Inside Heat by Roz Lee

About the Author…

Roz has been married to her high school sweetheart for thirty-two years and is the proud mother of two grown daughters, both in grad school. She divides her time between her home in rural New Jersey and Los Angeles, where her husband works. She's never without her laptop and prefers to write with her Labrador Retriever, Betty Boop, by her side. Roz admits she's addicted to Facebook, chocolate, and travel, not necessarily in that order.

When she's not clicking the computer keys, she's either on the road looking for a new adventure, or at the gym, where she claims some of her best ideas come to her while she's on the elliptical. She confesses some of that has to do with the hot, sweaty men to be found there too, but don't tell her husband. He thinks she goes there to stay in shape!

Musing on Adulthood and Summer Nights

We’ve passed another calendar milestone on the road to putting 2012 behind us. Daylight Saving Time is here again, and it's got me thinking.

Since becoming an adult – some odd decades ago – it seems as if each year passes faster than the previous one. Perhaps you've noticed this as well. I vaguely remember as a kid thinking childhood was going to go on forever. This was before Daylight Saving Time existed, and summer nights were long and filled with all manner of nocturnal activities like frog hunting, catching lightning bugs and playing hide and seek. The time when I would make decisions for myself was so far in the future I couldn't fathom it. *snort*

Then one day I woke up and realized I was the adult. I was the one expected to make the decisions for myself, and my dependents. Yes, dependents. Children. Little people who depended on me to choose wisely, keep them safe and nurture them. It was a sobering thought.

When had this happened? Why hadn't I noticed before?

Tough questions for a mother living several large states away from her support system. Somehow, I muddled through it. I put on what I still think of as a costume – my – I'm-the-adult-do-as-I-say-because-I-said-so, costume and played the role. What else could I do? They were there, looking up to me, expecting me to play the part.

I doubt Broadway or Hollywood will ever come knocking at my door based on my performance, but I think I carried the role pretty well for someone who had never read the script. Just so you know – there isn't a script. I found that out along the way too. It was all improvisation – from the word go.

Today, my girls are grown – adults, if you will, and from my vantage point, they turned out pretty darn good, even if they've never known a pre-Daylight Saving Time summer night.

So, what does an out-of-work improv actress do with her time? I write. I guess it's my way of reliving those long summer nights when creativity was the name of the game, while still wearing the Do-as-I-say costume of adulthood. I find my characters – creations of my imagination more malleable than the creations of my flesh. My characters take on the personality I wish upon them, not the one they inherited. They do as I say or I delete them. (Not recommended for the other kind) Their thoughts and words are mine as they rarely were, or are, with my children.

It's a heady feeling, knowing I have so much control of others – even if they are only figments of my imagination. I enjoy creating characters, giving them a life, a voice and yes, love. In my latest, INSIDE HEAT, I've gone back to those summer nights of my childhood, to the baseball field bathed in artificial light, to kids dreaming of the glory of playing in the Major Leagues someday. My characters, Jeff and Jason Holder grew up with that dream, and for them it came true. Now they're looking for the woman they can share it with, and Megan Long just might be that woman.

Grab your peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jacks and join me in the bleachers for nine innings. Come on, it's a nice night for a ballgame.

Book Title: Inside Heat

Genre: Contemporary Erotic Romance

Publisher: Roz Lee

Purchase:

Amazon  

B & N 

Format: eBook

Blurb:

It's about more than scoring–It's about hitting a home run.

Jeff "The Terminator" Holder is the closer for the Texas Mustangs' baseball team, and revered throughout the Major League for throwing inside heat. His twin brother, Jason, the Mustang's catcher, leads the League in hits. They share a love of the game, as well as their identical DNA – but that's not all they share.

         

Pediatric Nurse Megan Long doesn’t know baseball, but she does know a sexy guy when she sees one - or two. When she seeks out an autograph for one of her patients, she falls under the spell of two of the sexiest players in baseball. Unable to resist their charms, Megan finds herself in bed with both men, but falling in love with only one.

       

Locked in an epic battle against the steroid pumping Martin McCree, Jeff's obsession with striking out McCree strains his relationship with his brother, and leads to an injury that threatens his career and dents his ego. Megan does her best to get through to him, but if Jeff can't see past his failings to find the love she's offering, he's going to strike out in the biggest game of his life.

