The Trouble with Sexy (10 page)

“Five hundred dollars!”

Ryan turned around and found Gregg pushing his way toward the stage. She stood frozen as Buck banged the gavel when no one challenged his bid, and Gregg took the steps to the stage two at a time. When he reached her, he pulled her close and whispered, “When did you tell me you loved me?”

She couldn't look away from his intense expression. “The other night before I . . .” She blushed.

He scowled. “It doesn't count if I'm sleeping.”

She smiled softly. “Why not? I still said it.”

He put his mouth close to hers and urged, “Can you tell me again?”

Her smile spread impishly and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “If you say please.”

His scowl melted into a resigned smile. “Please.”

She pressed closer and whispered, “And say really loud how sorry you are for being such a jerk.”

“I'm sorry I was such a jerk!” He shouted it loudly and impatiently.

The whole room laughed and cheered. Ryan laughed along with them, and Gregg nudged her. “Are you going to tell me?”

She ran her hand over his cheek, looked into his eyes and said, “I love you, Gregg.”

He picked her up against him and spun her around, making her dizzy. When he set her back on her feet, he cupped her face and kissed her like she was air and he was drowning. The kiss ended when Buck tapped Gregg on the shoulder.

“I love a romantic gesture as much as the next guy, but maybe you folks could move it off the stage?”

Ryan buried her face in Gregg's chest in embarrassment. He grinned at Buck apologetically, swept her up into his arms and carried her off the stage. She lifted her face up and cleared her throat. “You can put me down now.”

He stopped at the back door and looked down at her with a grin. “Maybe I want to keep holding you.”

He turned to bump the door open with his hip and she protested. “Wait! Where are we going?”

He looked down at her like she was crazy. “I'm taking you back to my place so I can see that pretty little white corset you taunted the masses with.”

She struggled out of his arms until he set her back on her feet. “Don't you have something you might like to say to me?”

He cocked his head thoughtfully. Her happy face popped into a scowl and she turned away from him, only to be caught back against his hard chest. He leaned his face into her hair and whispered, “Can you contain that crazy temper of yours for a minute? We've already caused enough gossip to last our lifetime. I'd like to have some special moments between just you and me.”

But there were some moments that couldn't wait, and to hell with the gossip. She whispered back, “Tough. I want to hear it now.”

He leaned down to take her lips again. “I love you.”

She sighed. “Say it again.”

He laughed softly and complied. “I love you.”

She sank into him. “I love you too.”

“How did I get so lucky?”

She smiled against his mouth and whispered, “Beats the hell out of me.”

He pulled back and watched her smile teasingly up at him. His mouth twitched. “You'll pay for that.”

She laughed. “We should go get some food and head over to the dance. Gracie and Gemma are expecting me.”

“Really? Because I was thinking instead of spending the night with a bunch of sweaty dancers listening to bad love songs, we could go back to my place, where I could do a private photo session of you.” His eyebrows wiggled up and down rapidly.

She pulled away, shaking her head with a smile. “No way! You are not taking naughty photos of me.”

He chuckled wickedly. “All right, no naughty photos. But if we skip the dance, I promise I'll make it worth it for you.”

She really had no interest in attending the dance, but there was no sense in letting him know that. “Prove it.”

And he did. Thoroughly.

Valentine's Day

R
YAN WALKED THROUGH
the door of her house with a smile. She was slowly wearing Gracie down about what happened with Eric after he carried her out of the auction. Gracie still protested that nothing happened except a good ear blistering from her to him, but Ryan and Gemma had their doubts. However, it was a lot more fun making Gracie uncomfortable for a change.

Ryan stopped just inside the door. Little red arrows were taped on the floor about a foot apart, leading into the kitchen. A smile tugged at her mouth as she followed them to the fridge. Red cut-out letters on the freezer door commanded,
OPEN ME.
She pulled the handle, and inside sat a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked. She laughed out loud, seeing the scrap of paper next to the ice cream, pulled it open and read:

   
Hello Sweetheart,

   
Go to the DVD player and press Play.

She kept the note in her hand as she walked to the living room and saw the TV was on DVD mode. She bent down to press Play and already had a feeling about what he'd put inside.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams stood drenched on the wooden dock, yelling at each other. It was her favorite scene. Suddenly the screen went black and words were streaming across the blackness.

Come to the bedroom for one last surprise.

Ryan could barely contain her excitement as her shoes tapped across the wood floor. She pushed open the door to her bedroom and gasped, dropping the note.

The whole room was filled with flowers, in vases and pots, and petals were scattered across the floor and bed. Ryan's eyes caught a last note amidst the red and pink petals and walked forward to pick it up.

Turn around.

She turned to see Gregg coming through the door in a button-down white shirt and the Valentine's tie she'd left on his desk this morning. It was light pink with a big red heart in the middle that lit up like a strobe light. She had found it at Spencer's gifts and thought it was hilarious.

Gregg came forward, but instead of embracing her like she thought he would, he kneeled in front of her. She held her breath as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black box. He popped it open with a snap and a lovely three-stone diamond ring glittered up at her.

She looked into his nervous face with wide eyes as he said, “Ryan. I love you. I love you for your snarky comments and your playful teasing. I love you for the way you bite your lip when you're nervous and the way your eyes flash when you're angry. I love your beauty and your strength, and I want to give you all of me for the rest of our lives. I promise in turn to be the best husband I can be for you, if you let me. I want you to give me every part of you to love, all your insecurities and your doubts, and I will spend the rest of our lives kissing them away until all you see is the wonderful woman that I love. Please make me the happiest man alive.”

Ryan's eyes filled with tears. “You are asking me to marry you, right?”

