10. Cowboy. I think Emilio Estevez in ‘Young Guns’ ruined me for life. For me (a woman), very little could be more sensual than the thought of a roll in the tumbleweeds with a dusty cowhand. But it’s not just that: for my sensibilities, anyway, there’s a certain drama, a romance even, to imagining the cowboys together. Brokeback Mountain was just the beginning. The eleven tales in How the West Was Done (edited by Adam Carpenter, Ravenous Romance, 2009) portray a range of cowboy fantasies, from rough-and-tumble stories from the dusty trails of the 19th century to contemporary romance at the rodeo. What they all have in common is lust between two buff, beautiful men, at least one of whom is always of the bronc-riding variety.
9. Stay-at-home dad. A young dad who’s lost his baby-mama through no fault of his own is sexy precisely because he’s responsible, gentle, and loving. If a romantic heroine is lucky, that DILF (Dad I’d Like to Fall in love with) is ready to love again, and has room in his heart for a new baby-mama. As a bonus, she gets to experience the joys of parenthood without the morning sickness and hospital bills.
8. Fire fighter. What’s not to love? He’s smoking hot, brave, strong, and he can throw you over his shoulder and carry you.
7. Nurse/Doctor. We romantic types love a man in uniform, and it’s sexy when the uniform happens to be scrubs or a white lab coat. Witness only the wavy-haired, Victorian hero of “Hysteria” by Rushmore Judd.
6. Soldier. Case in point: ‘On Leave’ by Lois Bonde. As we meet Lea Martin, she’s in the most heart-grabbing situation: saying goodbye to her older brother Ward as he goes off to war in the Middle East. She expects she’ll miss Ward and worry about him every day. She doesn’t expect the goodbye kiss she gets from Ward’s best friend and fellow soldier, Mike Holt. Lea had never thought of Mike in that light before. His kiss is so unbelievably sensual, Lea makes Mike promise to come back to her. Ten months of pent-up fantasies later, Mike comes home on leave, and paying Lea a visit is high on his to-do list. Will he be the man she’s been imagining while he’s been gone? Could things between them ever be as good as that first kiss? In On Leave (Erotique Press, 2006, $3), Lois Bonde answers these questions with a moving (and totally hot) portrait of a friendship becoming much more.
5. Vampire. Okay, vampire isn’t a job, per se. The Count Dracula type is usually mysteriously, independently wealthy, probably from all the hundreds of years he’s had to accumulate wealth…and take it from the people he’d eaten for breakfast. Edward Cullen doesn’t need a part-time job after school to afford to buy Bella Swan a new ride. Sometimes vamps have jobs: Charlaine Harris’s Eric Northman runs the Fangtasia night club, for example. But even if he isn’t fabulously wealthy and/or his job isn’t super-glamorous, vamps still make my blood run hot.
4. Contractor. Whether he’s a carpenter, a home remodeler, or the guy you hired to clean the pool, there’s something astoundingly sexy about the working-class hunks who work with their hands.
3. Police officer. Fire fighters get all the glory, and cops get all the blame, right? Well, that psychology is part of what makes them such intense romantic heroes. Like their brethren in the big red trucks, the guys in blue run toward danger when everyone else is running away. They put their lives on the line to be real-life heroes. Case in point: Butch in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Though not traditionally handsome, the gray-eyed police officer is some complex, so charming, he wins the heart of the most beautiful, utterly devoted woman in his world.
2. Kindergarten teacher. What’s not to love about a guy who gets along great with the little tykes? It speaks to his potentially for excellent parenting skills, which of course go body part-in-body part with excellent baby-making skills. (See #9.)
1. Bartender. I may be a little biased on this one, having been a bartender myself at one point (heck, I’ve been a contractor, too, for that matter…but I digress), but even if you’re not a big fan of Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’ there’s something mysterious and sexy about the guys who sling those colorful bottles of liquor behind swank bars. In her “God of Wine,” Dianne Fox modeled sexy-as-heck bartender Dean after the Greek wine god Dionysus.
The 10 Best Jobs For a Romance Novel Hero to Have
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