Megan can't believe her luck when twin professional baseball players Jeff and Jason Holder turn their attention on her. She may not know baseball, but she knows a sexy guy when she sees one – or two! 

The relationship makes it to first base in record time – but a Grand Slam is in Megan's future.

Excerpt: R

Bit by bit, Megan relaxed in their company. They had a way of telling stories that was amusing to watch. One would start, and by some secret cue, the other would continue. It was as if their brains were sync’d by an invisible cord. Prepared to find something to dislike, she chastised herself for categorizing them before she knew them.

Jeff insisted on dessert, and they lingered over the mountainous chocolate cake and another bottle of wine. They were nearly through when Jason spoke. “Why don’t we take some chocolate cake home. Then we can smear it all over each other and lick it off – real slow.”

Megan wasn’t used to drinking more than an occasional glass, and at first, she attributed what she’d heard to the three glasses she’d consumed tonight.

“What?” She closed her eyes and forced her brain to focus. Surely, she’d misheard Jason’s comment. She was long past trying to deny her attraction to the pair, but conjuring up propositions went way beyond fantasizing. It bordered on drunkenness and possibly, insanity. “Would you repeat that, please?”

Megan mentally congratulated herself for sounding rational when she was working with seriously compromised judgment.

Jeff touched her lightly on the arm and she turned her now pounding head in his direction. “Jason can be a bit crude sometimes. I apologize for his behavior.” He shot his brother a look that said, "Way to go, asshole," then turned his attention back to Megan. “What he meant to say, was, we’d like for you to come out to our house this weekend. We want to get to know you better, and give you a chance to get to know us.”

That sounded more rational. Megan tore her gaze away from Jeff, and risked a glance at Jason. His smile made her insides warm, or maybe it was the wine. Jeff’s fingers still rested lightly on her forearm, not demanding, but conveying a message all the same. She jerked her arm off the table and twisted her hands in the cloth napkin in her lap.

“No pressure,” Jeff said. His voice vibrated along her nerve endings. “We like you, a lot. And we think you like us. We want to explore that further, to see if perhaps you might like a lot more from us.”

“I think I’ve had too much to drink. What exactly are we talking about here?”

“This isn’t the place to go into details, but I think you know. We want you, Megan. Both of us. We’d like to find out if it’s something you’d be interested in. We don’t expect you to answer right away. That’s why we want you to come out to our place. You can see the way we live. We can discuss the details then, if it’s something you think you might want.”

She didn’t know what to say. It seemed she had heard Jason correctly. He’d asked her to go to bed with them, tonight. More specifically, he’d suggested licking her body – all over – and allowing her to do the same. It hadn’t been her overactive imagination, spurred on by too much wine. As appealing as that sounded, and she wouldn’t lie to herself, it did sound appealing; she wasn’t into that kind of thing. At least she didn’t think she was. She didn’t do no-strings-attached-kinky-ménage sex.

“I’ve got to go.” She jerked her purse off the back of the chair as she stood. Her head swam, and this time, she knew it wasn’t entirely the fault of the alcohol. She was off balance, but she couldn’t blame it on drinking – not entirely. She made it as far as the front door, and turned to ask the maitre d’ to call a cab. Two towering males blocked her way.

“We have a car waiting. We’ll take you home.” Jeff slipped an arm around her waist while Jason signaled to a car parked down the street. The sleek black town car pulled to the curb, and a moment later Megan was in the backseat, flanked by the two sexiest men she’d ever seen. Jason asked for her address, relayed it to the driver, then closed the partition, sealing them off from the world.

One hot hand skimmed her thigh, sneaking under the hem of her dress to stroke dangerously close to her throbbing parts. Another slipped around her neck, long fingers massaging her nape as the thumb stroked her jaw, gently turning her face in the opposite direction from where the other hand had come from. She found herself looking up into Jeff Holder’s eyes. Before she could form a protest, he bent his head and took her lips in a kiss that loosened every muscle in her body, and did serious damage to her moral fiber. The hand on her thigh tugged, and her legs slid open. Fingers stroked a path to her core, and she groaned against Jeff’s lips as another set of fingers joined the fray. Her thighs spread wider in silent invitation.

***

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