He gave her a funny smile, “Was that not obvious?”

She reached out her and took the tiny box from him, holding it in her palm. She stared down at the beautiful ring and pulled it out, then held it out to the equally beautiful man on his knees before her. “Will you put it on me?”

He took the ring and slipped it onto her ring finger slowly. It fit perfectly, and her tears spilled over with abandon. She smiled through them and chided, “You still have to ask the question.”

He shook his head, his smile never faltering. “Ryan Marie Ashton, will you please put me out of my misery and marry me?”

“You know, you could be a little—”

He stood up and pulled her tightly against him, cutting off her teasing. He kissed every piece of exposed flesh he could find, finally settling his mouth over hers. She kissed him back for all she was worth, and they were both breathing heavily when he pulled back enough to ask, “Can't you just say yes?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice hushed. “Yes I want to marry you. I love you.”

He kissed her again. “I love you. Do you like the ring?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I adore it.”

He smiled widely and squeezed her affectionately. “So did I ruin your hatred of Valentine's Day?”

She laughed huskily. “Not fully. It took me almost twenty years for my hatred to fester. I figure it's going to take at least twenty more years to counter act all that loathing.”

“Twenty years of Valentine's Days? I suppose I could do that.”

 

Can't get enough of Codi's Rock Canyon romances?

Keep reading for an excerpt from

Return of the Bad Girl

Now available from Avon Impulse

Plus, read on for a sneak peek from

Bad For Me

Coming spring 2015

An Excerpt from

When Caroline Willis learns that her perfect apartment has been double-booked—to a dangerously hot bad boy—her bad-girl reputation comes out in full force. But as close quarters begin to ignite the sizzling chemistry between them, she's left wondering: Bad boy plus bad girl equals nothing but trouble . . . right?

“I
FEEL LIKE
you keep looking for something more to me, but what you know about me is it. There's no deep down, no mistaking my true character. I am bad news.”

Gabe waited, listening for the tap of her retreating feet or the slam of the door, but only silence met his ears and then the soft sound of shoes on the cement floor—only they got closer to him instead of farther away.

Fingers trailed feather-light touches over his lower back. “This scar on your back? Is that from the accident?”

Her caress made his skin tingle as he shook his head. “I was knocked down by one of my mother's boyfriends and landed on a glass table.”

“What about here?” Caroline's hand had moved to his right shoulder.

“It was a tattoo I had removed. In prison, you're safer if you belong, so—”

“I understand,” she said, cutting him off.

Had she heard the pain in his voice, or did she really understand? He turned around before she could point out any more scars. “What are you doing?”

She looked him in the eye and touched the side of his neck, where his tattoo began and spread all the way down, past his shoulder and over his chest. “You say you're damaged. That you're bad news and won't ever change.”

“Yeah?”

To his surprise, she dropped her hand to his and brought it up to her collarbone, where his finger felt a rough, puckered line.

“This is a knife wound—just a scratch, really—that I got from a man who used to come see me dance at the strip club. He was constantly asking me out, and I always let him down easy. But one night, after I'd had a shitty day, I told him I would never go out with an old, ugly fuck like him. He was waiting by my car when I got off work.”

His rage blazed at this phantom from her past. “What happened?”

“I pulled a move I'd learned from one of the bouncers. Even though he still cut me, I was able to pick up a handful of gravel and throw it in his face. I made it to the front door of the club, and he took off. They arrested him on assault charges, and it turned out he had an outstanding warrant. I never saw him again.”

Caroline pulled him closer, lifting her arm for him to see a jagged scar along her forearm. “This was from a broken beer bottle I got sliced with when a woman came into my bar in San Antonio, looking for her husband. She didn't take it well when she found out he had a girlfriend on the side, and when I stepped in to stop her from attacking him, she sliced me.”

He couldn't stop his hand from sliding up over her soft skin until it rested on the back of her neck, his fingers pressing into her flesh until she tilted her chin up to meet his gaze.

“What's your point with all the show-and-tell, Caroline?”

She reached out and smoothed his chest with her hand. “I don't care how damaged you are, because I am just as broken, maybe more so.”

Her words tore at him, twisting him up inside as his other hand cupped the back of her head. “You don't want to go here with me, princess. I'm only going to break your heart.”

The laugh that passed those beautiful lips was bitter and sad. “Trust me, my heart was shattered long before I ever met you.”

Gabe wanted her, wanted to believe that he could find comfort in her body without the complications that would inevitably come, but he'd seen her heart firsthand. She had one. It might be wrapped up in a mile-thick layer of cowhide, but a part of Caroline Willis was still open to new emotions. New love.

And he wasn't.

But he wanted to kiss her anyway.

He dropped his head until his lips hovered above hers, and he watched as they parted, the closer he came. Her hot breath teased his mouth, and he couldn't stop while she was warm and willing. He might not get another chance to taste her, and while a better man would have walked away, he wasn't that guy.

A Sneak Peek of

Trust doesn't come easily. At least, not for Callie Jacobsen. After five years in Rock Canyon, she's really just started to get settled into her new life as a radio show host. And then she meets Everett Silverton, a small-town hero with his own demons—and a voice that could melt butter. Callie knows firsthand the heartbreak that can come from trusting the wrong man, but she just can't seem to get Everett out of her mind.

D
AVE HELD UP
his finger and Callie picked up line one. “You're on the Kat, what can I play for ya?”

“I was thinking a little Blake Sheldon, actually,” a deep voice said. The caller's smile was evident, even over the phone.

Rhett.

Turning off the
RECORD
button, she tried to ignore the giddy butterflies fluttering through her stomach. “You're late.”