Hot and Bothered (21 page)

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

P.S. Watch for these terrific Loveswept titles coming soon: July brings Samantha Kane’s sensual new e-original,
TEMPTING A DEVIL
, Toni Aleo’s third entrancing book featuring hockey hunks,
EMPTY NET
, Ruth Owen’s dazzling
AND BABIES MAKE FOUR
, Jean Stone’s beguiling
SINS OF INNOCENCE
, Katie Rose’s utterly irresistible
A HINT OF MISCHIEF
, Iris Johansen’s seductive
TIL THE END OF TIME
, Sandra Chastain’s enticing stories,
DANNY’S GIRL
and
SILVER BRACELETS
, and August heats up with three e-originals: Stacey Kennedy’s intoxicating
CLAIMED
, Elisabeth Barrett’s blazing
SLOW SUMMER BURN
, and Toni Aleo’s red-hot
CROSSING THE LINE
, as well as Sandra Chastain’s stirring
SURRENDER THE SHADOW
, Katie Rose’s unforgettable
COURTING TROUBLE
, Adrienne Staff’s alluring
CRESCENDO
, Iris Johansen’s tantalizing
YORK, THE RENEGADE
and Ruth Owen’s ultra-sexy
BODY HEAT
. Don’t miss any of these extraordinary reads. I promise that you’ll fall in love and treasure these stories for years to come.…

Read on for excerpts from more
Loveswept
titles …

Read on for an excerpt from Toni Aleo’s
Taking Shots

Eleanor “Elli” Fisher didn’t understand why she was so forgetful. She was convinced that if her ass wasn’t attached to her, she would forget it at home too. But really? How in the world did she forget all the bulbs for her light stands?!

Elli stood in the entrance of the Luther Arena, waiting for Harper Allen, her assistant, to bring the bulbs back from her studio on the western side of Nashville. This was one of the most important days of her career and she forgot the bulbs.

God, I am an idiot.

How did she manage this? She ran her hand through her unruly brown curly hair, sighing. As if forgetting the bulbs wasn’t enough, she was also having a really crappy hair day. This was her first year with the Nashville Assassins. She couldn’t blow it. Being chosen to be the photographer for a hockey team was huge, but when it was for the team that just won the Stanley Cup and had the prospect of winning again? Hello, it was HUGE.

When she saw Harper running into the arena with the bulbs in hand, she let out the breath she had been holding. Damn, that was fast.

“For Christ’s sake! It’s a mad house out there!” Harper complained in her thick southern accent. Her hair was in spikes this week. The spikes were also purple, which made it even more interesting. Hadn’t she discussed with Harper how they needed to keep a professional image? Yes, purple was a team color.

But still!

“I know, come on. Let’s go put the bulbs in.” She didn’t have time to have it out with Harper right now; she had to get to the ice. They all but ran towards the entrance to the ice. Once there, she was greeted by the Assassins’ PR rep.

“Ms. Fisher, how do you do? Are you ready?”

Melody Yates was intense. That was the only way Elli could describe her. She was from New Jersey, and had been converted into a Southerner. And that made no damn sense to Elli, but whatever, this was her boss. So she flashed a huge grin and turned on her southern charm.

“Yes, ma’am. Let my assistant put these bulbs in, and we can get started.”

“Good, the boys will be out soon. Then we’ll go downstairs for the other shots we need.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Harper ran ahead of them and started setting everything up. Elli took in a deep breath. She had been photographing weddings almost her whole adult life, and now she was moving to sports. She had always wanted to do sports photography, partly because she had such a love for hockey, but she never could get an opportunity. Now, thanks to a job opening, and being related to the owner of the Assassins, here she was.

This was her chance.

A big one.

Harper handed Elli her camera with a big smile. Harper knew how important this day was, and also how nervous Elli was.

“Go on over there and let me test shoot, Harp.” Harper started towards the goal and turned with a stick in her hand, making a stern face. It brought a smile to Elli’s face. Harper was a dork, but God, Elli loved her. After fixing the aperture on her camera, Elli called Harper over as the guys started skating onto the ice.

