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

by Milly Taiden

  “I can see the artist in the work. Here, see this?” Adrienne turned it over, handing it to me.

  “Made in China?” I quipped.

  “No, at the corner here.” I looked closely, and saw it. Small initials in delicate cursive. She urged me to look deeper and I began to see patterns in the style; the delicate swirls in the paint, the blending and the coming together of the mosaic, the ways the colors never bled into their neighbor, minding their borders. The little nuances came out to me the more time I spent with Adrienne. It was like looking into an optical illusion where focusing makes everything clearer; an image emerges where there previously was none.

  “Now, compare it to this.” She showed me one which was seemingly identical and I began to understand. The first one was an entrancing masterpiece, the second a sloppy duplicate. Nothing stood out to me; there was no mosaic, no color consistency, and certainly no image emerging. How I had never seen this before, I didn’t know. Yet I did know. Adrienne took my observations to a new level and I wanted to believe I was somehow like her after this experience. That through her eyes I learned a heightened way to experience life and immerse myself in a city I thought I knew everything about.

  I wanted to believe this, but I knew I could never do it on my own.

  “Ahh, I do see,” I acknowledged, while wondering if I saw all she wanted me to. When my eyes met hers, I realized she was lost in her thoughts. I was jealous of her ability to drift away, closing her eyes as her fingers roamed the surface of the plaster idol, resting slowly in the cracks and seams. She seemed to understand the toils of this laborer in China. Adrienne was inquisitive, seeing and experiencing the world around her at a level I never gave a moment’s thought to.

  “I’m not a complete idiot,” she stated as we walked, hand in hand, back to Hotel Monteleone, where we had been staying. “No one can say they’ve pulled the wool over my eyes. What no one realizes is the wool has been lifted. I see what others fail to. The joke is on everyone else.”

  “You are still such a mystery to me,” I regretfully admitted. I wanted to solve her, and in doing so, become more like her. I wanted to transcend the immediate reality the way Adrienne could, and become two lovers against the world, our grins suggesting a secret no one around us would ever understand, living our own version of nirvana. I said none of this aloud for fear of scaring her. These things scared me enough for the both of us.

  “Maybe that’s why you love me,” she replied, and I thought I detected a hint of sadness in her voice.

  I threw my arm around her and pulled her into my side, smiling as she missed a step. “Trust me, darlin’. Mystery is not a bad thing.”

  ***

  18- Oz

  For a week we traipsed around New Orleans, seemingly without a care in the world. Neither one of us talked about either of our predicaments. Adrienne appeared to have set aside her sixteen years of life and family to discover, and I didn’t stop to consider my career waiting for me, or my unresolved feelings. It was a suspended animation of our own creation.

  At times, when the laughter died down after a joke, one of those rare silences descended around us; we would glance at each other and our eyes would lock. In those moments, if one of us had voiced what we both were thinking, our escape would have ended.

  We spent our time dining at Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, Desire Oyster Bar, Red Fish Grill, and the Upperline. Breakfast at Brennan’s every morning. As I promised, we shopped the row of stores along Magazine Street and spent time gazing into the endless art galleries on Julia Street. I worried initially she might be recognized, and forced to proffer explanations before she was ready, but people were too caught up in their own revelry. Aside from a few double-glances, Adrienne’s secret remained safe.

  I knew from experience which bars would card and which wouldn’t. We took up jazz at Preservation Hall and to complete the experience, we spent an entire evening (and part of the next morning) on Bourbon Street taking in the cabarets, daiquiri bars, and grabbing drinks at the Famous Door and Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. Adrienne especially loved the dark atmosphere at Lafitte’s and listened with rapt attention to the bartender who told her how the pirate himself had plotted under their very roof. Then he asked her out for a date.

  Adrienne looked both flattered and confused as she glanced between us. I hadn’t been totally oblivious to the glances we received when she was at my side, but I tried to ignore them. Clearly they assumed she was my sister, given our age difference. She apparently hadn’t noticed at all, so surprised was she when the bartender asked her out. She was like the buck who doesn’t see the hunter that’s been following for miles waiting for a clear shot.

