Flirting With Disaster

by Ruthie Knox

  He could hardly tell her she’d worn the sweater she had on today to the office two weeks ago, and her silver necklace had shown up in September and quickly become a favorite. She’d think he was a freak or a threat, some kind of stalker, but it wasn’t like that. He couldn’t help it. He noticed things. He noticed her.

  “I juh-just know.”

  He turned his eyes to the road, but he could feel her watching him. After a while, she said, “I liked you too, you know. In high school.”

  “You d-d-did?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  The claws in his shoulders lost their grip, and he smiled at her. “You were never stupid,” he said again. “Trust me.”

  She didn’t reply. A frown appeared between her eyebrows, and it stayed there as she turned to look out the window again.

  They covered the next forty miles silently, listening to Yo-Yo Ma play the cello and thinking their separate thoughts.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When they stopped, Sean gassed up his SUV, and Katie headed toward the Lake Erie Kwik Stop to pee and forage for food. “What do you want for snacks?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Whatever,” he said. “I’m not p-picky.”

  She wandered the aisles of the convenience store, wondering what Sean Owens liked to eat. The guy who’d doubled over laughing on her couch probably ate junk food—potato chips and snack mix and Hostess cupcakes—so she got some of that stuff. But she hadn’t seen funny Sean since this morning, and she figured Granite Man ate healthy food. Carrot sticks and veggie burgers and sushi. California food.

  The Kwik Stop didn’t have much to choose from in that department. He’d have to settle for junk.

  He had a book in his hand when she returned to the SUV. Reading, he squinted slightly, the faintest expression of concern on his forehead, as if his brain were tussling with the story. Most of the time, it was hard for her to remember they were the same guy—the high school version of him and this one—and then at moments like this, it wasn’t. He’d looked exactly the same, reading on the bus.

  She scaled the Man Fortress and buckled herself in, refusing for the fourth time today to permit herself any questions about his ride. She knew nothing of cars. It was possible this one had cost a lot less than it appeared. Perhaps brand-spanking-new hybrid SUVs with black leather seats and expensive-new-car smell had become more affordable since she last checked. Or it could be he was the sort of guy who liked cars so much, he spent all his money on them. In any case, it would be rude to inquire.

  “What are you reading?” she asked instead.

  He handed her the book and started the engine. It was called The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and it had a pensive man with a robot arm on the cover.

  “Sci-fi?”

  “You say that like you’re s-saying, ‘K-kiddie p-porn’?”

  Katie laughed, flipping through the pages as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed back onto the freeway. The paperback was old, yellowed at the edges, and it had the silverfish smell of a book that had been shelved for years. “Sorry. Not my favorite genre. I think it’s the covers. Robots and boobs don’t do it for me.”

  “There aren’t any b-boobs on the c-cover,” Sean said.

  “No, but that makes it the exception to the rule.”

  “Granted. But c-covers aren’t everything. It’s a good b-book. The moon is a c-colony of the earth, and this sssupercomputer becomes intelligent, so they make it the leader of a revolution. Everybody talks this ssslang language, too. Pretty c-cool.”

  “I’m not sure ‘cool’ is the word you want.”

  He glanced at her and gave her one of those slow smiles again. One of those smiles that made her stomach flip over and her heart start beating too fast. Yowza.

  “ ‘P-pretty c-compelling,’ then,” he said.

  “ ‘Compelling,’ I’ll believe.” She flipped the book over and opened it to the last page.

  “Wuh-what are you doing?”

  “Reading the ending.”

  Sean tried to snatch the book from her hand, but she held it out of his reach. “D-don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It sssspoils the whole b-book.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I like knowing how everything’s going to come out. Then I can read the story without all the anxiety.”

  “Anxiety is p-p-part of the experience.”

  “Not for me.” She finished reading the last paragraph and went back to his dog-eared page at the beginning. “You’re not very far. I take it you’ve read it before?”

  “Yeah. I found it in my m-mom’s house. My old c-copy from high school.”

  Katie dropped the book in her lap, liking that it was his from back then. Liking that he’d wrapped his big hands around it a minute ago. “I suppose you’re right. The cover could be worse.”

