I watched Trish Danvers walk away with that little swing in her hips that I knew was unconscious, but still sexy as hell. She was a little spitfire all wrapped up in a good girl package that I shouldn’t find appealing. Never had found it appealing before in other women to be honest. But when it came to the petite blond, everything I thought I knew about myself went out the window. She was all the things I didn’t like or want in a temporary woman, uptight, a Girl Scout, with a high cheerleader ponytail that should look ridiculous on a grown woman. A settling down kind of woman. But she did it for me, especially when she was pissed off. That fire that burned in her big blue eyes woke my cock right up.

I shouldn’t want her. But I did.

Too bad she was all the way off limits. I didn’t screw around with good girls because they had expectations. They wanted things I wouldn’t give to them, or to anyone else for that matter.

“She’s getting under your skin?” Zeke’s voice sounded behind me a second before one hand landed on my shoulder.

“Maybe,” I admitted with a shrug. “But that’s all it is. I don’t do good girls.”

Zeke threw his head back and laughed, shaking his head in amusement. “Don’t you know, man? Good girls are where it’s at, but don’t just take my word for it. Hey, Nash!”

The other man who’d become a friend since I relocated to this small town headed towards us with a smile.

“What’s up? I hate these things,” he groaned and reached for a cupcake. Nash made furniture that was more like art, and he sold each piece for an obscene amount of dough.

“Nash, tell Mason about the appeal of good girls. Good southern girls,” he clarified with a smile that said he was thinking of his curvy little wife.

Nash grinned. “No one is as bad as good girls. They surprise you with it. Every fucking time.” His own grin matched Zeke’s and I knew he was thinking about his own smoking hot wife who wrote dirty romance novels. He looked turned on and so damn happy I almost wanted to believe them. Almost.

“Except bad girls,” I added. “Bad girls know the score, and they’re always up for a good time. Only a good time.”

They looked at me like I’d grown a second head, but I’d gotten used to it over the past few months. Both men were totally blissed out with their women and working hard to convince me that the one-woman life was the way to go. But guys were guys, and they didn’t push any further. So after we put in face time at the luncheon and ate our fill of Trish’s delicious donuts, we headed out.

“Vivi wants a tattoo,” Nash grumbled as we walked towards the main drag in town. “If I send her to you man, I don’t want her to come back with big ass angel wings on her back.”

I laughed at his grumpy words. “Vivi isn’t that type of girl, trust me. She’s more likely to get a butterfly on the ankle, or a magnolia flower on her shoulder. Maybe a hummingbird on her hipbone… I’ll take care of her.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” he groaned which only made me laugh harder.

“If Mackenzie Stone trusts me with his wife’s skin, you can trust me with yours,” I told him, referring to the mega action movie star who’d helped make me a well-known name in certain circles.

Nash grunted his response, which told me Vivi was dead set on this course and he didn’t like it. “Just remind her how much it’ll hurt.”

Zeke laughed and pushed at Nash’s shoulder. “Dude she’s had a kid, this will be nothing in comparison.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I kept my mouth shut as we walked inside La Belle Bean, the girliest shop I’d ever been in that didn’t sell lingerie. The pain wasn’t what turned people off tattoos, though. In my experience it was the permanency of body art that scared them away.

“Damn it smells good in here.” I hung back while Zeke and Nash went to the counter and chatted happily with Trish. Observing the good girl in action was always an erotic experience. She would smile shyly and tuck a stray blond lock behind her ear. Lick her lips before she spoke, or bit down on her lush bottom lip as she listened.

I needed to get laid if she was getting to me this much. It had been a few months since I had a woman, taking a break while I set up my shop had seemed like a good idea at the time. But my business was established now, and my rich and famous clients had no problem flying to me for their body art needs. Despite not being in New Orleans, I still had plenty of newly minted eighteen year olds who also came to me because they wanted the guy who’d tattooed the guys in Steel Dragon to ink their skin too.

A break was in order before I did something stupid, like proposition Trish.

“Can I get you anything?”

I smiled at the hint of annoyance Trish always had in her voice when it came to me. She was such a good and proper southern woman, that even her irritation was polite. “What are you offering?”

She rolled her eyes and waited me out, giving me a chance to realize I’d been staring at her so much I hadn’t noticed Zeke and Nash were gone. Leaving me alone with the sexy little sprite. Her pink tongue darted out and left a trail of moisture along her bottom lip, and I had to fight the urge to adjust the front of my jeans.

“Any of those Irish cream donuts left?”

She nodded, full lips twitching in a smile before she turned to grab a pink checkered bag and pulled out a tray. “Two left, you want them both?”

“Sure.” The woman had a way with sugar that only added to her allure, which is why I so rarely came into her shop. That, and we couldn’t seem to stop fighting if our lives depended on it.

She set the bag on the counter with care and rang me up, nibbling on her bottom lip the way she always did when she was lost in thought or consumed with a task. “What?”

I don’t know what kind of hell had gone through me, but I grinned and when I opened my mouth, I said, “You’d be so much hotter if you did something with your hair.”

Yeah, I was an asshole, at least to her. But the flash of fire that flamed white hot in her big blue eyes reminded me why it was so worth it.

“You’re a jerk, Mason.”

She tossed my change at me, literally tossed a handful of coins and a few bills at my chest and then kicked me out of her shop.

I left with a wide, satisfied grin. Totally fucking worth it.