Free The Rebound Guy by Jennifer Colgan Page A

and hire him for her best friend's bachelorette party. But the stripper who catches Caroline's eye has a different agenda. He's an undercover cop, and Caroline ends up under arrest — for solicitation!
     
    Tony DiMarco realizes too late that he's made a mistake. Caroline's reputation and business are suffering, and he feels responsible. He feels something else, too — the pull of red-hot desire. He wants Caroline, but she's afraid that he's just trying to make up for his mistake. Can this determined vice cop teach her to trust again?
     
    Enjoy the following excerpt for Strip Tease : What the hell?
    Caroline stopped at the entryway into the club, staring around in confusion. When she’d slipped backstage, everything had been calm, almost comatose, especially since the stripper who had followed Tony had been the poster child for anticlimactic.
    Now, the entire room was in chaos. People were shouting, tables knocked over, drinks spilled across the floor. A uniformed police officer stood in the doorway yelling orders through a megaphone that no one was listening to. One of the bachelorette party attendees was bent over the funky-haired waiter, her knee in the small of his back, cuffing his hands behind him. Another was lining up the dancers against the far wall, holding a gun on them.
    A gun! Caroline backed away, trying to escape the madhouse in front of her. There had to be a back exit somewhere around here…
     
    She made it a couple of steps before she ran into a solid object. A warm, well-muscled, breathing object. “Where are you going?” Tony gripped her upper arms.
    Any other time, she would have focused on how good it felt to have his hands on her. Right now, though, she only wanted to escape. “We have to get out of here. The whole place has gone crazy.” She turned just enough to see his profile. “I think some people are getting arrested.”
    She couldn’t get caught up in this. It was tough enough being a massage therapist, what with all the assumptions about the profession.
    If news got out that she’d visited a strip club—especially one where illegal activities were evidently happening—it could destroy her career and her reputation.
    “This is a bust,” Tony said in her ear, his hands sliding down her arms.
    “I know,” she hissed back. “I can’t be found here. Is there a back door or something?”
    “Yes,” he said, his fingers circling her wrists. “But you won’t be using it.”
    Too late, she realized he was snapping something around her wrists.
    “What are you doing?” She struggled, but the restraints were metal and unyielding.
    “You have the right to remain silent,” he answered. Grasping her by the elbow, he pulled her into the main room. “Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
    “You’re arresting me?” Caroline knew she was shrieking, but it wasn’t as if anyone could hear her besides the stripper-slash-cop dragging her into the fray. “What for?”
    “Solicitation.” He turned her around so she was lined up with the rest of the criminals. Criminals!
    “Solic—” She gaped at him. “You thought I was trying to pay you for sex ?”
    Silence descended on the room, heads swiveling her direction.
     
    “You have the right to an attorney,” Tony continued, unaffected by her outburst.
    “I was trying to hire a stripper for a friend’s bachelorette party, you moron,” she yelled, too angry to care that they were the center of attention.
    “Let’s get everyone down to headquarters and sort this out,” a female cop said, placing her hand on Tony’s shoulder. Her lips twitched, as if she were trying to hold back a grin. “Nice show, by the way. I don’t blame her for wanting to see you strip again, whatever the circumstances.”
    “Stuff it, Phillips,” he replied, his gaze focused on Caroline.
    “You probably do.” Caroline looked at his groin contemptuously. “And after I sue you for false arrest, you’d better