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

by Milly Taiden

  “Oz, I don’t know what to do,” she said to me on the phone one night. She sounded beaten, and again I heard the little girl in her voice. “What are you thinking right now? You aren’t saying much.” Pause. “Are you thinking of giving up?”

  What could I say to her? I was the adult in our relationship, a sentence which said aloud sounded horrible enough. If I was her age, and we were both defying our parents with the same things at stake, I would suggest we run away or something else equally extreme and dramatic. But as it was, I carried a burden she could not possibly understand. I had to be the realist. Running away would solve nothing, and would drive us further apart when caught.

  Her father’s drastic change in his work schedule made me feel even more like what we were doing was wrong. It was, in fact, reasonable a father would go to such lengths to protect his daughter from what he felt was a predator. Previously I indulged in driving those thoughts from my head. Our relationship had been based on so many things other than age, but now we were faced with our ages being at the front of our situation. I had to act like the adult I was, and she had to submit to her father like the child she was.

  So what could I say to her? I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking. She wouldn’t understand.

  “No, Adrienne,” I said, softly. I sounded more like a father or a brother, than a lover. I hated it. “I love you. We will figure this out, somehow.”

  It had been almost two weeks since I had seen her, and I was so lonely. I heard her laughter ring throughout my house, felt the small imprint on the bed next to me where she had lain, saw her rummaging through my cabinets for food. She was a drug to me. Clarity came with having some actual distance from her. It terrified me to realize how truly out of control I was, and how much I depended on her. It was distance which helped me finally see what a dangerous game we were playing.

  We found another unlikely ally that summer, but one I trusted. Nicolas. Charles did not mind my visiting him, as long as I stayed in the garçonierre and did not stray closer to the house, and Adrienne.

  I could lie and say I visited him so much that summer because I looked forward to our conversations. In truth, sitting there on that chair in his room, I felt Adrienne’s presence a few hundred feet away and it comforted me. In New Orleans, she was over an hour’s distance.

  We were talking one day, and it was apparent to me Nicolas was distracted. He had been making plans to go overseas almost all summer, and hadn’t much shut up about it. Then, he said to me, “Ozzy, I’m flattered you care so much about which underwear I should pack for Spain, and whether the Frommer’s guide this year has any major updates from last year’s edition, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you aren’t even looking at me. So, since you haven’t asked me for help yet, let me offer it.”

  I turned to look at him. Had I been so transparent? I decided not to play dumb. “What can you do?”

  Nicolas stood and walked to the window. He poured a glass of Hennessy. “Isn’t it obvious? Ozzy, my father has never bothered much with me. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time he came in here. It’s like he’s scared of me.” Nicolas looked sad for a brief moment. “Why do you think he doesn’t care you are still coming out here every day? Trust me, it’s not because he values the friendship you and I have. He thinks…” Here, he trailed off for a moment. He took a long swallow of his liquor, letting it burn in his throat, then turned to me. “He thinks I hate my sisters. And he is wrong.”

  Lacking any clue as to what to say, I said nothing.

  “My mother would love if that were true. She hates them without a doubt, but you know that. She’s always said things to me, assumptive things that put me on her side. Have I let her believe maybe I agree with her? Sometimes. It’s easier to have one parent than none, and I’ve never had an interested father.”

  I was still speechless. Nicolas was not one to talk like this, about his feelings. Not without making a joke of them. But I felt like I should contribute something, so I said, “It’s not your fault, if you don’t have your father. Your mother is the one divided the household, and put you on her side before you even had a choice in the matter.”

  “Of course you’re right,” he said. “But it doesn’t change anything, does it? Oz, there are only a few people in this world I really care about. You’re one of them, my mother is another. Ana, without a doubt. But I also love my father and my sisters, whether the feelings are mutual or not. One day, perhaps, we will all sit down and be a nice functional family unit. Until that time, my feelings and motivations will always be questioned because of my mother’s not-so-subtle stance on everything that goes on in the household. My unfortunate alliance with her thrives because, despite her obvious faults, I love her too much to ever truly sever our bond.”

  He took another long sip, and went on, “People in this family think I am terribly detached, and indifferent. They don’t know I watch, and I see everything that happens in this household. I’ve come to know my family better than they realize. I haven’t ever told you what I thought of you and Adrienne, and likely you figured I didn’t care. For the record, I am one of your few supporters, Oz. I think you are great for her, and she is one of the few chicks who is great for you... the real you, not the person you pretended to be for popularity’s sake. I think my father would support the two of you if he weren’t so attached to her. If you were to fast forward about five years, he would be the first person to congratulate the two of you. He probably doesn’t realize there are few people who would care for Adrienne and challenge her as you do. He’s too protective to let his defenses down. So, maybe I can help him do that, without him knowing. I can help him, and I can help Adrienne, and I can help you. And whether my father ever finds out or not, I’ve still helped him.

