Return of the Bad Girl

by Codi Gary

  “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

  For Gabe, it was a little hard to believe that a perfect stranger was willing to give him a clean slate, especially since so many of his friends from his past had written him off.

  It wasn’t all their fault. He’d been angry, filled with self-loathing, and jealous as hell of their futures, especially Chase’s. Chase had been getting out of town to go to Berkeley on a scholarship. That had been eating Gabe alive for months before he’d caught Chase and Honey together.

  Jealousy was an ugly thing.

  “Can I get the second set? I want to start unloading,” Caroline said, right next to his shoulder now. Gemma handed over the keys, which Little Miss Attitude snatched up in a hurry. Damn, she was a brat. He watched her storm out the door, her jeans hugging her ass like they were made just for her.

  Gabe had to admit, if he was up for a detour on his road to redemption, the sharp-tongued woman would be the perfect pit stop. Today, she looked fresh-faced and sweet, except for that angry gleam in her eyes that said she definitely wasn’t ready to make nice with Gemma.

  Or him, for that matter.

  Even if she had been ready and willing for a little action, he wasn’t looking for anything more than someone to satisfy his needs, and he wasn’t about to become fuck buddies with a woman he’d be sharing a bathroom with. That scenario was just too domestic for his tastes.

  Even if she did have an amazing body.

  He followed her out the door and caught a sweet, flowery scent that told his body that finding a friend-with-benefits might need to happen sooner than later. Living with a woman like her, twenty-four/seven, was not going to end well. He had too much work ahead of him—on his new life, his shop, and repairing his friendship with Chase—to be tempted into trouble.

  Gabe joined her at the top of the stairs as she slipped the key in the lock.

  “God, do you have to breathe down my neck like that?”

  He resisted the urge to bend over and blow in her ear, just to piss her off.

  “Are you ever pleasant, or does the ‘I’m better than you and I know it’ act work for some guys?” he asked, following her into the apartment as she pushed the door open.

  “So far, I haven’t had any complaints,” she said, sarcasm oozing from every word.

  “Probably ’cause they’re pussies that are scared to death you’ll cook and eat them,” he said, ignoring her gasp behind him as he headed for the room on the left.

  “You’re taking the bigger room?” she called out after him, outrage evident in her tone.

  Turning at the door, he said, “You can wrestle me for it if you want, princess.”

  “Ugh, why did I think this would be better than my sister’s?” she groaned, turning her back on him. He admired her backside again before she came back toward him with a determined, angry glint in her eye. “Let’s get a few things straight: this is not going to be anything but a living arrangement. Two strangers, sharing one dwelling, and nothing more. So, stay out of my room and away from me. And stop calling me princess.”

  God, she thinks she’s tough shit. Her challenge sparked something inside him, and he crossed the hallway without thinking. She backed up against the other closed bedroom door at his approach. Warm satisfaction curled through his body as he boxed her in, hovering over her with one arm against the wall. She was so tiny compared to him, but her glare was defiant as she raised that pointed little chin and met his gaze.

  Dipping his head a bit lower, he whispered darkly, “What should I call you then? Angel? Baby?”

  He swore he saw her shiver, even as she snapped back, “My name is Caroline.”

  It would have been so easy to lean over and see if those berry-pink lips tasted as good as they looked, but instead, he pushed off the wall and away from her. “I’m not one of those choir boys you can push around or manipulate. Unless you want to test my patience, I suggest you stop trying to control me, Caroline.”

  Shoving him out of her way, she headed back toward the front door. “I’m going to unpack my car, and then I’m going to the store.”

  Just to annoy her, he called, “Great plan. I think I’ll join you. We should probably take your car, though, since I’ve just got my bike.”

  “Screw you. You can starve.”

  And on that friendly note, Caroline slammed the door behind her, leaving Gabe amused and turned on, despite the warning voice in his head.

  Focus on what you’re doing here, and forget about her.

  As if that were possible, when her scent still lingered throughout the room.

  Chapter Five

  “Everyone has baggage. Whether or not you can leave your baggage at the door of a new relationship is up to you.”

  —Miss Know It All

  CAROLINE HAD GOTTEN in and out of the grocery store without bumping into any “old friends.” Not that she was scared of her past. She’d made plenty of mistakes, but she was an adult now. She could take the fallout with maturity and just hope that the people she wronged would follow suit.

  And if that didn’t work, she’d just turn the other cheek. How bad could it be?

  Shelby’s reaction to their run-in yesterday was a mild version of what she’d been expecting. Still, Shelby had barely begun dating Marcus Boatman when Caroline had drunkenly seduced him at a party. Considering the guys who had come before and after, there were probably a few more former girlfriends who would rather sock her than look at her.

  She didn’t dare stop for gas at the Shell station, afraid of what Mr. Nelson would do if he saw her again. After she’d made off with a six-pack of beer stuffed into her jeans, jacket, and shirt, he’d hung her picture in the window as a reminder that she wasn’t allowed near his store. She had managed to get away only because he had been chasing one of her companions who’d boosted a bottle of whiskey out the other door. Her father had swooped in to smooth things over when Mr. Nelson had called the cops.

