Negligee Behavior

By Shelli Stevens

Bar owner Marco Vargas isn’t exactly the chivalrous type, but when a runaway bride hijacks his motorcycle on the Vegas strip, he can’t seem to tell her to leave.

Despite her being nowhere near his type, he’s surprised that he’s attracted to her. When it becomes clear she needs some time to lie low, he reluctantly offers her a job.

Lingerie Heiress Brandy Summers isn’t just hiding from her increasingly aggressive groom, but also the media who is trying to find her. Fortunately, no one at Dante’s—the bar she’s taken a job at—seems to realize who she is. Still, when a co-worker offers to make her over, she figures it’s the smart thing to do.

Soon the simmering attraction she shares with Marco is at a full boil, and she quickly discovers how fun being a little bad can be.

When Marco learns just who she really is, everything changes. And he fears the day she might learn about the dark secret he’s been hiding.

What neither of them could anticipate were the dangerous steps her jilted groom—who owes money to some terrifying people—would take to get her back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shelli Stevens
• Release date: Jun 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987942918

Shelli Stevens

Shelli is a New York Times Bestselling Author who read her first romance novel when she snatched it off her mother’s bookshelf at the age of eleven. One taste and she was forever hooked. It wasn’t until many years later that she decided to pursue writing stories of her own. By then she acknowledged the voices in her head didn’t make her crazy, they made her a writer.Shelli currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her daughter where she writes various genres of romance. She’s a compulsive volunteer, and has been known to spontaneously burst into song.

Reviews for Negligee Behavior

[avamp1r3-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fairly typical romance, 'fall in love' in one day's time, but… I really liked the style, there was some good wit, and actually, it was a fairly believable story! I liked her writing style

[scorchingrevs · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Brandy is getting married. Stood at the Hunk-A-Hunk-A Burning love chapel, she realises that she doesn’t actually like her fiancé. Turns out she has good judgement, as the scuzzball only wants her for her cash because Brandy is a heiress to a fortune. Trying to escape from the chapel in a very cheap wedding dress isn’t going to be easy, so she escapes the area in the only way that she can; via the back of a motorbike. Marco can’t quite believe his eyes when a damsel in distress, dressed in the most hideous wedding dress, hops onto his bike and orders him to drive. For some reason he can’t say no, and so ends up taking care of the fuddy looking stray. When it becomes apparent that Brandy can’t go home, and so has no place to stay, Marco ends up offering her a room at his house and a job at his bar. With her ridiculous attire, and recent single status, he finds it push aside their burgeoning attraction because of her “vulnerability”. Unfortunately, after Brandy gets a bit of a makeover, Marco starts to struggle to keep his hands off her, and struggle to keep his temper in check when others seem to have the same issue. Tempers fray and the sexual chemistry ignites, but is it enough? With both of them hiding secrets, is it a realistic expectation for this to be anything more than sex? Moreover, when the secrets come out, will either of them feel the same way?

I liked this book. It was funny, well paced and very sexy (seriously hot sex ladies). Marco was rather dreamy too. He can’t quite believe that he is attracted to the little mousy teacher who wears cat jumpers, but he is. He believes he is doing the right thing by not acting upon their clear attraction, but, in reality, he is just a little befuddled that he finds her hot. When everyone else starts noticing that she isn’t exactly butt ugly, he goes a little caveman and starts shouting at everyone. As much as I like Marco, I did get a little annoyed by the character of Brandy. She was the biggest stereotype I’ve read in a book, and I ended up a little peeved by her. She starts as this fuddy little mouse, cat jumpers, awful hair and a complete naivety when it comes to life in the real world. Then she makes a split second decision to get rid of the fiancée (which I would too...the man was a creep) and she becomes a different person. She starts masturbating in stranger’s showers and, post makeover, ditching the cat jumper for miniskirts and fishnets. I had a massive problem with the makeover, because it seemed that the only reason that she did it was to get Marco’s approval. Now I’m all for a makeover, God knows my hair has been every shade L’Oreal sells, but to completely transform so you get some nookie? No chance, no man is worth it. It offended me slightly, but I let it go for the sake of the rest of the plot. After I did, I really did enjoy the plot. It was sweet, funny and a little cliché. The path of true love, of course, does not run smooth. We have secrets exposed (and rather daft ones at that!), scorned ex-fiancées turned stalkers and a whole host of internal conflict. It’s a fun, easy read that will make you chuckle without taxing any of your brain cells.

[fanip_12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4.5 starsThis book has proven to be a great surprise. I admit that I didn't expect such a hilarious book when I picked it up, since I'm mostly drawn to more angsty and dark ones. However, despite this not being my usual cup of tea, I was thoroughly charmed by it. It was fun, it was sexy, it was sweet, it was fast-paced, it was engrossing. I just couldn't put it down once it started!Brandy is having second thoughts about marrying her boyfriend and runs away leaving him standing at the altar. Just outside the Vegas' chapel she meets a man in a Harley and before she can think twice, she jumps on his motorcycle and away they go! Marco Vargas is the exact opposite from the plain, prim and so very proper Lingerie Heiress Brandy Summers: he's a sexy bartender with a couple of tattoos, long hair and dark olive skin that covers a body hot as hell. Soon Brandy finds herself attracted to him -and who wouldn't?- but the real surprise is that the attraction is not one sided. Marco finds himself lusting after the not exactly skinny, frizzy haired and badly dressed woman he's saved, once he discovers the sexy lingerie she hides beneath her styless clothes. And when he agrees to take her to his house for a few days until she decides what to do with her former fiance, it becomes only a matter of time when those two will have sex together. I really, really liked this book; the first half was so hilarious I was laughing all the time while my kids stared at me confused. In the second half, the funny quotes were reduced but the chemistry between those two, had me fanning myself:) Well, Brandy and Marco make one hot couple, I'll tell you that! But they were also persons I could care for and like. Brandy starts as a shy, prim woman who's spent her entire life comparing herself to the skinny models that advertize her family's lingerie business and finds herself lacking. When it becomes obvious that such a sexy man like Marco wants her without even knowing who she is, it does wonders to her self-esteem and with a little help from a friendly barmaid, she gets a new look guaranteed to attract not only Marco but every man who happens to set eyes on her, much to Marco's dismay. Marco on the other hand, is a strong, sexy man who knows finally what he wants from life but Brandy is so clearly out of his world. Surely she won't stay with him for more than a couple of weeks, so he decides to hide his feelings for her as well as his past.It was this fact, Marco's hiding facts that were sure to come and bite him in the ass, that had me rating this book with less than 5 stars. And let's face it, it wasn't as if he was a drug dealer! It just felt kind of weird to me that he felt so embarassed of what he once was. This of course, lead to some misunderstandings in the end, that could so easily be avoided it actually made me angry, but that was only for 10-20 pages and then Marco was such a hottie I eventually forgave him everything.All in all, a lovely, fun, entertaining, sexy and witty contemporary romance that I highly recommend to all romance fans out there. *I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley*