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

by Milly Taiden

  Desperate to squelch her rising libido, she pictured Misty, a small, wiry dog who’d been dumped at the clinic recently, half-starving, with the worst case of mange she’d ever seen. The poor dog stunk when she’d first handled her, and shrank away from Bella as if embarrassed about her appearance. Who would look after pets like Misty if she lost? She couldn’t let Evan distract her. Turning her back on him, she closed her eyes tightly and began to count sheep.

  *

  As Bella’s breathing evened out beside him, Evan stared at the stupid camera hanging from the roof of the tent and counted the number of ways he’d screwed up today. Somehow Bella had cast a spell on him and he’d lost the ability to think rationally, while she made use of each of his blunders to catapult herself into a stronger position. When he’d taken her hand beneath the covers just now, a spark of desire had lit up his whole body, yet she remained unmoved.

  Several times today he thought she returned his interest, especially on the zip line platform, where he’d come perilously close to kissing her, but now he wasn’t at all sure he’d read her right. Maybe she was playing him like a fiddle—teasing him to a fever pitch of wanting, while she laughed at him all the way to the bank. It would be just like a woman to want to humiliate him that way.

  Well, she wasn’t going to win—no way. He was two points ahead of her and he’d pull further ahead tomorrow. Heck, he would be at least five points ahead if he’d kept his mouth shut at the archery range. No more mister nice guy, he promised himself. He’d show Bella his true colors tomorrow.

  Still, as the minutes ticked by and his eyes remained open, Evan grew more and more uncomfortable. He hated confined spaces—even tents—and while he could sleep in one just fine when he was on his own—as long as the flap remained open—it was too much to bear having Bella pressed against him—in more ways than one.

  She turned him on, for one thing, but her presence also made it hard to breathe. In fact, the longer he stayed inside the tent the less oxygen there seemed to be.

  Shit. He recognized this tightness in his chest and the feeling that the walls were about to cave in and smother him. If he didn’t get outside—pronto—he would head into a full-fledged panic attack. He didn’t need that broadcast over national TV.

  He quickly threw the sleeping bag back and made a big show of wiping his brow and peeling his damp t-shirt from his chest a few times, to indicate he couldn’t stand the heat. Nothing unmanly about getting too hot, he thought as he struggled to the front of the tent and unzipped the flap. He exited it gratefully just as the sun finally set. Heading back to the campfire, which he’d carefully put out a half-hour before, he leaned against a rock and settled in for the night.

  ***

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bella slept much better than she’d imagined she would, but when she pushed herself to a sitting position in the morning and felt the coolness of the sleeping mat next to her, she realized that was partly due to Evan not sharing the tent with her. When had he left? God—had she snored so loud it drove him out? That was an embarrassing idea. None of her previous bed partners had complained about her snoring, however, so maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe he was an early riser.

  Pushing her way outside a moment later, she realized that wasn’t the answer, either. Evan lay sound asleep near the ruins of their campfire from the night before, and looked like he’d been there for some time. She remembered his fingers wrapping around hers so intimately. What had driven him away?

  Don’t even think about it, she told herself. Instead she waited as a crew member came and dismantled the tent camera, then took the opportunity to change inside it before Evan woke up. Back outside, she checked her heel. It looked far better than it had last night, and the insert she’d been given for the back of her boot should help, too. She wondered what surprises this day would bring.

  She decided to stretch some of her stiffness away while she waited for breakfast. Evan wandered past, back from his own visit to the bushes. He looked worse than she felt—like he’d aged ten years overnight—but she wouldn’t underestimate him. If today’s contests were as badly skewed toward his strengths as they were yesterday, she’d be in trouble. Her right arm twinged from the unusual activities of drawing bowstrings and throwing beanbags. Still, stretching felt good. Thank goodness for all those yoga classes over the years.

  “Love this view!” Evan proclaimed from behind her as she pushed up from a prone position into downward dog.

  He’d better mean the valley, she thought, willing herself not to drop back to the ground. When she shifted into a new pose, however, she saw he most definitely wasn’t looking at the vista below them. She faltered, but continued with her routine.

  He’s just trying to make me nervous. I can’t let it work.

  Still, a few minutes later she gave up trying to reclaim the calmness she’d felt at the beginning of her stretching. Evan’s frank perusal of her body sent waves of heat through her until she wobbled in her poses. Best to stop before she keeled over and hurt herself. She joined him at the firepit where a crew member fed her coffee and a breakfast burrito. Mmmm. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad.

  Three hours later, however, she conceded that today would probably turn out to be worse. She, Evan, Jake, and a platoon of camera crewmen and assistants stood on the banks of the Athabasca River while a woman named Jessie outlined basic kayaking safety procedures. When she was done, Jake took over.

  “Welcome to day two of Can You Beat a Billionaire. Bella, Evan, I hope you slept well?”

  “Like a baby,” Bella said. She thought she was getting the hang of this acting enthusiastic thing.

  “Evan, we noticed you were rather restless during the night. Any specific reason for that?”

