Page 46 of Return of the Bad Girl (Rock Canyon, Idaho 4)

“And that makes it okay, how?”

She fled the living room before he could respond, her bedroom door slamming behind her.

Okay, so he might have deserved the slap for kissing her, knowing she probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but she had been daring him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stepped into him like that, teasing him with that soft voice and those lips he couldn’t stop thinking about.

Man, did she have a hard hand. Walking over to the mirror on the dining room wall, Gabe studied the bright-red imprint of her hand and rubbed at it. Most women didn’t knock a guy’s jaw off for stealing a kiss, especially when they had seemed into it.

This was fucking nuts. He’d lived with this woman less than a week, and all they did was fight. Granted, he’d wanted to keep her at bay, but he never wanted to make her feel threatened.

You were the one who told her you were a bad guy. How can she trust you if you’re telling her one thing and doing another?

The fact was, if they were going to survive their temporary situation, Gabe owed Caroline more than one apology. Whatever her issues, he had made the wrong move, and he needed to make it right.

The story of his life.

Chapter Thirteen

“The only stalking that should be done in Idaho is during hunting season.”

—Miss Know It All

CAROLINE STIRRED HER Jack and Coke and tried to shake off her shitty day. At least one good thing had come from it; she had made a friend.

Callie sat quietly next to her, smiling and nodding at whatever Mike Stevens was saying. Callie and she had talked for hours earlier, and when she’d asked Caroline to come out with them, Caroline had been hesitant. But after Gabe had kissed her, she’d been emotional and crazed and needed to get the hell out of there. When Callie had texted her, saying they were going to dinner too, she had said yes. She’d been worried about sneaking out without bumping into Gabe, but thankfully, he was gone when she’d come out of her room.

She wanted to put Gabe and his unwelcome kiss from her mind.

Which was hard to do when his stupid face kept popping into her head, bringing a tingling sensation to her lips, which reminded her of how he had crossed a line and how, for a split second, she’d wanted to let him. To let him take control and make her feel something, anything besides anger, pain, and being generally unwanted.

But then she remembered they could barely stand each other and that she was no longer sixteen, trying to fill a void inside her. She’d had every intention of picking and choosing her partners carefully, weighing the benefits, taking in the risks . . .

And Gabe was just too big a gamble.

Forget the fact that she knew very little about him, except that he was a wash of contradictions. Their first meeting, he’d been arrogant and a major dick, but when he’d offered to share the apartment, he’d been almost charming. He hated accepting praise when he was kind and lashed out at her when she started to see the good in him. She just couldn’t get a handle on who he was, and it scared her.

But when he’d kissed her, it had felt like she was floating for half a second and then, boom, her skin was burning like molten lava, hot and fast. Every stroke of his tongue had left her weak, tingly, and craving more of him. She had been ready to surrender completely until the voice in her head had started ranting.

You aren’t in control. He is.

The slap had been a reaction after the fact, but Gabe hadn’t been wrong. She had kissed him back, had moaned and enjoyed him. She’d given him every indication that she liked what he was doing.

What was wrong with her? She might be attracted to Gabe, but he wasn’t the guy. He wasn’t what she needed. He was like every other loser she had hooked up with over the years: selfish, only in it for a good time. That was her past. She was almost thirty-one years old, and she needed to break the cycle. No more Mr. Right Now. She needed a mature, stable guy. Someone who would show the town of Rock Canyon that she had finally grown up.

“So, Caroline, Callie said you flip bars for a living?”

The question came from Travis Bowers, Gemma’s country rock-star husband, who was sitting across from her at the round table, nursing a beer. Travis was definitely the type of man her mother would have called a “tall glass of water,” with his curly brown hair and five o’clock shadow making him look like a rugged roughneck, looking for trouble.

“I did, but I’ve switched my focus to consulting. I want to set down roots somewhere instead of picking up and moving every couple of months to a new town, new city.”

“I understand completely,” Travis said, picking

up Gemma’s hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

Caroline almost rolled her eyes but caught herself. It wasn’t their fault that she wasn’t the type of woman to attract the hand-holding, eyes-for-her-only type of man. She never had been.

She attracted weaklings who liked a woman to tell them what to do and usually had no imagination in the bedroom; the charmers who wanted to see if they could land her and then tell all their buddies about their exploits; and the assholes who liked strong women only as long as they could break them.

Every one of them was definitely on her new DO NOT DO list.

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