  “I know my father’s schedule very well, and he will still have some distractions despite all of his efforts to push work off. During those times, the garçonierre is yours. Yours and Adrienne’s.”

  This time, I really was speechless.

  “One thing,” Nicolas added, “if you get caught, you’re on your own.”

  I couldn’t say the last weeks I spent with Adrienne in the garçonierre were the best, but they were not the worst, either. In fact, they represented a much more seasoned part of our relationship that was part honeymoon and part nervous excitement. There was still that newness of those first stages of love, but at the same time, I was not blind to Adrienne’s growing dread. It seeped into her thoughts, words, and mannerisms. When I held her, her heart was always beating with the swiftest of tempos, as if she had seen a ghost or run a marathon. Even when we made love, she was unable to fully relax, and the stiffness at her elbows and knees made me sad. She was ready to leap away from me and sprint off at the smallest sign of danger. Nothing I said could penetrate this tension of hers, although she tried to pretend my efforts were working. Her mouth said one thing, her eyes and body another.

  What was she afraid of? Her father, of course, but not what he might do so much as the thought of his displeasure with her. He was a tyrant, but a loving one, and he showed his love in the only way he knew how: by threatening anything he saw as bringing harm to her. She sought his approval in more ways than she ever realized. Walking past his office when she was wearing a new outfit, attempting to engage him in conversation. I saw it in the way she nearly stopped breathing when he spoke, and the way her eyes lit up as if his words alone rendered her speechless with admiration. When he traveled, she was much more aloof, withdrawing to her room, to the garden, or library. When he was home, her whole being radiated with his presence and she was the usual, talkative, and inquisitive Adrienne.

  I didn’t realize Charles was even aware of this until I came into her life as her lover and unknowingly threatened the part of their relationship which was unique and wholly theirs. Now, her eyes lit up when I spoke, and when he was away, she glowed despite his absence. In this, I had upset both his ego and his heart, the two things about himself which he most closely guard
ed.

  Adrienne was very keen to the dynamics of what had happened since we started dating, and I believe protecting her father’s feelings, and guarding his jealousy, is what made his restrictions the most unbearable for her. If he had scolded her for anything else, she could have borne it. But reprimanding her for the pain she had unwittingly caused him broke her heart, and a little of her spirit.

  The little girl in her felt the shame of hurting her father and the need to protect him at any cost, but the woman in her understood this change in their relationship was inevitable. She struggled between the two emotions, the two sides always in conflict.

  Oh, had I ended it there, would it have really been the end? No, it would not; for the other thing causing her such stress was the realization she could easily end her father’s duress by ending us, something she was completely unwilling to do.

  And, so, in the end, Adrienne chose me.

  Nicolas did more than make good on his promise; he actually engineered every single visit Adrienne and I managed to have. He was like a detective, with a sly grin on his face every time he would slink back to his room with news Adrienne would be by soon. Then, he would rush her in like a businessman entering a brothel, and smuggle her under his arm to the sofa, closing all the curtains, double-bolting the door. I both liked and laughed at “Nicolas with a Purpose.”

  The first time this happened, Adrienne and I shared a glance that caused us both to erupt into laughter while Nicolas stood aside looking absolutely puzzled. From then on, it was an inside joke.

  Our secret rendezvous were sometimes no more than a few minutes, but never more than an hour or two at most. As soon as Nicolas ushered Adrienne in with his melodramatic attempts to be discreet, he would quietly retire to his downstairs study, and she and I would walk–my arm around her shoulders, her face resting lazily on my chest–up the stairs, to the bedroom.

  We didn’t always make love. Sometimes we talked. There was so much we already knew about each other. Yet for all we did know, there was much left in between, and we used this to fill the spaces in our stolen time. I learned more about her in those few weeks than I had in all the rest of my life.

  There were times when we included Nicolas in our visits, which I could tell was a pleasant surprise to him. One night we played Monopoly and he kept slipping Adrienne money when she would run out. She would laugh, then turn around and buy out his properties when he was broke, and finally they tackled each other like rivaling siblings.

  I also learned a lot about the relationship she shared with her sisters, which I came to envy in the way an only child would. They were connected much like twins were connected, and this bond served as a stronghold in their defenses against Cordelia when their father was away.

  I confessed to her my lifetime affections for her sister Giselle. She laughed merrily and said she knew; had always known.

  “I knew you were a stand-up guy when you didn’t bang her,” she said. Trying to shock me was a little game she played.

  “How did you know?” I started to ask and then remembered they told each other everything. Especially things like that.

  “She had a thing for you for years,” Adrienne revealed. Her head lay back on the pillow and her eyes had a drowsy, happy look. The persistent tension was gone for the moment. “She liked to see you squirm, though, I’m afraid. She was so disappointed you turned her down in the end.”

  “It didn’t feel right,” I said, almost defensively.

  “No? And why, because of her age?”

