by Gary, Codi
Despite her suspicions as to why he was there, she couldn’t help noticing that he was one of the best-looking guys in town. With his mouth slightly open and his full lips looking soft, she wondered if he was a good kisser. Jimmy had been more of a bird with his kisses and it had made her crazy, until she’d finally grab him by his head to keep him still. Somehow she had a feeling Chase knew how to kiss without any direction.
I bet this is what he would look like during sex.
“Holy shit, that is amazing. Where did you learn to do that?” His voice broke into her disturbing thoughts, rough and raspy. It was the sexiest sound she’d ever heard.
What is wrong with me? Stop thinking about him. He’s just another turd with nice eyes . . . and lips . . . okay, so his chest and arms are pretty great . . .
Pulling at his short strands again, she tried to control her hormones and prayed he wouldn’t open his eyes. The last thing she needed was for the man who had already seen a list of her biggest regrets catching her with flushed cheeks and wondering why washing his hair was getting to her. The guy was not a nice man, and he didn’t deserve her lusty thoughts. “In school, and I also got my massage therapist license. Just let me know if the pressure is too much.”
“It’s perfect,” he said, opening his eyes. She silently prayed her cheeks were no longer rosy, but if they were, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he surprised her by adding, “I actually came in to apologize. I didn’t mean to embarrass you last night. I was trying to be playful, and I crossed the line.”
Jerking her gaze up to meet his, there was no mockery on his face and he sounded sincere. Maybe she had been wrong about him and he wasn’t such a bad guy. She felt a little guilty for all the angry thoughts she’d been having about him.
She rinsed the shampoo and rubbed the conditioner in, starting the scalp massage over again. While she worked, she decided to follow her mother’s advice about graciousness and said, “Thank you for your apology. I appreciate it.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes, and she assumed it was because that was all he had needed to get off his chest. But while she was rinsing the conditioner out, he said, “I’ve been thinking about your list.”
The hand holding the sprayer slipped and she gasped in horror as the full force of water hit him smack in the face. She turned off the water quickly as he flew up spluttering, wiping water from his eyes. Grabbing a towel from the cupboard, she started patting his face dry, blurting, “Oh my God, are you okay? I didn’t mean to do that, you just . . .”
He opened one of his eyes and grimaced. “I was going to say that if you want to come by tonight, I’ll help you out with number two, but if you’re going to drown me, I take it back.”
She tried to remember what number two was. Then it clicked. Two. Get a tattoo.
She brought down another towel from the cupboard and started drying his face and hair, avoiding his gaze. “I was just playing around when I wrote that list. Things I would never do, you know.”
He blinked both of his eyes open and grinned. “Right.”
How dare he not believe her? Biting her tongue and counting to ten, she finished cleaning him up and said calmly, “Okay, why don’t you follow me, and we’ll get your cut started.”
She walked in front of him to her chair, aware of everyone watching them curiously, and motioned for him to sit down.
“So that list you wrote was just for fun? Stuff you would never, ever do?” he said as he slid into her chair.
“Yeah, that’s right. Just me being a lightweight,” she said, pulling out her clippers and comb.
“Huh. That’s too bad.” She couldn’t stop her head from jerking up and locking eyes with him in the mirror. “A couple of those items I’d be happy to help you out with.”
CHASE CHUCKLED AS she flipped on the clippers, her cheeks bright pink. She worked on him in silence and he decided to bide his time until she finished. Teasing Katie was starting to become one of his favorite activities. She’d been angry with him; even when she’d tried to hide it, he could tell, but there was something else there too. A little spark of interest maybe? Something that made him certain good girl Katie wanted to try her hand at being very, very bad.
His eyes followed the swell of her breasts as her chest came close to his face. They were a great size and shape, just big enough to fill his hands, and those lips were soft, pouty, and had a promise of bliss. He wondered if she’d slap him if he just happened to kiss her right now, in front of everyone in the salon.
Chase didn’t have a shy bone in his body and he especially didn’t mind going after what he wanted. The only other woman in town to tempt him for more than a quick release was Ryan Ashton, but he’d lost that battle. Ryan had been a good girl too, a bit on the shy side, but he had been interested in her because they’d had similar interests. By the time he had met her, though, she was already spoken for.