“Good golly, Miss Molly! Look at them! Good Lord! They are gorgeous!” Harper whispered as all the guys came out and sat on the bench. Elli took her time looking the guys over. They were gorgeous, alright. But she already knew that, since she never missed a home game. Sometimes she thought it was the uniforms: bright purple and black, with a masked man on the front of the jerseys that brought out their good looks. But nope, even with the helmets off, these men were just plain gorgeous.

Getting back in the zone, she called for the coaches first. Trying to bottle her nerves, she got started. After shooting the coaches, it was on to the team. Each player came out in front of the goal, striking his pose. Elli zoomed in, taking a head shot before taking one with him holding a stick. After that picture, each lined up for an action shot, which consisted of skating towards her while shooting a puck. During all of this, Harper offered up commentary.

“For the love of God, El, that dude is hot!” Elli rolled her eyes, taking the shots she needed.

“Hush, Harp.”

“No, really. Like, please, can I hit on one of them? Just one?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun.”

Elli laughed it off. She was starting to get into her groove, just as the captain and the alternate captains came off the bench.

“Oh, to hell with what you say. Number two is mine, after this!” Elli gave her a pointed look as Jakob Titov, the Assassins’ leading scoring forward, skated in front of the goal. Jakob was extremely good looking, with hard lines to his face, bright green eyes, and dark brown hair. He was a looker, but not Elli’s type.

He reminded her too much of her ex-boyfriend.

“Hush, Harper!” Elli said as she took the shots she needed. What she didn’t need was Jakob making eyes at her assistant, which he did. And, of course, Harper returned them. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much that Harper always flirted with the clients. It didn’t matter how old they were or what they looked like, or even if they were the groom. She always found something in them that she liked. It was probably the fact that they all had a penis.

Elli loved Harper, but Harper was a little promiscuous and didn’t care who knew. Guys had no worth to her unless they were naked and inside her, as she always said. Elli always wondered what made Harper that way. It made no sense. There had never been a guy who had done Harper wrong in the twenty two years they had been friends. Her parents were good people. So Elli really didn’t understand where it came from. And, of course, guys liked Harper. She was wild, beautiful, skinny, and amazing.

Everything Elli wasn’t.

Jakob lined up, giving her his action shot. After she got it, he skated towards her and Harper instead of his teammates.

What the hell was he doing?

“Nice hair, beautiful,” he flirted in his thick Russian accent. Harper just smiled widely, as Elli flushed deep red. Elli didn’t know why she was embarrassed, but she was. She didn’t want attention on Harper right now, not with the importance of this job.

“Nice stick,” Harper said, looking down at where he was holding his stick. Jakob gave her a devilish smile and skated towards the bench.

“You are impossible, Harper Allen,” Elli said, flustered.

After getting it together, Alex Welch came next. Alex was easy to shoot. He had good lines, and bright blue eyes, so the pictures were bound to be fabulous. Next was the captain, Shea Adler.

Elli blushed as she got to the close-up of Shea. She had always thought the defenseman was gorgeous. With his almost black hair that fell in the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, and a crooked nose that had been broken two years ago during a game with the Red Wings, she had to admit that she had a little bit of a crush on him. When he smiled, her heart melted. Yeah, his teeth were probably false, but damn, he had a pretty mouth.

“Why’s he blinking so much?” Harper asked. Elli was too busy looking at his mouth to notice.

“Harp, shut up,” she whispered, but then she noticed that the captain was blinking a little too much.

“Is he hitting on you?”

“Oh, my God!”

Elli’s whole face flushed deep red as she looked down at the picture viewer of her camera. In all the pictures, the captain’s eyes were shut. Elli looked up, and Shea was rubbing his eyes.

“Mr. Adler,” she said as she started walking towards him. He looked over at her.

“I’m sorry, but I need you to stop blinking. Your eyes are closed in every picture I have taken.”

“I’m sorry.”

Oh God, his voice was butter, thick with a Boston accent. Elli swore she came at the sound of it.

“I got new contacts and they are bugging the hell out of me.”

“Someone get Adler another pair!” somebody yelled as he pinched the little lenses out of his eyes, throwing them down on the ice.

“We can do this without them, right?”

