The Governess Club: Claire (17 page)

An Excerpt from

by Codi Gary

Katie Conners is finished being Rock Canyon’s good girl, and, after one too many mojitos, she starts making a list of things a girl like her would never do. When the sexy local tattoo artist finds Katie’s list and offers to help her check off a few of the naughtier items, Katie may just wind up breaking the most important rule of all:
Good girls 
don’t
 
fall in love with bad boys.

S
he tried to pull away from him, cursing the tingles his warm hand caused. Glaring, she attempted 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.”

She froze as he let her wrist go and 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 wished we would 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, unable to 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 her shoulder, he asked, “Do you want it here?”

She finally registered what he was asking and 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 items 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 surprised look, she said, “Chase, if you want to kiss me, will you just do it already?”