These 25 unashamedly modern short romances don’t shy away at the bedroom door, from the crème de la crème of contemporary romance writers, including Lilith Saintcrow, Louisa Burton, Susan Sizemore, Portia Da Costa, Madelynne Ellis, Victoria Janssen, Michelle M. Pillow, Charlotte Stein, Sasha White…and me!

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Excerpt from “Fly By Night,” my contemporary erotic Western included in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance:

 

Sweat beaded along Eli’s upper lip. “You mind if I turn on the air conditioner?”

Kate jumped like she’d forgotten he was in the room. “I’ll do it.”

She turned her back to him and fiddled with the ancient unit. Her random turning of knobs and pressing of buttons told Eli she was nervous, as if inviting strangers into her motel room wasn’t an everyday occurrence. The dim light from the single lamp gave her skin a golden glow.

He moved toward her till he stood close enough to lay a hand on her shoulder. She went dead still at his touch. He saw the leap of her pulse in her throat and thought of a skittish horse. Would she stand for him, or bolt?

The air conditioner came to life with an unhealthy whine. She turned, dislodging his hand from her shoulder, but she didn’t move away.

“We don’t have to…” he started, but the pleading way she lifted her pretty brown eyes to his face told him they most surely did. Even if he hadn’t liked her so much, he was never one to disappoint a lady.

Their first kiss was more like an experiment, both of them licking quick and light into each other’s mouths for a taste of salty skin and the last traces of tequila. He took charge of their second kiss and found her lips hot and plush, just as he’d known they’d be. He slid his fingers into her hair, pulling it loose, and cupped the back of her skull. Pleasure already throbbed like a bass-line under his skin.

He went slow, teasing her with barest of touches along the line of her jaw, the curve of her breast. Allowing the tension to build between them till it burst like a too-full rain cloud. She grappled with him then, pushing at his chest and clawing at his neck in plain frustration.

He caught both her wrists in one hand and used the other to urge her backward till her shoulders thumped against the ugly, faded wallpaper.

“Easy now,” he said. “There’s no call to draw blood.”

She glared at him. “I’m not some delicate damsel in distress.”

“Well, that works out fine, ’cause I’m nobody’s knight in shining armor.”

He released her wrists. She didn’t fight, so he bent and ran his lips along the line of her collarbone. When he slid his thigh between her legs and pressed his palm against the small of her back, she began to tremble. Right about then, he figured they’d both had enough of taking it easy.

He stepped back, pulled off his shirt and unbuckled his belt. She kept her hands on him, kept reeling him in for more kisses, interrupting his quest to get them both as naked as they could be in as little time as possible. He broke away and yanked her shirt over her head and down her arms to her wrists, trapping them a second time.

She arched off the wall and hissed in his ear like a scalded cat. “Get on with it, already.”

He twisted the fabric tighter and used the other hand to unbutton her jeans and shove them to her ankles. Then he slid his fingers up her spine to the clasp of her bra. She lifted a single, well-groomed brow—a challenge if he’d ever seen one.

“I can pick a lock in fifteen seconds flat,” he told her.

Her bra fell open before she had a chance to answer.

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