Elli just nodded. Gosh, he was gorgeous! He tried to make eye contact with her, and it was obvious that it was hard for him to see.

“I won’t be able to see your beautiful face for a little bit, but I’ll have a new pair soon. Then I can stare some more.”

Elli stood there blinking.

Was he flirting with her?

Did he just call her beautiful?

She turned without a word and went back to work. When it came time for Shea Adler to skate off, he ran into the goal, then the wall, before making it to the bench. Everyone was in a fit of laughter except for Elli. She was still in shock.

Shea Adler had called her beautiful.

After the shoot downstairs, which consisted of the guys in sexy suits holding their hockey sticks, Harper and Elli started cleaning up and tearing down the equipment. Elli didn’t hire big crews; she didn’t like them. All she needed was Harper and two other assistants, and she was good. The day had been great. All the shots were fantastic. Once she edited them, they would be golden. The guys were amazing and sweet, not really as cocky as the sports reporters make them sound. They were good guys.

Elli was packing up her camera when she saw Jakob Titov coming towards her. He gave her a grin before going over to where Harper was standing. She watched as he flirted with Harper, who was playing hard to get; something she had perfected. Jakob pulled his phone out as she did the same. They were exchanging numbers. He asked her something and Harper just giggled and then leaned forward, giving him a kiss on his cheek.

Jakob put his hand on his heart before stepping backwards, a dazed look on his face, causing Harper to laugh. He shot her a wave as he left with his bag over his shoulder. Harper smiled and looked over at Elli. “He’ll call when he gets in the car,” she said as she walked towards Elli with the rods from the light stands.

“How do you know? He said that?”

“Nope, but I know his type. Needy.”

The sad thing was that Harper was probably right.

Elli looked down at her camera, taking care to put it away. As she zipped the zipper to her purple and black bag, (Yes, team colors) she cursed herself for being shy and stupid with guys. When Shea said she was beautiful, she should have said something clever. That’s what Harper would do. But nope, she just stood there blinking and looking downright stupid.

Elli knew the problem. It was the fact that she had no confidence at all. She didn’t think she was good enough for male attention. She wouldn’t say she was plus-sized, but she was thick. She wasn’t a size two anymore. Nope. Good ole ten now. Even with her thyroid medicine to help with her hypothyroidism, she still couldn’t keep the weight off. It didn’t matter if she had great fashion sense to cover her dumpy body, guys just didn’t hit on her the way they had when she was 18 and a size two. It was depressing, because Elli was lonely.

Elli would never admit it to anyone, but she wanted that “happily-ever-after”.

She always put on the front that she liked being alone and didn’t need a man, but it was such a lie. Elli wished she could be like her older sister, Victoria, who loved being single, loved sleeping with different men, but Elli just couldn’t do it. Sex was such a private thing and with the way she felt about her body, no one was getting her undressed until she knew she loved him and he loved her.

After packing everything on the carts, they started pushing them down the hall towards the car. After three trips, they had everything packed, and were walking toward their cars when Harper’s phone rang. Elli didn’t even stay back to listen. She kept walking with a wave as Harper cooed into her phone.

Once in her F-150, (hey, trucks aren’t just for boys), she drove off towards the west end of Nashville to get onto the interstate. She’d planned to ask Harper if she could stay the night with her since she was stupid tired and didn’t want to drive for forty five minutes, but it looked like Harper was going to be busy. So Elli decided to go home. She hit the interstate, preparing herself for the drive. It was probably good that she was going home. She had forgotten to call Ally, her neighbor, to let her dog out.

When Elli had purchased the old country home outside of Nashville five years ago, it had seemed like a great idea. The studio had been open for two years. It was thriving and she wanted a home, not some apartment or condo. She bought it without even looking at anything else. It was the house for her. After five years, it wasn’t the old country home she had bought. It was a masterpiece. Everything had been redone: the décor classic and beautiful.

Whenever Elli’s dad came to visit, he would always say that it was like he was standing in sunshine because it was so bright. She smiled just thinking about it. She was so proud of both her studio and home. They showed the world that she was doing something with her life. They proved that she didn’t need her family’s money, that she was successful after losing her stint on Broadway, and that she could live without Justin, her ex.