  This was Saturday night and the week had already begun to wind down. It couldn’t go on like this forever. The silences were getting longer and our guilt was overcoming our fear of facing reality.

  I didn’t want her to go out with this guy. Not because I was jealous, but because I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to start thinking again. To start feeling again.

  “Thank you, but my friend and I have other plans,” Adrienne answered, laughing outright at me as I made no attempt to hide my sigh of relief.

  The bartender flashed me a sidelong glance and resumed putting glasses away. “Lucky friend,” he muttered.

  At two in the morning, I carried her out of Lafitte’s and decided to call it a night. The bars were mostly closed, but revelers carried on. Jazz musicians still played in the streets around them, the songs a bit less upbeat than the ones from earlier in the day. These soft melodies were more suitable to the half-drowsed tourists and locals, swaying drunkenly, refusing to give in to the oncoming day. More than one person let out the occasional whoop and tossed beads from the half-full galleries along the streets. The pavement was covered with crushed plastic cups, piles of cigarette butts congregating at the gutters, and beads of all colors.

  “I’ve had a really good week, Oz,” Adrienne mumbled during the cab ride home, her head perched precariously on my shoulder. She probably consumed more alcohol than was really necessary, but so had I. That week in the Quarter challenged me on my opinion I could still carry on the same as I did in my golden days. I felt badly Adrienne had also allowed herself to behave carelessly. She loved the many daiquiri bars that littered the Quarter, and drank the overpriced concoctions like they were water.

  “You should ask if they sell that in an IV, get a direct line going there,” I’d teased her. Then came the Hurricanes, oh the Hurricanes! Daiquiris were quickly forgotten when she discovered the wonder of the tall, curved signature glass with the crescent of lime peeking out the top. After about three (very watered down), she swayed rhythmically to the sounds of Etta James flowing out of the old jukebox at the rundown bar on St. Peters. Her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted, her head moving with her body, unaware of the eyes on her. I justified the indulgence with the hope all the poison I let her drink had given her the means to relax and let go of all the confusion and angst. I saw this in the soft, lazy smile that never left her face, and the slight flush to her pale cheeks, even in the cool evenings as a fresh breeze came off the river.

  The feeling this fantasy was coming to an end gained strength hourly. What I wouldn’t give to shrug off that nagging voice, which belonged to no one but myself. To relive the week with her was a gift, recycling the fun memories of our past, and temporarily dispelling the current mystery shrouding both our lives. I knew the difference between fantasy and reality, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to manipulate the two into one. I wasn’t sure how I felt, how things were going to go from here, or what really happened between us during the week. What I did know was that whatever happened here in the Quarter would stay in the Quarter. We could not indulge in the illusion at my home on Seventh and Coliseum. All that waited for us there was the truth, and the need for both of us to discover it, be it together or on our own.

  Adrienne’s careful demeanor indicated she also, intuitively, understood this boundary.


  The next evening, Adrienne and I took a quiet walk down Royal Street, the previous week a mutually taboo topic. Adrienne was unusually circumspect, while I reflected on having done little of anything except distract us both. I genuinely wanted to break free of whatever was holding me back from helping her, but I was not ready. There was still something left to be done, though in our week of frivolity I had not figured out what that something was.

  Jesse left messages for me, unreturned. He hadn’t made his way to New Orleans yet. His reticence could mean he either decided to let Adrienne do what she needed to do, or worse, he decided the opposite and turned it over to the authorities to search for her.

  Distracted, it took a moment to realize I was behind Adrienne, though I couldn’t recall the exact moment she’d taken the lead. Content to follow, I wasn’t aware of the direction we were headed, or the ultimate destination, until we arrived. I looked up to see the Hotel Monteleone, and grasped with a quick and sharp panic, she wanted to go in.