  A muscle in Evan’s jaw twitched. “I like sleeping out under the stars.”

  “Without a mattress pad or even a sleeping bag?” Jake widened his eyes theatrically.

  “I like roughing it.”

  Jake shrugged theatrically, and returned to his spiel. “You’ve already hiked for several hours. Your first challenge this morning involves kayaking. You will need to use strength, skill and accuracy to collect five plastic fish along the kayaking route we’ve made for you on the spectacular Athabasca River. Notice the poles.” He waved at the river behind him where a series of differently colored poles stuck several feet out of the water. “Keep the yellow stripes to your right and the green stripes to your left and you’ll stay on track. If you leave the course you are disqualified. You may not turn around at any time. Put your fish in the nylon pouch attached to your kayak. Each fish is worth one point. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Evan said.

  “Yes,” Bella echoed. The river water seemed to be traveling awfully fast, however. How were they to control their kayaks with one hand on the paddle and grab a fish from a basket with the other? This was all too similar to yesterday’s beanbag toss—only worse.

  Much worse.

  “Evan, you reached the challenge ahead of Bella, so you go first,” Jake said. “Good luck!”

  Bella wasn’t sorry Evan was to go ahead of her, even though he’d only beaten her to the river by a few steps. They’d hiked together for the most part, talking little as the day warmed up and they worked the kinks out of their muscles. Too much of her time was spent considering the way he’d furtively squeezed her hand last night under the covers. What had he meant by it? And why had he abandoned the tent halfway through the night? It couldn’t have been comfortable sleeping outside without a sleeping bag.

  When he approached the river, Jessie handed Evan a wetsuit and ushered him toward a makeshift changing room the crew had rigged up nearby. A few minutes later, Bella watched him squeeze into the kayak and Jessie snap him in. The woman made him practice rolling the kayak and flipping himself back to vertical several times, and Bella was relieved to see six other men and women joining him in the water in their own kayaks. Apparently there would be plenty of help should something go wrong out on t
he river.

  She bit her lip as Evan fought the current to get away from shore. A guide kayak led him upstream far enough so he could turn around and get going in the right direction before he reached two bright red poles that demarked the starting point. The current grabbed the kayak immediately and whisked him down the course. The poles which marked the sides must be farther apart than they looked from the banks, because he didn’t seem to be struggling to stay between them. He was struggling, however, to head towards the first container of fish, and to her surprise, he missed it all together.

  “Harder than it looks, eh?” Jake said.

  “Yes—it must be.”

  Evan paddled like mad and managed to snag the next fish, and the next one. He nearly missed the fourth container, but with a last desperate struggle and heave, he snagged one, nearly lost it, managed to hold on and shoved it in the bag, too.

  “Damn it—miss!” she yelled, forgetting for a moment she was on camera. That wouldn’t look very good. She sighed. No sense even wondering if Madelyn might not choose to air that—of course she would.

  But she whooped aloud as Evan did miss the last one. He’d been heading straight for the container when his kayak jerked away from it, nearly unbalancing him. She had to remember the current went funky there.

  “Three points for Evan. Looks like a challenging course, Bella. Are you ready for it?” Jake asked.

  She was getting sick of his smarmy television-announcer tones, but she answered clearly, “Yes—I’m all set!”

  She wished it was true. She wasn’t afraid of a river like she’d been of the zip lines yesterday—she’d actually gone whitewater river rafting before, which seemed much more dangerous than this—but seeing Evan flailing around told her the current was very strong and she knew she might not make it through the entire course without being pulled right past the boundary poles. Plus, she had to make up some lost points, or Evan was going to get too far ahead of her to beat.

  You can do this, she told herself as she struggled into her wetsuit. Evan may be stronger, but he’s also heavier. You don’t need to be as strong as him to stay on course. She had no idea if that made any sense, but it sounded good.

  She allowed Jessie to help her into the kayak, her courage lasting right until Jessie made her flip it. She went over just fine, but she struggled mightily to get back up and was gasping for breath by the time she managed it.

  “You all right?” Jessie asked.

  “Yes.” What else could she say?

  “Do it again.”

  “What?” She had to be kidding.

  “Again—I can’t let you out there until you know how to flip and recover.” The stocky blonde stared her down.

  Bella sighed but flipped over again. This time she came up rightside more quickly, but the effort it took made her arms ache and she hadn’t even started the course yet.

  “You’d better try that one more…” Jessie began but Madelyn appeared on shore.

  “We’re behind schedule. Move it!”

  Apparently even Jessie was afraid of the director, but the woman’s expression was uneasy as she said, “All right, get out there.”

  Bella paddled unsteadily out to a position far upstream of the starting gate. She wanted to stall for time and recover from her exertions and the cold slap of ice water on her face when she’d gone over, but fighting the current to stay in place sapped her energy too much. Best to just get this over with.

