You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Brianna, who thinks this may have been a story in a collection:
This is driving me nuts because I just did a thorough, post-relationship purge and I think I got rid of this book (which I now can’t remember the name of), but really want to read because I just had a bad case of the flu and, well, you’ll see.
Okay, here’s what I’m iffy on:
I think it’s a short story in an anthology, and I think it’s winter or Christmas-themed?
Here’s what I’m sure I remember:
It’s mostly told from the hero’s point of view. He’s a cop or sheriff or some other “official stick-in-the-mud” job. He’s neighbors/friends with the heroine, who has a pixie cut and frequently dyes her hair all sorts of colors. He hears moaning from her apartment and goes to check on her, and she’s got a very bad case of the flu. He decides to take care of her and they somehow end up handcuffed together. She has a fever/sex-dream about him and moans his name and he figures out that maaaaybe she like-likes him and that public servants and people with cool hair can find love.
I remember nothing else, which is why I think it has to be a short story, but I remember it being a very cute “sick fic” and I hate not remembering things!
“Sick fic” is a term I’m hearing for the first time and I kind of love it.
I actually know one but I can’t remember the title! If I’m remembering the right one, it was a harlequin free read on their website and tied into a duet by Jill Shalvis and Leslie Kelly. The series was called Bare Essentials. But I’m not having any luck finding anything about the short story. 🙁
Hmm, I have a vague recollection of a similar plot, but it was a BDSM kind of romance. In a small town with mostly BDSM residents…
I actually know this one! I’m having such a spaz attack right now I’m so giddy. She Drives me Crazy: Naughty All Night by Leslie Kelly.
Are you sure, Jill? The book description doesn’t sound like it.
I’m 100% sure, but I’m also sure that it’s out of print. The heroine gets the handcuffs at a party and her salon is called Nail Me. I searched all morning while getting ready for work and what I’ve noticed is that Leslie Kelly sees to have a second title of she drives me crazy about the woman dating the adult film star in her Georgia hometown. I own a copy of the book but it’s locked and I don’t have the account info to read it again.
Jill, you and Louise H. are my heroines! This has been driving me fully nuts.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Naughty-All-Night-Leslie-Kelly/9781552546109
It says currently unavailable and I’ve seen this everywhere I looked, so I think that it’s no longer for sale… 🙁
Also, it’s a free read on Mills & Boon! My karma must be good right now:
https://www.millsandboon.co.uk/FreeReads/showchapter/?chapterid=489
Brianna, the love is mutual because you are a goddamn champ! I think about this book sometimes because it was one of my first romance novels, but like I said before, I don’t know where my account information is to access my copy. I’m bookmarking that link. Thank you!
I would like to commend you all for tracking this down. But I probably wouldn’t have even clicked through to the site if it wasn’t for this line:
… he figures out that maaaaybe she like-likes him and that public servants and people with cool hair can find love.
For some reason, that makes me giggle here at my desk at work, and I’m planning to devour this now 😀
I read the first four chapters of the one on the Mills and Boon site and habe to question if it is the story in question because in the one on the site he is the one with the flu, not she.
Also, I find it boring with way too much exposition and not enough action.
Yay! I’m glad someone knew the real title. I have the other two books but not this one. I’ll have to go read the free version!
This sounds AWESOME!!! Reading now. Thanks, all!
Skimming the first bit on the free reads page and have questions about “pouty nipples”: do most people have pouty nipples? In what way are nipples pouty? Does that mean droopy? Or puckered? Like lips? I’m just picturing her tits somehow making a sad face, which isn’t very sexy IMO…
@Christine, I always object to the phrase “pouty nipples.” Also “pert nipples.” Pouty and pert are facial expressions and last time I looked, my nipples did not have faces.
@Christine & @Gloriamarie, SB Sarah did a blog post a while back on annoying nipple descriptions – good reading! (And thank goodness for in-site search where I can safely enter “nipples” as a search term….)
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2012/03/a-description-of-nipples/