  “The c-covers don’t t-tell you anything, anyway. Some of that stuff you read at work looks pretty trashy, and it still m-manages to hold your attention.”

  That stuff you read at work. Oh, not good. Not good that he was turning out to be the sort of person who noticed things. Wedding rings and erotic novels.

  What would she know about Sean if she’d only been more perceptive? He hadn’t shaved this morning, and she hadn’t realized a stubbled dimple was sexier than a regular one. Now she did.

  “I’m not sure what books you’re talking about,” she said, leaning forward to turn down the heat controls for her side of the car. It was too warm. She peeled her sweater over her head and tossed it onto the backseat. Underneath, she wore a white camisole top and a red bra. She hadn’t anticipated taking the sweater off, so she hadn’t bothered to match the bra to anything. The straps showed, and the cups peeked out from the low neckline of her shirt. Parisian Katie said, Et alors?

  “That b-book about phone sex,” he said. His voice had dropped to a lower register, and even though he kept his eyes on the road, her bare skin tingled as if he were looking. “The bondage one.” He paused, then added, “The one with the three-way.”

  Oh, mama, the one with the three-way. “I never thought anybody paid any attention to what I was reading.”

  Sean glanced her way, and the mischief in his eyes made her breath catch. She remembered that look from the aftermath of the kiss, and remembering it made her remember the kiss, and remembering the kiss made her pulse pick up and start throbbing in some very personal areas.

  “I p-pay attention to everything.”

  “But how do you know what’s in my books? Did you read them?”

  “I read a lot of books,” he said. Which wasn’t any kind of answer.

  “I hadn’t pegged you for the sort of guy who reads erotica. Isn’t that in violation of the Man Laws?”

  “Is it?” He rubbed his fingers along his jaw, then asked, “What do you read those books for?”

  “Same reason anyone does, I guess.”

  “Are they your ffantasies?”

  “Some of them,” she said. “Not all.”

  His hands on the steering wheel drew her eyes. He had such big hands. His nails were blunt and short and unpretty. Rough hands. Hands that had gathered her close and held her in place when he took that kiss.

  “Have you ever been with a man who d-did those things to you?” His voice had turned husky and dark. “Talked dirty to you? Spanked you? Tied you up and sspent hours figuring out how many ways he could make you c-come with his tongue?”

  “No.” She put as much scorn into the word as she could manage. As if scorn could protect her from the way he was turning her on. Or prevent him from knowing he was doing it.

  It was no use. Sean turned to look at her, and he smiled the wickedest smile she’d ever seen. A smile that said he knew exactly what he was doing, and he’d known all along. “Sounds like the guys you’ve been with have been reading all the wrong books.”

  She closed her eyes and gave herself a moment to die.

  Then she opened them, picked his book up off her lap, and said
with all the nonchalance she could muster, “What are you saying, I should go out with a guy who reads sci-fi?”

  “You c-could do worse.” Leaning forward to turn up the music, he asked, “What did you get me to eat?”

  She reached blindly into the grocery bag on the floor in front of her seat and pulled out a can of Pringles.

  “Thanks.” He took the can and started to eat them, and she began to wonder if she was insane.

  That conversation—it hadn’t been a normal conversation, right? There had been sexual overtones. She couldn’t have imagined them, because he’d definitely mentioned making her come with his tongue—or someone doing that—and it had definitely made her want to unzip her jeans and stick her hand down her pants. She was wet and restless and keyed up.

  Sean was eating Pringles.

  Damn the man.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking out at the light traffic on the interstate. The woman in the car in front of them appeared to be talking on her cell phone and curling her eyelashes at the same time. Sean passed her. Katie wondered if she’d ever get laid again.

  She pulled a package of Bugles out of the bag and tore it open. “You mind if I read your book?”

  “Help yourself.”

  “No, I mean, do you want me to read it out loud? You’re not all that far into it. If you don’t mind starting over, we could read it together.”

  “That wuh-would be n-nice.”

