Good Girls Don't Date Rock Stars(85)

“Hey,” she said, “I don’t appreciate you coming into my salon and baiting me with things you really know nothing about.”

Setting his tray down slowly, he said, “Actually, I know quite a bit about tattoos, and let’s see . . .” He pulled something from his pocket and unfolded it slowly. Recognizing the bar napkin, Katie lunged forward and tried to grab at it, but he held it out of reach, reading, “Sex shops, stealing—although I don’t recommend that—drinking, skinny-dipping, flirting, and oh yeah . . . one-night stands.” He brought his arm down and she snatched the list from him. Before she could move away, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, running his thumb over her skin slowly.

Attempting to pull away from him, she cursed the tingles his warm hand caused. Glaring, she tried to sound firm. “Let go of me. I’m tired of your games. I don’t know why you think it’s funny to play with someone’s emotions, but I’ve never done anything to you and I find it humiliating that you would make fun of me over something I did when I was having a bad day. It makes you a bully, and I want you to leave me alone.”

Chase didn’t release her, just reached out with his other hand and started to pull her toward him. Her heart pounded as all that mouthwatering muscle drew closer to her and he slipped his arm around her waist. She might think Chase was lower than pond scum, but her hormones sure didn’t agree.

Katie stopped struggling and tilted her face up just as he said, “I can’t do that.”

Letting her wrist go, she froze as he trailed his hand up her arm slowly, making every single cell in her body scream to get closer, but a lifetime of good breeding and manners kept reciting, Good girls don’t . . . good girls don’t . . .

Still, the part of her that hadn’t been held by a man in a long time wanted him to kiss her until her brain shut up.

He didn’t kiss her like she wanted him to, though.

Chase ran one hand through her hair and cupped her cheek with the other. “Sweet Katie, the last thing on this earth I’d want to do is upset you, but I have to say, it is really hot to see you all riled up.” He slipped his thumb over her bottom lip and continued, “Your mouth purses when someone irritates you and you’re trying not to say anything. I’ve noticed you do that a lot. But your eyes heat up when you’re ticked off, and that’s hard to miss. Like now.”

Katie was holding her breath as she swayed toward him, and he whispered, “Do you know what you want?”

Did she? “Yes.” She drifted a little closer, like she couldn’t resist him. It was his eyes. No, the way he smiled. Maybe . . .

“Do you know where you want it?”

His words were penetrating the fog of desire and she blinked at him. “What?”

Sliding his hand from her lip to over her shoulder, he asked, “Do you want it here?”

It finally registered what he was asking and she said, “I don’t want a tattoo.”

“Are you sure?” he said teasingly. “’Cause I have a binder full of things you might like. Of course, there are some things we could check off the list that don’t involve binders, needles, or tattoos. Let me think . . .”

She needed to move away from him so she could think. She took a breath, but that was a mistake. He smelled amazing, and she was so tired of being good all the time. She was thirty years old and the man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with had picked someone else. Maybe if she had been more daring and less rigid, Jimmy wouldn’t have dumped her. She would never know now. She couldn’t change the past, but she could let go now, just this once.

Slipping her arms up around his neck and ignoring his wide-eyed expression, she said, “Chase, if you want to kiss me, will you just do it already?”





An Excerpt from


BAD GIRLS DON’T MARRY MARINES




Valerie Willis has always been known as a bad girl around town. Now back in Rock Canyon after a messy divorce, Val just wants to bury her head and wait for the scandal to pass. But when she suddenly finds herself at a single’s weekend face-to-face with the one guy who got away, hiding from her heart—and a sexy former Marine—won’t be that simple.



VALERIE WILLIS WAS reaching up for a bottle of Merlot, located on the highest shelf of Hall’s Market, and cursing the shelf’s discrimination against short people. At just barely over five feet, she had a step stool at home for when she needed something high, but out in public, it was like the world conspired against her.

She’d walked to the end of the aisle, trying to get someone’s attention, but the only person who’d acknowledged her had been one of the checkers, and all she’d gotten from her was a look of disapproval.

It was no secret that the people of Rock Canyon thought the Willis sisters were trashy, despite the fact that their father was the mayor and they came from a very wealthy family with connections in high places. None of that had saved her older sister, Caroline, from being called a man-stealer when she’d barely hit eighteen, or her younger sister, Annie, from picking up a wild reputation. Val had thought she’d escaped the small-town life with barely a dent, but all it took was a very high profile, public divorce, and she became the worst of “those Willis girls.”

She half-wondered if people were standing around the corner with video cameras, watching her struggle for kicks, but decided that no one would be that petty.