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      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter One

      Bare buns.

      Slick. Masculine. Muscular. Undulating rhythmically to the hard, driving beat.

      Here. There. Everywhere Summer Jacobs glanced she saw them. Buns, buns and more buns cloaked in nothing but skimpy g-strings and heated mineral oil.

      Hunk heaven! Yee-haw.

      She strolled through the crowd of women chanting “Shake it, baby, shake it” at Bare Buns, an exclusive, ladies-only strip club in downtown Phoenix. Sexually, she’d hit a long dry spell and the sight of these exquisite specimens of manhood were making her feel… well… a tad bit needy.

      The selection was impressive. She should certainly be able to find a dancer for her sister’s bachelorette party here. Just as her next-door neighbor Joe Everhart had predicted.

      That conversation had been a weird one.

      Summer had been unloading party supplies from her Mini Cooper that morning when the sack ripped, sending naughty gag gifts tumbling across the sidewalk. Glow-in-the-dark condoms, chocolate body paints, fur-lined handcuffs.

      Joe had come rushing over to help. Summer almost shooed him away from the racy party favors. She knew he embarrassed easily. Whenever he saw her in a string bikini lounging around the community pool, he stammered and couldn’t make eye contact. And whenever she complained about her nonexistent love life, he invariably blushed beet red.

      He was a nice guy. Always ready to roll up his sleeves and pitch in. He was cute in a nerdy professor sort of way, even though he wore thick glasses, shapeless clothes and his shaggy hair looked as if it was perpetually in need of a trim. But he had the most genuine smile she’d ever seen and whenever he directed it at Summer, her stomach fluttered mysteriously.

      The man was a diamond in the rough just waiting for some perceptive woman to polish. But she wasn’t volunteering. No siree.

      For one thing, Joe was a total brainiac with a PhD in archeology and she was a high school dropout. Sure she’d gotten a GED and made a name for herself as a southwest artisan, but she’d never stopped feeling insecure about her lack of formal education.

      For another thing, Joe was a forever kind of guy. And hard experience had taught Summer that life was short. Might as well make it sweet. With her newfound live-for-today philosophy, she simply could not commit to any one person.

      Still, she couldn’t stop fantasizing about Joe.

      And there in lay the problem. What she needed to take her mind off her adorable neighbor was a wild fling with a wild thing. A rebel, a challenge, an adventure. Something that Joe and his fossils most definitely were not.

      So when Joe had silently handed her the box of edible panties that had slid behind the tire of her car and their fingers brushed in a moment of pure electrical sparking, Summer resolutely ignored the sensation.

      “Just my luck,” she’d moaned without meeting Joe’s gaze. “First the caterer flakes out, then the stripper cancels and now my sack rips.”

      “Stripper?”

      “For Devon’s bachelorette party on Saturday night.”

      “I know where you can get a stripper. A buddy of mine works at a place called Bare Buns. The Masked Monsieur. Tell him I sent you.”

      So now here she was, Joe-sent, sexually edgy and thigh-deep in near naked men.

      Chapter Two

      This was wrong, wrong, wrong.

      Joe Everhart realized his plan was wicked, but he’d been having the most erotic fantasies starring his sexy next-door neighbor Summer Jacobs ever since she’d leased the upstairs apartment two months ago and it was high time he did something about it.

      From the first moment he’d heard Summer lugging packing crates up the steps, enthusiastically belting out an off-key rendition of “Je Ne Regrette Rien,” he’d known she was special.

      “I regret nothing,” she’d sung the cabaret torch song in fluent French and his heart thumped crazily.

      Who could resist a woman without regrets? He wished he could be so confident in his life choices.

      And then he’d gone out side to offer his help and he’d gotten a good look at her.

      Long auburn hair, with chunky streaks of blonde shot throughout, that swung provocatively down her back. Her gorgeous butt cupped in those low-rise bell bottom jeans. She wore funky red cowboy boots and a skimpy little white tank top that revealed not only a flat expanse of taut tummy but also a turquoise navel ring.

      And that’s when he knew had to have her.

      He just hadn’t known how.

      He wasn’t the most suave guy on earth. He was an introvert who loved fossils and artifacts and ancient history. Socializing had never come easy and he spent more time with books than with people. Plus, Summer was so full of sass and daring, pulsating with energy and life. She was far too busy piloting hot air balloons or climbing rocks or crafting her one-of-kind southwest jewelry to notice an archeology geek like him.

      So he’d bided his time, waiting for the right opportunity, the perfect segue into asking her out. But the longer he waited, the more she treated him like a brother.

      If she only knew the very unbrotherly thoughts prowling his head!

      Problem was, she’d already formed an image of him as the nice guy next door. A buddy, a pal, a soft place to land. What he needed was for her to view him in a completely different light. But he’d had no idea how to achieve that goal.

      Until this morning when she’d said she needed a stripper and he’d recklessly blurted out that the Masked Monsieur was a friend of his.

      Well, it wasn’t a total lie. He was a friend to himself. And if tricking Summer into giving him a chance was wrong, then he didn’t want to be right.

      “Psst, Joe,” Steve, the bartender, called to him from the dressing room door.

      “Yeah?” Hurriedly, he tugged black pleather pants up over his sparkly gold g-string.

      “She’s here.” Steve gave him a thumb’s up and scooted back to the bar.

      Panic punched Joe’s gut. Summer was in the club. She’d be watching him strip.

      “We want the Masked Monsieur,” the crowd of