After three months of serious flirting, mousy brainy geek Shea Dresden decided to take a walk on the wild side in order to catch the interest of her incredibly sexy neighbor Ryan McCall, "the sexiest damn thing we've ever set eyes on!" She and her libido were willing to do whatever it took to get him, including dressing up in a slinky, little black silk number and sexy high-heeled sandals, and going out to be found by him in his one-night-stand hunting ground, the rough and tumble Red's Bar. The visit to Red's was successful, just not in the way she'd expected. Ryan hadn't been there and Shea had to be rescued from the attentions of a wild drunk by a redheaded waitress. Shea hadn't expected the wild drunk to follow her home and smash in her door. And then, who had showed up to save the day but Ryan McCall.

Ryan was a hard-living ATF agent who had been once burned and was twice shy in the love department. His long-time best friend-like-a-sister Hannah lived upstairs, and had introduced him to Shea, his next-door neighbor. Ryan couldn't help but be interested in her, but he just knew that the brainy, shy Shea was out of his league. His fellow agent and friend, Derek, was interested in Hannah, but Hannah wanted nothing to do with men since her divorce. The two womanless womanizers were commiserating in Ryan's apartment when Shea suddenly needed rescuing next door. After half-killing the intruder, Ryan's blood was up, and he couldn't believe Shea's little sexy outfit. Even while he was doing his damnedest to hold her off because she was too good for him, he was caught up in explicit fantasies of having her a hundred different ways. He wanted her more than he could stand, but he wasn't about to do anything that would get him entangled. He knew all he was good for was a one-night stand.

There's a nameless genre of books based on the old children's nursery rhyme: When she is good, she is very, very good, and when she is bad, she is better. That's Shea. Rhyannon Byrd manages to get into both of her character's heads and walk them into as passionate a bad-boy-meets-good-girl story to hit an ebook. This book is so hot that before you read it, you'd better put a fire extinguisher beside your computer. It's explicit and not for the faint hearted. But if you are a fan of steamy Romantica, this book is for you.

Reviewed By: Maîtresse
© July 2004