  Good old Dad, always there when the family name was on the line.

  Back at the apartment, Caroline was glad to find Gabe gone. Gabe. She snorted. Most likely short for Gabriel, which made her think of the show Supernatural. The archangel on the show had been short and funny.

  Her new roommate was the polar opposite.

  As she put her groceries away, she thought of the way he had stepped up to her, his body so close she’d felt the heat radiating off him like the sun. If it hadn’t been for his expression, she might have been nervous, but he hadn’t been trying to scare her. He had wanted to prove something.

  Caroline knew exactly what she was dealing with. He thought he was charming and was used to having women fawn all over him and probably doing anything and everything he wanted. But she wasn’t one of them, and he was going to learn pretty damn quick that she played the game better than most women.

  At least, that’s what the second stall in the Rock Canyon High School boy’s bathroom had said years ago.

  Looking around the empty apartment, she doubted Gabe the Babe Slayer had brought any decent furniture with him. Guys like him thought lawn chairs and a TV made a living space.

  It was still early, not quite noon, so she decided to make the forty-five-minute trip up to Twin Falls. A few hours later, although it had taken a good chunk out of her savings, she left with a promise of next-day delivery on everything, including her brand-new bed.

  When Caroline pulled into the alleyway, she saw that Gabe’s bike was parked in the spot again.

  You’re going to have to explain to him that the spot is yours, and he can park that stupid tricycle somewhere else.

  She swung back onto Main Street and parked in front of Gemma’s shop. Caroline got out of her car and walked past the front window of Chloe’s Book Nook, catching the friendly wave from Gemma. Caroline waved back. Although she was still perturbed at the pretty bookstore owner, she didn’t want the drama to continue. She had enough of that from outside sources.

  As she headed back down the alley, she s
aw the back of her sister’s dark head sitting on the third step of the staircase leading to her new place.

  That morning, Caroline had knocked on Val’s bathroom door to let her know that she’d decided to take the apartment, not bothering to mention that Gabe would be sharing it. Luckily, she’d caught Val midshampoo, so they hadn’t had a chance to have a long conversation. Her sister had already protested her moving out.

  “Just give me a day or so, and I’ll send Ellie packing back to Dad’s. You don’t have to go.”

  Caroline hadn’t had the heart to tell her it wasn’t just that she needed space from Ellie, Gus, or the dreaded lumpy couch.

  As she stopped at the bottom of the staircase, she saw that Val had her missing cell phone in her hands. “I see you finally got my phone back from that demon you call a dog.”

  “Hello to you too,” Val said, brushing her short bangs off her forehead. Although Caroline wasn’t a fan of short hair, she had to admit the new cut looked good with her sister’s delicate features and big brown eyes—their mother’s eyes. Caroline had been blessed with the same eyes, but with her rounder face, they didn’t stand out as much.

  She held out her hand for the phone and noticed the bite marks in the rubber case. Luckily, the canine’s massive jaws hadn’t cracked the screen. “Sorry, but that dog is evil.”

  “No, he just likes you. A lot,” Val said, grinning. “So, are you going to show me your new place or what?”

  “Sure, but there’s not much in there. I’ve got furniture scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.” Caroline climbed past her sister as she stood up.

  “That’s fine. I thought I’d drop the phone off when I found it, but if you don’t want me to see your place . . .”

  “Oh, will you knock it off?” Caroline said as she put the key in the door. “I was just sharing pertinent information. Stop acting like a brat.”

  “I’m not a brat,” Val snapped behind her, and Caroline’s insides warmed with happiness. It hadn’t taken them long to fall back into their old roles, and it made Caroline glad that Val didn’t really hold a grudge against her for leaving. One less person hating her guts was a plus in Caroline’s life.

  Unlocking the door and stepping inside, she held her arm out. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  Val stepped past her and looked around the empty rooms. “I can’t believe you don’t have any furniture.”

  Caroline shrugged as she shut the door. “It made it easier to drop everything at a moment’s notice and move on.”

  “Hmmm . . . so, who was that guy this morning?”

  Well, that took a lot longer than expected. If Caroline had walked into the kitchen in her skivvies and encountered a strange man, she would have asked then and there instead of running away to put clothes on.

  “My new roommate. Remember how I showed up to get my keys and found out that some wires got crossed? Travis rented it to Gabe, the guy from this morning—”

  “Wait, the douche with the crotch rocket is the same gorgeous man who was leaning against my sink, looking like sex on a fucking stick?”

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “Yes, but—”

  “Is that who’s in your shower?” Val asked.

  Caroline had been so tuned in to her sister’s reaction that she hadn’t even heard the shower running. “Must be.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to officially meet him. What changed, by the way? Yesterday you were ranting and raving, and now you’re sharing a bathroom. So, what’s he really like?”

  Arrogant. Bossy. Hot.

  “He’s just a guy. I haven’t even really talked to him, besides the initial argument about who this place belongs to and what our living situation is going to be like.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t run him out of here with an icy glare.”

  “I tried. Seems I might be losing my touch.”