  Evan had missed the first container. She had to get that fish. She decided to overcorrect, get as close to the guide-poles on the right-hand side of the course as possible and allow the current to bring her back to the container. She turned the kayak, drifted to the starting point, and paddled for all she was worth to the right. Her strategy worked, except when she judged it time to ease up and let the current take her, it swirled her around and she was nearly facing backward when she got to the container. She just managed to fling her arm out and make a wild grab as it went by.

  A fish!

  She stuffed it in the nylon bag, grabbed hold of the paddle again and drove for the second container. The current seemed weaker now and she saw why Evan had an easier time getting the next several fish. Unfortunately, she got too cocky and overshot the fourth container. She hung on for a moment, paddling backward furiously before she remembered the rule against going back for fish. She had to give in and let the current drag her forward again.

  The final container was where that tricky current jerked Evan away at the last moment. How could she get past it? Since the container sat right at the edge of the course, she couldn’t try to pass it on the far side—she had to approach it in the same way Evan had. All she could do was count on her ability to dig in and fight the current.

  With little hope of actually accomplishing this, she paddled toward the end of the course. When she approached the final container she put on a burst of speed, digging her paddle far into the water as she got close. She felt the current grab the kayak and realized why Evan hadn’t been able to overcome it—she felt like a giant hand had closed on the prow and yanked her off course. With desperate strokes she paddled in the opposite direction—she still had a shot. The current jerked her around and she gave up fighting it. Instead she hurled the paddle away and lunged toward the container. Her right hand closed on the hard plastic shape of a fish as she overbalanced and hit the water, the cold shock of it forcing the air from her lungs.

  She windmilled her arms, but her body was still snapped into the kayak, and without a paddle she had no way of righting herself. She thrashed impotently, the coldness quickly dulling the strength in her limbs. She could see the sunlight on the surface of the water above her, bisected by the dark line of the kayak, but she had no way to reach it. The skirt still clung to her. She knew she was supposed to do something to release it—pull something—but she couldn’t stop thrashing long enough to do so. She had to get out, had to…

  …save Caramel, had to reach her before the awful thing happened, had to stop her from dying, stop Cyclone from dying, stop her family from losing their land…

  The kayak jerked, something plunged into the water next to her and fought with the snaps on the seal that held her in place. Hands grabbed her arms, her shoulders, and the next thing she knew she broke the surface and air seared down her throat and through her lungs. She coughed, spit, and cried out as she was pulled atop another kayak unceremoniously. Seconds later she was hauled to shore.

  Lying on the banks of the Athabasca, she let tears run down her face without shame. She’d discovered one thing was worse than losing her job and her fight to save her animals.

  Losing her own life.

  *

  “She’s got a fish!” one of the crew members cried out. “Look—she got the fifth fish!”

  Evan scraped a hand across his stubbled jaw and turned aside in the hopes all the cameras were trained on Bella, newly rescued from the river, and wouldn’t catch him wiping his eyes.

  She’d nearly drowned.

  Hell, he wasn’t one to cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he had, so it freaked him out to find water seeping from the corners of his eyes now. He couldn’t believe how Bella attacked the kayak course, like she’d been born to the sport. She put his puny efforts to shame. He preferred land sports to water ones, but he’d kayaked before and he thought he knew what he was doing. The variances in the current completely threw him off, though. Bella must have watched his efforts and learned from them.

  The lovely, vibrant woman who’d shared his tent last night—part of the night—had nearly drowned.

  He wasn’t prepared for the pain that thought brought him. If she hadn’t been breathing when they rescued her… If she wasn’t lying on the shore now, responding to her rescuers questions…

  He couldn’t even imagine how he’d feel.

  Evan crossed his arms over his chest, not knowing what else to do with his hands. Thank God everyone was focused on Bella right now because he was making a fool out of hims
elf. Over a woman he barely knew.

  He couldn’t remember feeling like this.

  He couldn’t remember feeling…

  Evan dragged his attention away from that direction and refocused on his adversary. Because that’s all she was—an adversary.

  And she was one hell of an adversary—going for the last fish like that, throwing away her paddle, for God’s sake. Or was she just reckless? She’d managed to hang on to the darn fish, too. He shook his head in disbelief. She’d made up two points in this challenge. He had to beat her good on the next one.

  Beat her good. Hell, he sounded like his father.

  A wry laugh escaped him. Bella was practically unconscious, lying on the shore near the water. She might be out of the contest for good and he was plotting his strategy to win. The acorn surely didn’t fall far from the tree.

  He didn’t want to beat Bella. He wanted to scoop her into his arms, press his ear against her chest to hear the heartbeat that would confirm she did indeed live, and cover her with kisses from her lips to her…

  He turned his back on the river—on Bella—and struggled to get himself together. Whether or not she was beautiful or vibrant or wonderful or took his breath away, or any of the other trite things men thought about the women they wanted, she was still his enemy. She still stood between him and a dignified—well, somewhat dignified—way to maintain control of his company.

  He was glad she was alive, but he still planned to crush her in this game.

  A ragged cheer escaped from the camera crew, and he turned back around to see two of them helping Bella to her feet. She walked under her own power up from the bank toward him. Jake appeared by Evan’s side. “She’s still in it, thank God.”