the wall behind me.

  “I’m sorry I cost you your job. And your brother’s car, shit . . . .” He scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  I shrugged. “Me losing my job wasn’t your fault. I probably wouldn’t have lost it if I hadn’t punched Paul in the nose.”

  His eyes snapped up to mine and then went grim with what I could only identify as jealousy, and a shiver of fear went through me, remembering all too clearly his fist slamming into Reggie

  “Who the hell is Paul?”

  A flutter low in my belly made me want to cross my legs. From a single, hot possessive look that should have only added to my fear. I had to keep this situation under control; I couldn’t let him get the upper hand.

  “Remember the high school kid following you around? He was a competitor for my position. He’d taken” —I swallowed hard, fought the heat blooming up my neck— “pictures of us together. Evidence to prove I had slept with you.”

  “And you punched him?”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, and he still didn’t get the job.” We shared a laugh, but the sound died out fast, leaving us standing with so much between us it was hard to move.

  “I’ve been looking for you. I went to your house,” he said, lifting his eyes slowly.

  “My house?”

  “Your real estate agent gave me a tour and made a pass at me.” There was a spark in those eyes, and I fought the urge to fall under his spell again. So easy, it would be so easy.

  “Greta, my seventy-five year old real estate agent made a pass at you?”
>
  He gave me his full on panty-twisting grin, the one I thought he reserved for me, but likely spread amongst all the women he met. “I turned her down.”

  My stomach sank like a stone as I remembered, and as it fell, my anger rose. “Right. You prefer red heads. I keep forgetting that.”

  I moved as if to brush past him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me against him, using his body to pin me against the building.

  “I didn’t sleep with Tina. I was going to, but I drank too much fucking tequila. I ate the goddamn worm at the bottom of the bottle; that’s about all I remember from that night.” He grimaced as if in remembrance. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just . . . I got scared and I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle us. You don’t fall for someone in a matter of days, it isn’t normal.”

  I responded quickly, talking over him before he’d even finished speaking. “Jet, it doesn’t matter if you slept with her or not; you don’t owe me any explanations. We weren’t dating.” Then the rest of his words caught up with me. “Falling for someone?”

  He pressed his forehead against mine. “Spitfire, you have no idea what you’ve done to me. Please, I can make this right.” He smoothed his hands along my arms, laced his fingers with mine.

  He was falling for me? The words glued themselves to the inside of my brain and I couldn’t un-see them.

  The door beside us burst outward and Lily stood there, eyes lit up with a fire I’d only seen on her once before, when my first steady boyfriend slept with me and then broke up with me the next day. “I told you to leave her alone!”

  She pushed herself between us, her finger in Jet’s face. “Don’t you get it? You hurt her, and I don’t let anyone hurt her.”

  I let her grab my arm and pull me away, in part because I wasn’t sure I could walk away on my own. The feel of his body against mine had been too familiar, too easy to just let happen. His words were already making me question if I could try again with him. Now there was no job in the way, no real reason to stay away from him. Except that he’d hurt me, yelled at me, called me untrustworthy, beaten a man for putting his hands on me. I clung to those thoughts, hoping they would make it easier to walk away.

  Hugh stumbled out the same door Lily had just come through, his entire body soaked. But, as always, he was laughing. “Shit, her girl just dumped a pitcher of beer on me!”

  “Hugh, can you give us a few more minutes?” Jet asked, looking flustered. Despite everything, I couldn’t walk away from him looking like that.

  I tugged at Lily. “Hey. Stop. Lily, stop.”

  She turned to me, tears tracking down her cheeks. I knew why. Her past was so full of hurt and betrayal, more than any one person should ever have to bear.

  “Lily, it’s okay. I can take care of this on my own. Trust me.”

  With that, she let my arm go. “I’ll be inside.” She wiped her face and stomped past Hugh, giving him an elbow in the gut as she did. He gave me a wink.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Thanks.”

  The door closed behind them, and again it was me and Jet, alone.

  “So, that was awkward.” I fiddled with the edge of my shirt. “Listen, I don’t begrudge you anything. I just wish I’d listened to everyone else. I get it now; I was a game to you. A challenge.”

  He was shaking his head, and closing the distance between us. I held my ground; I wasn’t afraid of him. The image of him standing over Reggie, holding him tight so he could punch him sliced through me, and I took a half step back. Maybe that wasn’t entirely honest.

  Jet held a hand out to me, a flicker of shock in his eyes. “Are you . . . afraid of me?”

  I licked my lips. “A little, yes. You beat the crap out of your mentor and he was trying to help me. How do I know you won’t lose it on me? I’m not sure I ever really knew you, Jet.”

  He dipped his head, and put a hand to the wall. “I would never, never hit you, Jasmin. You have to believe that.”

  Whether or not it was a mistake, I didn’t know. I moved to his side and put a hand on his shoulder, felt the tension in his bunched up muscles. “I don’t think you would have. But seeing you flip out was scary, it was like you were another person. You scared me.”

  His eyes peered down at me, and then he slid his one arm around me and pulled me to him. He buried his face into the crook of my neck, arms tightening around me. I laid my cheek against his chest, closed my eyes and stroked his back.

