SNOWED IN by Veronica Tower

SNOWED IN by Veronica Tower

One Night Stand Book Three

Lisa has a problem. She's dating a fabulous guy who will do just about anything she asks, but she can't quite convince herself this means he's really in love with her. She's had guys say all the right things before and then let her down the moment she opens up and trusts them. In her heart of hearts, she's afraid John is just like the others.

John has a problem. He's dating a woman he's crazy about but she won't commit to a monogamous relationship and he can't figure out why. The swinging she insists upon to keep them from getting too close is leaching all the joy out of his heart and his hope that one day they will marry.

It's a relationship forged in heaven and going straight to hell, but when a chance snowstorm traps them at Lisa's house, John sees his chance to convince his lover that don't need anyone but each other to make them happy.

BUY THE eBOOK *** READ THE EXCERPT

~Excerpt~

The cab driver pulled up outside of Lisa’s home and John paid him, adding a thirty percent tip because of the nasty weather. Then he grabbed his briefcase and hurried through the snowstorm toward Lisa’s front door.

There were five or six inches of accumulation on the ground and John’s shiny black wingtips slipped and slid beneath him as he walked. Fortunately, he had left other shoes and clothes here over the past few months—something that Lisa had complained about at the time but finally accepted because it was so obviously practical. She still resisted any additional sign that they were settling in together. What was worse she continued to insist on all of these crazy sex games with other partners, and then got jealous when he participated with her.

He shook his head wondering what to do about all of this. He’d long ago admitted to himself that Lisa really was crazy in regard to relationships. So why was he still so infatuated with her? Why did the thought of her not being by his side twist his guts up inside? They had to figure out something better soon. What they were doing wasn’t working for him. And he didn’t really believe that it was working for Lisa either.

He stuck his key in the door—getting that key from Lisa had been a triumph on his part—and entered the house. “Lisa, honey, I’m…here.” He’d almost slipped and said home but that was certain to trigger a major bout of Lisa’s relationship claustrophobia.

He listened for a moment, but when she didn’t answer he finished closing and locking the door and stepped deeper inside the house. “Lisa?”

He set his briefcase down and shrugged out of his coat, brushing it off and folding it over his arm. “Honey?”

John stepped into the living room and found Lisa sleeping uncomfortably on the couch. The lower half of her body was nestled under a blanket. Her lap top computer had fallen to the side on the cushions on top of a pile of wadded up tissues.

She didn’t look good. There were dark bags under her eyes and her normal light brown skin tone looked off—almost gray for lack of a better word. And a trace of mucus leaking from her nose confirmed that she was getting sick as well. He’d warned her she’d been pushing herself too hard. How little sleep had she been getting with these seven day work weeks and twelve-hour-plus work days?

John draped his coat over a chair and quietly stepped closer to her. She was thinner also then she’d been when they started dating. Strange that he hadn’t noticed earlier. He was used to seeing her naked, after all, but it was obvious now in the touch of gauntness in her cheeks and the thinness of her bare arms. He had thought that she’d simply been losing her muscle tone from skipping too many nights at the gym, but seeing her here like this exhausted at the end of her long day, John could see the truth. Lisa wasn’t taking care of herself. She was pushing herself past the edge of endurance in her efforts to win her bonuses and it was costing her.

It was obvious looking at her that she couldn’t keep this pace up. At least, she couldn’t do it alone.

John took off his suit jacket, removed his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. Then he slipped off his wingtips to minimize any noise he might make and went off to get the comforter from Lisa’s bed. The house was quiet, empty, but it didn’t feel peaceful to him. Something was very wrong here. He obviously wasn’t the perfect patient boyfriend he liked to imagine himself to be. Lisa actually needed him and he hadn’t even noticed.

He returned with the comforter and carefully tucked it over and around the woman he loved.

LIKED THE EXCERPT?? CLICK HERE TO BUY THE eBOOK

TRIPLE DARE by Lexxie Couper

TRIPLE DARE - A Red Hot Winter Story by Lexxie Couper

Two men, one woman, one momentous dare.

Serious and determined, Joseph Hudson isn't Australia's businessman of the year for nothing. So now he's asking himself, how did he get lost on the side of a mountain in the Colorado Rockies - in the middle of winter - with night fast approaching? Three simple words. I dare you.

Fear isn't in Rob Thorton's vocabulary. Life is for the taking, and Rob uses both hands. Challenging his best mate to take an impromptu snowboarding trip to the U.S. is just the latest in a lifetime of dares. Besides, he has an ulterior motive for the trip. And a plan...

Park Ranger Anna McCarthy knows what trouble looks like, and it's written all over the two Aussies she first encounters in the ski lodge. Instinct has her following them onto the mountain, and sure enough, they end up needing her winter survival expertise. But not even her skills can stop her body from responding to the sexy muscles she finds beneath their ski suits.

Stuck in a remote cabin until the storm passes, the temperatures rise until all bets are off. And a double dare turns into a triple threat - to their hearts.

Warning: Contains lots of scorching boy on girl on boy action, a heroine who knows what she wants and two sexy-arsed Australian heroes to really work up a sweat over. Oh, and a soul-deep love story with a revelation that may make you cry.