  “I want to see it,” she said when I questioned her. She can’t know. Did she feel what I felt every time I passed by Monteleone? She walked up to the Carousel Bar and sat down, closing her eyes, drawing a deep breath. My heart skipped at the fear she was remembering something, perhaps similar to the memories that plagued me now. I hoped not.

  I really, really hoped not.

  ***

  19- Oz

  Oz Reminisces…

  Morning. Summer. Sunday. The smell of boiled peanuts and elephant ears from the streets below. Sounds of revelers getting an early start, and the jazz bands warming up for the afternoon. Even in the Quarter, cicadas sang their song, soft and grating all at once. In about an hour, their sound would be drowned by the waking city, though they could still be heard on some of the less traveled streets.

  The light came in through the thin sheath of curtains and lay at an angle across her face. Her right arm lay askance above her head, which was tucked into the crook of her elbow. The down on her arm caught the light, forming a soft aura around her peaceful face. I watched her sleep, my sweet Adrienne, and thought of the night before.

  We started coming to the hotel several weeks ago, after her father had begun a nasty habit of showing up on my doorstep to retrieve his youngest daughter. He only did this on the weekends, when he was not locked up in his office; not confrontational, more of an afterthought. We continued to spend weekdays at the house on Seventh and Coliseum, where she would stop by after classes in her darling Catholic school getup, her driver arriving promptly at nine to take her home. On weekends, we rented this room in the Quarter, at Hotel Monteleone. We conspired this would be our room until the day Charles Deschanel decided to show up there as well. Neither of us wanted to think of that day, and what would possibly come next.

  “Good morning, Beautiful,” I greeted her tenderly as her lids slowly opened, revealing the prettiest eyes I had ever looked into. They reminded me of the Caribbean Sea, perhaps from a beach in Jamaica. Deep, endless, and powerful. My love for her had grown to surpass my ability to quantify as the feelings were larger than her, or I, or the sum of us. I thought then, as she blinked the last of her sleep away, I would die if I ever lost her.

  “Good morning, my Big Hero,” she whispered groggily, as the covers slipped off, leaving her body revealed to me. She made no move to fetch them again.

  Every night since we started staying here had been magical. Our days lacked of any care or responsibility, and our nights were filled with intense passion. Adrienne’s love and energy for me knew no bounds. I often found myself regretfully admitting defeat, “Enough, Sweetie.”

  “Just one more,” she would coax, eyes twinkling, body alight as she looked down on me, her red hair covering her breasts teasingly.

  “What shall we do today?” I asked her, forcing myself to leave her side as I reached for my glasses. I never bothered with contacts on our weekends in the Quarter. They were only a nuisance.

  “Stay in the room and make love all day?” she suggested, impishly.

  “We could leave the Quarter, head down to the Gulf,” I called out from the bathroom. The door was ajar; in the mirror I could see her standing naked at the foot of the bed. She was stretching her long, lean body. I reconsidered her original proposal.

  “Great idea!” She sounded like a little girl again, and often did when she let her excitement get ahead of her. It was so easy to forget she was sixteen, and those rare outbursts were a painful reminder of our limitations. It also made me feel strangely old, and like Humbert lusting after his little Lolita. I knew it far from the truth. Her age was not a hindrance to our love for one another. I had to put those thoughts out of my head. It only hurt her when I dwelt upon them, for she could do nothing about the annoying fact of her age, which to her was simply a number.

  “Do you remember when you bet me you would take me to my prom?” she called out.

  “That was out of the blue,” I teased. “But yes, I remember.”

  I attended my junior prom when she was twelve; the very same prom I spent the night with her cousin Ana, though I started the evening with another girl; one I hardly remembered now.

  Nicolas and I had been tending to our tuxedos while the elder three Deschanel girls piled on compliments about how cute we looked.

  As I walked through the double parlor, I saw Adrienne sitting alone near the fireplace. When I asked her why she wasn’t in with her sisters, she said, “I don’t know why anyone would want to go to prom.”