  A trap, obviously. If I said yes, she would remind me of my double standard. If I said no, I would be lying. “It wasn’t right. I thought she might regret it, and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t regret it, either.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  This was one of the things I disliked about the better sex. They liked to come about issues from the side and make you play guessing games. “Okay, I will take your word for it, then,” I said.

  She was silent for a while. I knew that was not the answer she wanted from me, but I didn’t know why she wanted to rehash the same conversation over and over. Why did I love her? Didn’t I think she was too young? Did I ever have second thoughts? For someone so confident, she sure asked a lot of questions to the contrary. The worst part was my answers always felt so inadequate; they only calmed her temporarily. Telling her that would not help matters, either.

  Something my mother taught me through osmosis, in watching her interact with my father, was when women played games like this they often did so unintentionally. And more importantly, it usually signaled some other underlying issue completely unrelated to the topic being discussed.

  I knew she wanted me to ask. “What’s wrong, Adrienne?”

  “Nothing,” she said, but she turned her face away from me. For the days leading up to this visit, the stress in her face had been more evident. I sensed it went deeper than her father.

  “Don’t keep things from me, Ade. It won’t help matters,” I scolded lightly, before realizing the error in it.

  Her face whipped around to look at me again, but this time her expression was hard and there were tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. She seemed older, in that moment. “Won’t help what matters, Oz?”

  Damn my not ever knowing the right words! “That came out in a different way than I intended. I meant we have so much right now to contend with, and if we don’t stick together and be totally honest with each other, then it will…” I let my words trail because the sentence I started could only end in ways that would further upset her.

  Adrienne sat up then, and pushed past me. She leapt out of bed and put her clothes back on, quickly, in a furious fervor. “Will you admit it already? You can’t handle this, Oz! It’s okay, I actually understand, and I don’t blame you. I’m amazed you have been coming out here this long, to be perfectly honest!”

  So there it was, her feelings, laid out on the table. I was stunned she felt that way, and distressed she would say it aloud and force a confrontation.

  “Adrienne, no! That is not true!” I grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, but she tore away from my grip.

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be!” she screamed, as she backed toward the bedroom door. “I know how hard this has been on you, and I’m going to do you a favor by ending it so you don’t have to!”

  Adrienne ran down the stairs, me after her, and when she stopped at the bottom to look for her jacket, she was trembling. I pulled her into my arms and held her, and for a moment she submitted to me, and I felt her chest fold into mine and her arms go limp. And then, like that, the moment was over. She stiffened up again and pulled back.

  “I’m going to go to the house now, Oz, and I am not coming back,” she said tersely.

  “Stop doing this!” I was close to tears myself.

  She dodged me again as I reached for her, looking at my hand with both remorse and disgust. “You stop. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  When she reached for the doorknob, I saw her hesitate. When she twisted the handle, I yelled the absolute only thing I could think of to stop her.

  “Marry me!”

  Her hand pulled away from the doorknob, hesitating over it; she stood in that position for a few moments. Then, slowly, she turned to face me and I saw her face filled with too many emotions for me to list: shock, joy, confusion, love.

  “What did you say?” Adrienne articulated, slowly.

  I approached her and this time she did not shy from me. “I said marry me, Adrienne.” With the words out of my mouth, I now knew how much I meant them. “Marry me. I love you so much! Please, don’t ever, ever think I don’t. It hurts me when you say that.”

  I sank into the chair then and her eyes followed me, her face still a muddle of mixed emotions. Then she dropped down to her knees in front of me, laid her face against the inside of my thigh, kissed me there, and cried.

  I placed my hand
at the nape of her neck and with my other I spread my fingers through her hair as I brushed it aside. I had said the words, they were out there now, and I felt a tremendous relief.

  “Oz, I am so sorry. I always ruin things.” She continued to cry against me while I held her.

  “Nothing is ruined. All you need to do is say yes.”

  “So, you really mean it? You really want to marry me?”

  “Damn it, Adrienne, of course I mean it!”

  “Yes, oh yes,” she said. She looked up, sniffed and wiped at her tears as fresh happy ones began to pour down. “Yes.”

  We did something entirely careless then; our official time, based on Nicolas’ interpretation of his father’s schedule, actually ended five minutes before, and each moment we stayed together we were playing with fire. But I couldn’t stop myself from lifting her up into my arms and carrying her to the couch to make love, again. She clung to me afterward, preparing to force herself to leave.

  “I have some news,” Adrienne said as she hesitated in front of the door. She was glowing for the first time in weeks. “But I want to wait until we have some more time together. Right now…” She glanced at the door, and at the few hundred feet that lay between us and her father.

  “What news? You can’t say something like that and then leave!” I exclaimed. I was glowing, too. My fiancée.

  She laughed and blew me a kiss. “I think you’ll find it worth the wait. Besides, we have our whole lives together now!”

  “Whatever you say, dear.”

  Before leaving, Adrienne said, “And don’t worry about me. I’m going to be okay. I know that now. I was silly for acting the way I did, but I’m fine.”