“You’ve never ridden a motorcycle before?”“Nope.”“What kind of bad-boy girlfriend are you?” I ask in mock dismay. “Evidently a terrible one.”I swing onto the bike and grab my only helmet. “Nah, you just haven’t met the right bad-boy.”

“What now?”“You’ve never ridden a motorcycle before?”“Nope.”“What kind of bad-boy girlfriend are you?” I ask in mock dismay.“Evidently a terrible one.”I swing onto the bike and grab my only helmet. “Nah, you just haven’t met the right bad-boy.”

“And this bad-boy boyfriend?”“Bad boy?”“Yeah. The type you apparently avoid now.”Oh, right.” I laugh. It’s one single bark of bitterness. “Ummm, he fell into a wood chipper?”“Poor guy. And the one before that?”“Eaten by a shark?”“And before that?”“Kidnapped by a travelling circus?”He chuckles. “Wow. Your life’s like a cautionary tale.”“Future suitors be warned.”“I’m willing to take my chances,” he says with a wink.”

“Is this what you drive?” she asks, turning those wide eyes up to me.“Yes,” I say, but then I add with a smirk, “but you’re not surprised, are you? Isn’t this what bad-boys do? Ride motorcycles and break hearts?”Her smile is weak. “I suppose so.”She turns away and moves around to unlock the car door and pop the hood.I shouldn’t have said that.”

“My first thought upon waking is of Cash. Licking my stomach. Tonguing my navel. And then looking so hard into my eyes.God, I could’ve devoured him right then and there!Damn the bad boys!”

“He’s the embodiment of the one thing in life I need like a hole in the head—another bad-boy love interest.”

“I’m not entirely surprised to find out it was Cash. The whole scenario fits his character more than it does Nash’s. Only a bad boy would come, uninvited, into a girl’s house and wake her up to seduce her in her own bedroom.And only a bad boy would think I wouldn’t mind. I have to smile at that.He’s got nerve. I’ll give him that.”