  “Oh come on now! All little girls dream of going to the prom one day,” I prompted.

  “Not this little girl,” she asserted, and it seemed like she meant it. “I have better things to do than get dressed up like a celebrity, watch everyone get drunk, and dry hump each other on a dance floor.”

  As usual with the things that came from her mouth, I was completely taken aback. “Interesting,” I observed, now regretting initiating the conversation. “But I am willing to bet you are wrong.”

  “Wrong? What do you mean? This isn’t about your misogynist opinion of ‘what all little girls want.’ It’s about me, and what I want,” she said, arms crossed.

  “What if I took you to your prom?” I ventured, as if no woman could refuse such an offer.

  “You?” She sounded disgusted. “How presumptuous.”

  “Okay, how about a nice gentleman’s bet?”

  She looked interested now. Her stubbornness could never avoid a challenge. “Go on.”

  “I am going to bet you a hundred dollars that when your time comes around, I am going to ask you to your prom, and you are going to say yes.”

  She stared at me as if I had said the most idiotic thing ever. “How is that a bet, Oz? You will automatically lose because you have no control over the most relevant variable! Me! And besides, how old will you be, then? They probably wouldn’t even admit you.” She shook her head, but I detected a smile, finally. “Whatever. How can I refuse a bet I can’t lose?”

  Recalling the exchange made me smile, especially considering how things turned out. “So, should we declare me a winner now?” I inquired.

  “You must have been psychic. I thought taking that bet was a sure thing,” she said with a giggle.

  When she wasn’t looking, I came up from behind and pulled her soft, naked skin into my arms. When I started to have doubts, all I needed was to feel her body crushed against mine and the worries simply melted away until it was just the two of us again.

  We were both surprised by a knock at the door. “It’s too early for maid service,” I said under my breath, slightly annoyed. I pulled my pants on clumsily as I hopped toward the door, intent on getting rid of the unwanted visitor so I could get back to what little time I had with Adrienne.

  “Who is it?” I asked. Whoever it was had covered the peephole.

  “It’s Charles Deschanel, Colin. Open this door. NOW.”

  What happened next, I remember in slow motion. Adrienne collecting her clothes, in her urg
ency only finding her shirt; her wide-mouthed cry of despair as I tried to think of the quickest way out of the inevitable. Charles’ burly frame as he walked through the door and gaped in horror at his half-dressed daughter scrambling to cover herself; his eyes tracing the room back to me, the look of anger and humiliation at having to discover it like this, in the act. He had to have known, but now could no longer ignore it.

  “Adrienne. Now.” Of all the things Charles could have said, this was all that came out of his mouth. Adrienne shivered with fear and embarrassment. I wanted to go to her but knew I could not, knew it would be much worse for her if I did. I watched helplessly as Adrienne, finally dressed, walked past me with a look that chilled my heart. I knew a part of our relationship ended with that look.

  “Adrienne, I love you. I need you. I will never leave you,” I said to her later that evening, on the phone, as she cried forlornly into the receiver. “Never.”

  “Oz,” she sniffed, “don’t let him do this. Don’t let my father do this. Please.”

  “I won’t. Adrienne, please don’t cry. I won’t ever let him come between us.” She was the little girl again, the child I had no right to be with, and I didn't know the words she needed to hear. All I knew was misery, and that I could not bear the thought of losing her.

  Adrienne stopped crying abruptly. I heard her take a deep breath before blowing her nose. She seemed decisive, even from the other end of the phone. “It’s going to be okay. Somehow. It really, really is.”

  I could sense in her words this morning had been the end of something. I hoped it also marked a new beginning.

  ***

  20- Oz

  "I guess we should go back,” Adrienne said, as she stepped away from the bar. She spoke in flat monosyllables, as if her mind was elsewhere. Her voice, her energy and warmth, seemed distant, a lifetime away instead of the few feet she now stood.