He's a bad man and she knows it. But sometimes the bad ones are the hardest to resist.

Penny Miller is lonely and bored. By day she works at a library; by night she mixes cocktails in a seedy neighbourhood bar. At twenty-two she's given up her dreams of college and lives with her grandmother on the miserable outskirts of the city, longing for the kind of romance she reads about in books--love with a capital L.

Then Marcus Drake moves into the apartment upstairs. He's nothing like the charming man of Penny's dreams: he's rude, covered in tattoos, and out on parole. He's also sexy, and very, very dangerous.

There's instant hostility between them, but when Penny has to turn to Marcus for help they come to an arrangement--and soon she's struggling to keep it professional. Because with her traumatic memories and his dark past, her innocence and his passion, getting involved with Marcus might be what breaks her heart for good.