Free Deception (Southern Comfort) by Lisa Clark O'Neill Page A

dropping trou – and everything else – in front of large groups of randy men.  True, they’d met when she was the nude model for one of his drawing classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design, but that was an entirely different kind of environment.  A lot of the students had been women, maybe half the male students gay, and there was nary a pasty or horny bachelor in sight.  Not only was the erotic entertainment business degrading for Sam – because he knew for a fact that she’d worked hard to think of herself as more than just a hot body – but it could be a dangerous business as well.  He didn’t care how clean the reputation of the agency which employed her, and he’d checked it inside and out, that still didn’t mean that some drunken idiot with more libido than brains would understand that taking your clothes off didn’t necessarily mean you wanted to have sex.  Once he convinced her to move into his place, Josh hoped to be able to talk her out of continuing that potentially dangerous sideline.       
    Hell, he hoped to convince her of a lot of things, but that was a good place to start.
    A shapely, linen-covered hip planted itself on the edge of his desk. He looked up from his computer and smiled at his favorite person in the whole department.  Detective Kathleen Murphy was both beautiful and tough, professional and friendly, smart as a whip while remaining completely down to earth.
    She also had one hell of a sense of humor. 
    “I hear you laid my brother flat on his ass,” she said mildly, plucking one of Josh’s sketching pencils from the holder on his desk and twirling it between her long fingers. 
    Josh groaned and felt the unexpected heat of a blush.  “Yeah, well, I was out of line, and I apologized.”  Dude had totally deserved it, but that was beside the point.  And it was a good thing that, despite being an asshole, Declan apparently wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, because if he’d decided to press charges Josh would have been taking the slow boat up Shit Creek.
    Kathleen, however, must have noted his unrepentant expression.  “Well that’s a shame.”  She clucked her tongue as her eyes twinkled.  “That you had to apologize, I mean.  Dec’s needed a good ass-kicking for quite some time.  If you’d gone after Rogan, on the other hand, you and I might be having words right now, seeing as how he’s got some kind of emotional black cloud hanging over him because of what happened when little Max was kidnapped. But Declan…” she shook her head, red bob swaying, and tucked the pencil back in the holder.  “I love him, but my brother can be an ass.”
    Josh laughed and laced his fingers over his abdomen, rocking back slightly in his chair.  He knew there was a reason he liked Kathleen – she was an excellent judge of character.
    “So I hear the stripper the boys hired was your ex-girlfriend,” Kathleen continued, her bland expression not fooling him for a minute.  “What are the chances of that?”
    “Friend,” Josh corrected, rubbing his thumbs together in agitation.  There was a strong chance he’d never live this down.  “And yeah, the situation was… unexpected.”
    Kathleen wrinkled her nose, indicating she smelled bullshit.  She had a highly sensitive meter, and the word friend must have tipped the scale.  From behind him, Josh sensed Mac Washington giving him the hairy eyeball, his fingers having stilled over his keyboard.  He was apparently fascinated by the conversation, to the point where he’d forgotten to pretend he wasn’t listening.
    “Clay was about to burst a vein, he was laughing so hard when he told Tate and I what happened,” Kathleen informed him.  “He’s been wanting to pop Declan ever since that little incident with Clay’s friend from the Bureau – Kim O’Connell – a couple of weeks ago.  Kim has the hots for Rogan, apparently, but he’s dodging her for some obscure reason having to deal with his injury