Despite his efforts to stay away, good girls had always been a huge draw for him, ever since he hit puberty. But those types of girls hadn’t wanted anything to do with trailer-trash Chase. If they had looked at him at all, it was because they had a score to settle with Daddy and he fit the bill of “big mistake.” Those girls may have been good, but they didn’t have a nice bone in their bodies, whereas Katie had this way about her. She genuinely seemed to care about the people in her life, even the ones he thought really didn’t deserve anyone’s consideration. It was like she was constantly trying to dig deep inside everyone else and find the good in them, something he would never dream of doing. He barely knew her, but he found her to be an enigma, a puzzle he wanted to solve.
She turned off the clippers and cleaned him up, styling his hair into short spikes. He watched her in the mirror, her champagne-blond hair in a sassy knot on top of her head.
When she finished, she smiled too brightly and said, “All done. You can just pay Kitty up front.”
Chase pulled out his wallet and slipped her a ten, with his card underneath. “The offer still stands. Come by tonight and I’ll help you out,” he said, his voice lowered, “with anything you might want.”
Those full lips tightened and he saw her hand was shaking as she took his money and card. Tossing them into the top drawer of her station and snapping it closed, she said softly, “Thank you. I’ll see you back in a few weeks.”
“Or sooner,” he said confidently.
Her blue-eyed gaze was no longer friendly as he turned away, grinning his way up to perky Kitty. He was going to get to the real Katie Connors sooner or later. He had a feeling she was going to be a lot of fun.
Once she pulled that giant stick out of her ass.
KATIE FINISHED HER last appointment and headed to the grocery store to do some shopping. She drove past The Local Bean and Chloe’s Book Nook, and looked to the left at Chase’s place, Jagged Rock Tattoo Parlor. She was still fuming about him coming into her salon and playing with her, even if he had apologized. Telling her he could help her out with anything on her list. Of all the conceited, high-handed, jerky things to say. He obviously hadn’t been too sorry, since he made that outrageous proposition. And after she had just started to think he wasn’t that bad of a guy.
Who did he think he was, Iron Man? That he could just ooze charm and she would fawn all over him because he was handsome, successful, and single?
Like she would ever really do anything on that list, and for him to suggest it made her feel cheap. Like he had no respect for her, or maybe it was just women in general. Was he one of those guys who thought all women were easy prey, just waiting for some big, handsome guy to move in with a few suggestive ideas and they would just drop their panties and say, “Come on, big boy . . .”?
Without really thinking about what she was doing, she pulled around the corner and parked. She slammed her door and marched into the parlor just as he was coming out of the back with a sterile tray. His pleased, lazy smile only added fuel to the fire.
“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?”
OF ALL THE things she could have said to him, that wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
Despite his initial surprise, Chase, never one to disappoint a lady, dropped his mouth to hers and took her lips in a soft, searching kiss.
Damn.
She tasted like peppermint and heat. Using his arm to bring her against him, his other hand slipped to the back of her neck. He liked that she didn’t just let him kiss her, but she kissed back with enthusiasm. Katie’s hands ran over his neck, reminding him of her scalp massage, and he imagined those hands on other parts of his body. The intimate image and the feel of her pressed so closely to him made his cock harden with need.
Her hands traveled over his back, down his sides, and up under his T-shirt. Her nails skimmed his bare skin, sliding around to his stomach and between their bodies. Anyone walking by could look in and see them.
“Maybe I should lock the door,” he said between kisses, “pull the blinds.”
He knew it was a mistake to break the spell the minute he spoke the words. Her eyes popped open and she stared up at him in horror. She tried to move away from him, but he didn’t want her to leave, not yet. “I just didn’t want someone to walk by and see you. This town is like a festering pool of gossip, and I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me . . .” she said, fiddling with her cute, lopsided bun, which was starting to come down.
“Hey, no complaints here. You don’t have to apologize for anything,” he said, wondering what exactly she was apologizing for. Asking him to kiss her? Kissing him back?
