Red Zone (Daniels Brothers #2) Review

Red Zone by Sherri Hayes

Book description...
After a case ended badly for Rebecca Carson, she’s losing her mind sitting around her apartment waiting on her superiors to allow her to return to work. Since she was a teenager, the only thing she’d ever wanted was to join the FBI. Now that dream was in danger.
Gage Daniels has made a pretty good life for himself. A nice house. A career he loves. As a professional football player, he’s used to getting almost everything he’d ever want with just the snap of his fingers. This includes women. A well-timed smile is usually all it takes to attract the opposite sex, especially in Nashville.
When a stalker threatens Gage, the team owner calls an old friend, Rebecca’s ex-partner Travis Hansen, to help protect his star quarterback and find the person responsible. Hansen offers Rebecca the job, and she jumps at the chance. It’s work, and it will get her out of her apartment. How bad can it be?
Posing as Gage’s girlfriend, however, isn’t as easy as it seems. The man is relentless. Rebecca must work to protect Gage while staving off his advances. She’s there to do a job, nothing more. The last thing she wants is to be another notch on a hotshot athlete’s belt.
As the stalker continues to up the ante, Rebecca finds it harder and harder to keep her distance from Nashville’s star quarterback. He isn’t what she expected in one of the city’s most notorious playboys. Now all she has to do is keep him safe until they can find his stalker, and hope she doesn’t lose her heart in the process.

I'm not normally a big fan of a heroine who is a protector or a bodyguard of the hero, but I enjoy Sherri's writing and I loved the first book in this series Behind Closed Doors so I knew I wouldn't be let down... and I wasn't.  I'm all about female empowerment and I more than admire women who put their lives on the line for others... and this book totally put me in my place.  Yes the hero is protected by the heroine but the way that Sherri painted the picture for me left me feeling like I've been missing out on some kick ass heroines!

Obviously Rebecca is not my typical kind of heroine... she totally lacks in the sweetheart department.  Something I've always felt I needed to see in a heroine because I want to relate to her... however, I didn't need it.  Rebecca gave me everything I needed to relate to her with her extreme sense of loyalty and the vulnerability she is so desperate to hide.  The one thing about her that I wish I would have learned about her in the beginning is what made her so vulnerable... I would have been able to relate to her earlier in the book, without having to have that "Ah, Ha!" moment where it all clicked into place.  But then again her "job" had to work for it, so I guess it was only fair that I had to wait too.

Gage is so my kind of hero... he's cocky, loyal, and driven to a point that makes you forget his cocky attitude.  He seriously had me rolling my eyes and then wanting to rip his clothes off with in the first couple of chapters.  He's a professional football player that stays in the limelight for his completed passes on and off the field... and because of this has attracted the attention of a stalker... which is where the lovely yet extremely stuffy Rebecca  comes in. 

Watching their relationship progress was as frustrating as it was rewarding.  It was rewarding in the sense that Rebecca gave Gage a run for his money... the fact that he was used to getting what he wanted and Rebecca wasn't even close to caving, made for an extremely interesting story.  He'd feel like he'd get 1 step forward only to be pushed back 2... quite frankly it was funny watching him maintain his composure.  But when they do finally succumb to the chemistry that crackles between them... it's electric, steamy, smokin' hot, and beautiful all at the same time. 

The Daniels Brothers Series is definitely one to check out!  I loved Behind Closed Doors but I have to say that Gage totally stole Chris' spot in my heart.  Now I'm wondering which brother will be next?

Happy Reading!