  “Jasmin,” he said, his lips moving against the skin on my neck, sending a line of fire right to my core. “Tell me to leave you alone, and I will. But I need to hear you say it, if that’s what you want.”

  Fear rolled through me, a wave of anxiety so intense I squeezed my eyes shut to block everything else out. I knew that I could never be his girl; we could never make it that way. We were too different. But I also knew that he had become important to me in those days, and I wasn’t sure I could live with not ever seeing him again. “I can’t.”

  The tension in him left in a whoosh of air. “You’ll let me try to make it up—”

  “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea, either. What you want out of life is so different than me.” I pulled back so I could look at him and almost forgot what I was supposed to be saying. His lips hovered over mine.

  “So you’re telling me to go?” He lowered his voice, a bare whisper that tugged at my heart.

  “No. I can’t be what you want. But I don’t want to not ever see you again.”

  His eyes closed. “Is this the ‘let’s be friends’ talk?”

  “I guess so.” I didn’t try to pull away. He smelled, felt, and sounded so good. Too good.

  “Then why aren’t you pushing me away?” His eyes bored into mine, dilated until there was only a rim of gold around the black of his iris. Desire, hot and thick, shot through me; Jet’s hands were at my waist, slipping underneath my shirt to touch the skin trembling there.

  “That isn’t fair. You can’t use the fact that I’m horny against me,” I said.

  His lips twitched. “I make you horny?”

  Oh my god, how had I let that slip out? I closed my eyes and shook my head. He pressed his lips against mine, but didn’t kiss me.

  “I’ll make you a promise,” he whispered; his tongue slid along my lips, and I couldn’t stop the soft moan that slipped out of me. This was such a bad idea . . . .

  “What promise?” I opened my eyes, lids fluttering as I stared up at him.

  “One kiss. If you can tell me to go, that we can be friends after one kiss, I’ll do it.”

  I wanted this, so badly, and I knew one kiss wouldn’t be enough. Would never be enough.

  His fingers trailed along my ribs, sliding to touch the edge of my bra, slipping in just along the band and then dipping back lower to touch the edge of my jeans, dipping below to tug on the top line of my panties.

  “One kiss,” he breathed into me.

  “Just one,” I breathed back and his lips slid over mine, not the hard rush I was expecting. Gentle, soft, seductive; he started with my top lip, worked his way to the corner of my mouth and then slowly sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. His hands worked a path of fire over my body. Everywhere his fingers went vibrated, as if touched by a live wire. Then his mouth sealed over mine, tongue dipping in to dance with my own.

  In and out, he took my mouth, claimed it as his own as his hands circled around, grabbed my ass and pulled my body tight against his hard heat. The warmth between us circled and spun out of control. I couldn’t think of anything but his taste and touch, the hardness he rocked between my legs, pressed against my aching body.

  “Please,” he said against my lips, kissing me lightly, his breath coming hard. “Please.”

  The sound of the back door opening stilled us, the echo of someone else on stage belting out a Michael Jackson song filling the quiet alley. Whoever it was, was a welcome interruption, a moment for me to gather my wits, to get myself under control. To stay the overly fa
st beating of my heart.

  My eyes remained closed. I knew if I opened them and saw his eyes pleading I’d be undone. “Jet.”

  “Spitfire, don’t give up on me.” He kissed me again, drawing me so easily into him. I slid my hands up and into his hair, down to feel the scars at the base of his neck. He made me feel alive, helped me to see that fear was to be faced and dealt with, and in those ways he was good for me. But what about the rest of him, the darkness that hummed just under his skin?

  I forced myself to open my eyes, to say the words that hung between us. “You don’t trust me. How can there be anything good between us without that? There can’t, and you can’t tell me you can change. Not trusting people, that’s why you hide behind your stunts, and your pranks and smiles and laughter.”

  “I trusted you with my past.” His voice was soft, the hurt in him spilling out.

  “I know. But when it came down to it, you thought I’d tell other people. You accused me of things I would never do.”

  “Don’t push me away.”

  “Then don’t push me on this; we can’t change the past. Mexico was amazing, and for the rest of my life I will cherish the memories we made there, but that’s all we get. Friends, I want to be your friend, that’s all. ” I spoke the lie, then tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  “So you kissing me back didn’t mean anything, you’d do that with anyone?”

  “No!” My eyes went wide. “I’m not like that.”

  Before I could say anything else, he lifted me up so my legs wrapped around his waist, like on the stairwell in the hotel, and his lips were moving across mine. “Jasmin.”

  “Please,” I whimpered. “This is hard enough.” My emotions were all over the map. But his kiss stole what was left of my cohesive thoughts.

  Again, he kissed me, drove his hands deep into my hair to hold my face to him. As if he was afraid I’d pull away again. But even if he hadn’t held me, I would have stayed. I kissed him back, fiercely, desperately, knowing this was it. This was the last time I tasted him on my lips. Tears trickled down my cheeks. His chest trembled with shuddering breaths.

  “Jasmin.” Again, just my name, just the taste of my name on his tongue.