  “There’s never been a man you couldn’t charm or chase off if you put your right mind to it,” Val said, chuckling.

  Except for Daddy . . .

  That last fight with her father before she’d left, when she’d fought so hard to go to San Diego for a fresh start, had been a total surprise to her. She’d never thought her father would deny her the college of her choice.

  “I’m not paying for you to go to a known party school two states away so you can squander my money and flunk out. Boise State is a perfectly acceptable school.”

  It hadn’t been about the parties or the beach. She’d wanted to get away from her past and never come back. She couldn’t go to Boise State, not when Kyle was there. She couldn’t take the chance that she’d bump into him and have to deal with his knowing sneer. She tried everything, from begging to bartering, before finally delivering an ultimatum.

  “If you don’t let me go, I’ll walk out that door and do it on my own. I will figure it out.”

  She’d been bluffing, of course, hoping he’d change his mind to keep her in his life, but she’d overestimated her father’s fondness for her.

  “This is my house, and you will follow the rules or you will get out. And there are no second chances, Caroline. If you leave, you’ll stay gone.”

  So she’d gone. A scared seventeen-year-old whose bravado had backed her into a corner. She’d called Val to beg her for some money and a bag of clothes, just so she wouldn’t have to face their father again. Val had made her promise to call, but the calls home became fewer and farther between, partly because she had one of those pay-as-you-go phones for a while, and most of the time, she couldn’t pay.

  The other reason was because every time she heard her sister’s voice or listened to her complaints, Caroline wanted to beg her father to take her back. Especially on the nights when she’d gone to bed hungry. But at the time, she’d been too stubborn to give up and admit that he might have been right, that she couldn’t make it on her own.

  Like father, like daughter.

  “I think the water turned off,” Val hissed, drawing Caroline out of the past and into an entirely new and dangerous train of thought.

  Thinking about Gabe in the shower, water trailing down that brown skin, caused her nipples to tighten. Damn, she wished she would stop imagining what the jerk looked like without his clothes on.

  Suddenly, the bathroom door opened and out stepped Gabe, a blue towel wrapped around his hips. Caroline’s heart stopped along with her breathing for half a second and then kicked back into high gear. His chest looked even better out of a T-shirt, and the tattoos intermingling along the muscles of his arms drew her gaze all the way up to those wide shoulders. Some of the designs were hard to make out, just swirls of color and black, but the one on his neck looked tribal. She scanned down over the top of his towel and a tiny, evil part of her wished it would fall open so she could see the rest of him.

  “Sorry. Didn’t realize you were here.”

  His deep voice jerked her eyes back up to meet his amused gaze. Damn it, she didn’t want to be flustered by him or his abs.

  “Hey, I’m Caroline’s sister, Valerie. You might remember me as the screeching, half-naked lunatic from this morning,” Val said, her brown eyes twinkling. “You’re Gabe?”

  Caroline heard the tone of her sister’s inquiry, as if she had told Val so much about him, and she gave Val a dark look.

  Val ignored her and slid her gaze up and down. “You weren’t at all what I was expecting.”

  Gabe grinned as he took the hand Val held out, and Caroline got a closer look at his tattoos. The one that drew her attention first was the barbed wire wrapped around his bicep, a cliché that still looked massively sexy on him.

  Stop thinking about how sexy he is!

  But the barbed wire continued down, wrapping around his whole arm like a rope until it stopped at his wrist, and she saw the red drop on the back of his wrist. As if the tattoo had pierced his skin. Within the loops of the tattoo were smaller colored images, but she didn’t have a chance to study them further before he pulled his arm back.

  “Really? You weren’
t expecting a man in a towel?” Gabe asked Val, glancing at Caroline with his eyebrow raised. “Then what were you expecting?”

  “Definitely not you,” Val said.

  “She is just messing with you,” Caroline snapped when Gabe’s gaze drifted back to Val. “I just said you were my new roommate.” She didn’t like the way his face softened as he checked out her beautiful, petite sister. Like he was wondering what she’d be like in bed.

  Why do you care?

  Because Val has no business flirting when she has a serious boyfriend.

  Right.

  Even the voice in her head was condescending. Awesome.

  “It’s true; she did just say you were her roommate. I was the one who brought up your hotness,” Val said, smirking.

  Could you plead justifiable homicide if you strangled her?

  “Well, thanks,” Gabe said, that small, arrogant smile in place, the one he’d given Caroline the first time they’d met and was getting on her last nerve.

  “She’s got a boyfriend,” Caroline said abruptly, and her cheeks warmed with a blush when the two of them turned to look at her, one amused, one exasperated.

  “Thanks, Caroline, for making a friendly introduction awkward as hell,” Val snapped.

  “First of all, you were flirting,” Caroline said, ignoring Val’s attempt to protest. “I’m just letting him know, in case he had any ideas.”

  “I was just being polite,” he said.

  Polite, my ass.

  “Her boyfriend is also a former marine,” Caroline added, wishing her brain could override her mouth. The arrogant ass probably thought she was jealous or something.

  Which she wasn’t. At all.

  “Both of my sisters are off limits, regardless.”