He would have asked, but he figured it might just tick her off, and right now she looked like she was thinking hard about something. Like whether or not she wanted him to do as he’d suggested and get back to making her soft and willing . . .
Her voice was so quiet, he almost didn’t hear her ask, “Does it hurt?”
Kissing? No, wait, not kissing. Oh.
“Getting a tattoo?” She nodded and he laughed. She just kept surprising him. “A little, sometimes a lot, depending where you get it, but then the pain goes away after a bit and it’s just uncomfortable.”
“Hmmm.” She pulled away from him, much to his disappointment, and turned. Katie walked over to the wall of photographs, pictures of women and men showing off his work. He was proud of his art, not just the tattoos, but his graphic novels too. She stopped in front of his framed copy of Destructo Boy, his first graphic novel, and he said, “I did that one years ago, when I was barely eighteen.”
She turned to him with surprised eyes and asked, “You did? Did you do anymore?”
“Yeah, I do artwork for several series, but this one is all me. I do the illustrations and dialogue.”
“That is so amazing. I’ve never met anyone famous before,” she said, adding, “except for Travis Bowers. He’s a country music singer I went to high school with.”
“I don’t know if I’d call myself famous. I just write comics, not like I do cartoons for Pixar or something.” Her inspection was actually making him nervous. He picked up a binder of tattoo samples and held it out to her. “Here. Why don’t you look and see if there’s something you might like while I close the blinds and lock the door?” She gave him a startled look and he teased, “We wouldn’t want everyone in town to know that Katie Connors was doing something so out of character like get a tattoo, would we?”
She blushed and took the binder from him as he walked over to close up the front of the store and turned over the OPEN sign. When he came back toward her, he was dazzled by the smile on her face.
“That’s cute.” She flipped to the next page and made a face, “Ew, who would put that on their body?” She turned the page again, stopped, and ran her finger over a picture with a smile. “This one.”
Coming around to stand behind her, he pressed against her back to see the picture. It was a daisy with a ladybug hovering over it. Very girly, and not his taste, but it wasn’t his body. Leaning over until his mouth barely hovered over her neck, he said, “And where do you want it?”
KATIE HAD NO idea where to put a tattoo. It had been a fantasy, a rebellious fancy when she was eighteen, but now the warm body of the man behind her and his softly asked question was making it all too real.
Trying not to lean back into him, she said, “Somewhere that no one will see
unless I want them to.” There, that sounded safe.
“All right, then. Go ahead and unbutton your pants and slide them down to your hips,” he said, moving away from her.
“Excuse me?” she said, turning around to see him transferring the sterile tray he’d held earlier from the counter to a metal table just behind an armless chair.
“I said, unbutton your pants, slide them to about halfway down your hips, and straddle the chair,” he said, slowly and deliberately.
“Why?” she asked, thinking there was no way she was going to pull her pants down in front of him and show him her butt. Especially under bright, fluorescent lights.
“I was just thinking you’d probably like it on your lower back. That way your jeans will cover it most of the time.” His face was blank, but she could hear the humor in his voice and she felt like an idiot.
Reaching for the button on her jeans, she unsnapped them and eased them down a little, pulling her T-shirt down to cover her skin. He pointed to the chair in front of his stool and said, “Go ahead and straddle the chair while I set up.”
She did as he asked and heard him fiddling behind her. Just the fact that she didn’t know what was coming made her ask, “Are you sure this isn’t going to hurt a lot?”
His hands moved beneath her T-shirt and when they touched her skin, she jumped. “What are you doing?”
Katie was sure she heard a sigh before he said, “It will hurt for a bit until the area becomes numb, then it shouldn’t hurt anymore. And to answer your second question, I am tucking your T-shirt up so I can see where to put the stencil.”
Taking him at his word, she didn’t protest when he stuffed her shirt up under the clasp of her bra, even though she felt awkward sitting in front of him with her butt crack hanging out. She wasn’t even wearing sexy underwear, just a pair of pink cotton briefs. Those big hands trailed across her skin and she felt her whole body tighten at the sensation. Having her back stroked and kissed was one of her favorite forms of foreplay, but Chase wasn’t being sensual, he was just doing his job.