BUY THE BOOK *** READ THE EXCERPT *** WATCH THE TRAILER

Excerpt:

“What the hell do you two morons think you’re doing?”

They spun to stare at her, their faces—flushed by the icy chill on the air—registered their shock.

Before they could say anything, she poked a finger at them, her stock dangling from her wrist to bang against her right knee. “Do you have any idea how dangerous what you are doing is? How stupid?”

The tall one—Joseph—gaped at her, his eyes locked on her face. “Err…”

“What my mate means to say—” Rob/Bob began, that evil dimple she’d seen last night flashing into existence on his right cheek.

“Is he’s a moron?” Anna snapped, cutting him off. The dimple was doing all sorts of unnerving things to her anger. And all sorts of unnerving things to her sex, damn it.

“Actually, I’m really very smart.”

The statement, falling from Joseph’s lips in a hurried jumble of accented words, seemed to surprise him. He blinked. And his friend burst out laughing. “Bloody hell, Hudo.” Rob/Bob smacked a fist into his friend’s shoulder, blue eyes twinkling. “It’s a good thing you’re loaded.”

Anna frowned at them both. She had no idea what Rob/Bob had just said—loaded? Surely Joseph wasn’t drunk on the mountain?—but whatever it was, it made Joseph glare at him. “Put a sock in it, Thorton,” he growled.

Hudo? Thorton? Singing when they should be scared stiff they were going to freeze to death? Laughing in the face of her anger? Who were these people?

Still chuckling, Rob/Bob turned back to her and fixed her with a direct blue stare. “We kinda messed up, thanks to a wonky compass. You wouldn’t happen to know where the number four hut is, would you?”

Keeping a tight grip on her anger, Anna fixed him back with her own level glare. “I do. And if you promise not to sing anymore, I’ll take you there.”

Much to her dismay, Joseph started laughing. Much to her horror, her sex started to flutter. Really quickly. And insistently.

Oh, Anna, don’t go getting turned on by two Australian idiots.

“Any chance we can persuade you to stay overnight with us?” Rob/Bob grinned, dimple still there. “I promise Hudo here won’t sing again.”

“Shut the hell up, Rob,” Joseph growled. “You sing worse than me.”

Anna felt like she was watching a game of tennis. She couldn’t stop moving her stare from one to the other. They couldn’t be for real. She was dreaming this. She’d fallen asleep thinking about how they’d need saving and this is the scenario her psyche had come up with: two gorgeous, sexy-assed Australians asking her to stay overnight in the deserted, unused rescue cabin with them. All three of them locked up together, with nothing to do all night except—

“Shouldn’t we be getting a move on?” Rob’s deep voice, complete with that sinful Australian accent that made her pulse quicken, jerked her out of her confused trance.

She blinked, giving them both another hard stare, hoping like hell her cheeks weren’t as red as she thought they were. “Follow me,” she snarled, snatching at the grips of her stocks and pushing herself away from them. “And try not to get lost.”

For an answer, Rob laughed.

“You’re a fine one to laugh, Thorton,” she heard Joseph say, his accent just as sinful as Rob’s, “you’re the one that got us in this predicament to begin with.”

“And you can thank me later, mate,” Rob replied.

For reasons Anna couldn’t understand, her pulse kicked up a notch. And her sex grew damp.

Oh, Anna. You know where this is leading, don’t you?

She pushed her way through the snow and trees, leading the two men to the rescue cabin on the northwest side of the valley. she had to admit their snowboarding skills were quite impressive. Better than their navigational skills, that was for certain. Much better than their singing skills, even if their accents were sexy as hell. The pit of her belly knotted and she scowled, doing her upmost not to think about staying overnight with them. She didn’t have to stay. None of them did. If she got to the cabin quickly enough, she could contact base and tell them to send up a chopper. They’d be back in the lodge, no doubt singing on tables again, before midnight.

And that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? That is, because that’s the right thing to do. The sane thing. Not calling the chopper, not going back down the mountain, that’s the wrong thing to do. Staying overnight in the hut with them, that’s just plain…

“Silly,” she muttered, rounding a grove of pine. The grove of pine. The grove beside which sat—

“The hut!” Rob cried, his enthusiastic cheer making Anna’s nipples pinch into hard little points. “See, Hudo? I wasn’t that far off.”

Joseph chuckled. “Yeah, you’re a regular Saint Bernard.”

The warm, happy sound made Anna’s nipples pinch harder, and she bit back an exasperated groan. God help her, she wasn’t just getting turned on by their accents, she was almost coming thanks to their foolhardy attitude to getting lost.

She titled her hips, preparing to swing around to face them, when Rob swooshed past, his tall, lean body looking deliciously confident on his snowboard. He cut to a halt at the door of the rescue cabin and flashed his dimple at her again. “So,” he said, blue eyes shrouded in shadows cast by the almost sleeping sun, “you going to join us inside?”

Anna narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to acknowledge the eager throb between her thighs. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you two are in? How much this rescue is going to cost you? I can lay charges. I could—”

“Have the best night of your life,” Rob finished with a grin.

LIKED THE EXCERPT?? CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK