Page 52 of Things Good Girls Don't Do (Rock Canyon, Idaho 1)

KATIE REALLY DIDN’T want to ride two hours on the back of Chase’s motorcycle, but she sucked it up and got on. The road to Hailey from Rock Canyon was an easy drive on a two-lane highway with lots of open space around them. Chase had brought a helmet for her, though even the extra protection didn’t calm her fears. She held on tight to his waist and tucked her head against his body.

After an hour she was squealing and yelling, “This is awesome!”

Of course she stopped yelling once she got a bug in her mouth, but she still loved the feel of the wind and the warm sunshine.

And the hot, solid man in her arms.

Chase parked along the main stretch once they reached Hailey and she got little tingles when he squeezed the hands she’d wrapped around him. “You okay?”

The helmet got in the way of leaning forward to kiss him, so she just said, “Yeah, except for the one bug who found its way into my mouth. Now I have bug breath.”

He laughed and turned his head to catch her lips in a kiss. When he pulled back, he teased, “You taste fine to me. Not buggy at all.”

Laughing, she reached up to unclasp the helmet and swung off the chopper. Catching his grin, she asked, “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

He slipped his arm around her waist to pull her against him, “Nothing, you just look good in my helmet. Very sexy.”

I’m trying so hard to keep things casual, and then you go and say something like that.

Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she said, “I’ve always fantasized about a tall, handsome bad boy taking me for a ride on his bike.”

He shook his head. “I’ve told you before, Firecracker, it’s not a bike.”

“Chopper, then. Are you going to kiss me or not?”

He kissed her and she leaned into him, not caring if anyone was watching.

I don’t want this to end.

Katie knew it would, though; he wasn’t the type of guy to stick around. He’d told her himself he didn’t like to stay in one place too long. He’d lived in six towns in the last twelve years, and when it got to the point that he was ready to go, he did.

Although he did say the house in Rock Canyon was the first one he’d ever owned. That meant something, right? Even on a subconscious level?

“I think your kisses are like crack,” she murmured.

Chuckling, he said, “If I’m crack, then you’re sugar. Probably why I can’t taste the bug. You’re so sweet.”

Katie melted at his words and pulled away reluctantly. “So, what do you want to do?”

Swinging off the motorcycle, Chase stretched out his arms and back, making his muscles twist and ripple. He was so wonderfully made; it was like a bunch of women picked all the best parts of a man and put them together to build him. Even the small studs in his ears added to his sex appeal.

“What do you say we just walk around? I haven’t really been up here except for snowboarding back in February.”

Of course he snowboarded. “Yeah, I don’t do that. Snowboard, I mean. The only thing I do in the snow is sledding down very small hills.”

Her stomach rolled excitedly when he draped his arm around her shoulders and said, “Well, maybe we’ll have to change that.”

She glanced up at him, and he looked a little surprised, like he couldn’t believe he’d said that. He might be regretting the slip, but it gave her hope. If he was imagining them doing things together in six months, maybe he wasn’t thinking this was just a casual thing anymore either.

Chapter Ten

* * *

CHASE PULLED UP to Katie’s house at half past ten and she was yawning as she swung off his chopper. He’d had a great time with her, making her try sushi, and laughing when she’d made a twisted, disgusted face. They’d checked out the town, and she’d told him about the different stars who lived in the area, even taking him to what she said used to be Bruce Willis’s house.

Afterward she’d shown him this beautiful place, where a creek ran just under the majestic Sawtooth Mountains year-round. They’d sat under a pine tree, him leaning back against it and her leaning back against him. She’d told him more about her mother, about watching her friends dye their hair or get second holes in their ears, and her mother telling her that employers didn’t want to hire people who didn’t look professional. She’d never wanted to do anything major, but her mother had not been a big fan of anything that altered the appearance unnaturally.

“That’s what started my list at Buck’s,” she’d said. “I was just sitting there thinking how I’d done almost everything she had wanted and I was alone, while other women who had done everything else had husbands and families. It wasn’t fair.”

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