  So she read. “I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine …”

  When she got to the end of the third chapter, she closed the book and took a sip of water, thinking about everything she had on her plate once they got to Buffalo. She needed to get Judah to tell her everything, and she needed to figure out what she was going to do about Sean.

  She wasn’t the only partner packing heat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He’d been waiting for her for hours, ever since she texted to say she and Sean were on the way. When she finally stepped through the door, a week’s worth of anxiety just flowed right out of him. It was the strangest thing—Judah could actually feel it. Like a stream of dark energy, moving through his chakras and out the top of his head.

  “You made it,” he said.

  She gave him a bright smile as he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. His hands settled at her waist as he took her in. Long legs in black slacks, a taupe top with a V-neck that was professional without being drab. It was good to look at her. The green around her head was brighter than the last time he’d seen her, shining with energy and possibility. He didn’t know when he’d last met anybody with an aura as fresh as Katie’s. “You get sexier every time I see you.”

  “Do you completely lack shame, or are you just very good at pretending?”

  Judah grinned. “I pretend for a living.” In more ways than she could know.

  “That explains it,” she said. “Behave yourself, or I’ll tell Sean exactly what happened in Louisville, and then you two can finish up that pissing contest you started there. You do remember Sean?”

  She stepped aside, giving him a better view of her glowering partner. The man had disliked him on first sight. Judah could only imagine what Sean would do if he knew what had happened on the couch. Tear him limb from limb in a jealous rage, probably.

  “Of course,” Judah said. “Good to see you again, man.” He extended his hand. Sean squeezed it too hard and grunted a greeting.

  “Take a seat,” Judah said, gesturing toward the couch. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “I’m not sure I want you sitting,” Katie said. “It might get in the way of all the groveling you’re going to have to do.”

  “Who’s groveling?” he said. “You’re here. I accomplished everything I needed to with my previous groveling.”

  “Sean and I decided we needed a vacation, and someone told us Buffalo is lovely in February. Though, honestly, Sean?” She glanced at him. “We should probably shoot that guy. But either way, we’re not here for you, Pratt. Not until you say you’re sorry.”

  Judah smiled to cover his unease. He’d known she would press him. He’d invited her, begged her to come because he needed to be pressed. But he still wasn’t positive he could tell her.

  “I don’t do apologies. I told you that already.”

  “And I told you you’d better learn. You’re too old to be so inflexible.”

  “I’m twenty-nine.”

  “You’ve been twenty-nine for years. Do they give you some kind of aging plan when you get into the music business? ‘You’ll be twenty-nine until you’re thirty-seven, and then you’ll let your hair go gray and skip straight to Silver Fox’?”

  Judah smoothed a palm over his temple, where the silver would be if his stylist didn’t cover it up. He was hardly ancient, but the last few years, he’d started to feel like he might as well be a hundred. He shot a look at Sean. “I thought you guys were supposed to be professionals.”

  Sean shrugged.

  Judah sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Fine.” He cast his eyes at the ceiling. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Katie asked.

  He shot her a look with poison darts in it, but she didn’t even blink.

  “It’s not a real apology unless you take responsibility for what you did,” she explained.

  “Sorry for …”

  He faltered. It was no joke—he didn’t have a clue how to apologize. Nobody ever expected him to.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what an asshole he’d been. In his running mental tally of his sins, trying to throw a leg over Katie ranked pretty high for the month of February, and he’d planned to do worse.

  When she’d walked into his apartment in Chicago, he’d known instantly that she was the person he needed. For what, he had no idea. It didn’t work that way.

  He’d thought about it and figured Katie could be his girlfriend. Travel around with him, make him look straight. If he kept her with him every night, fucked her when he had to or drank until he blacked out, he wouldn’t lie awake thinking about the messages.

  Thinking about Ben.

  It wasn’t a genius plan, but it had been the best he could come up with once the feeling grabbed hold of him. Sometimes he wished the fucking feelings came with an instruction manual. He wasn’t psychic, though his grandmother had been fond of saying he could be if he tried.

  Trying had never been Judah’s forte. If it didn’t come easily, he didn’t normally bother.

  But the problem with that attitude was that it didn’t help much at times like this. The tricky thing about giving up control to other people—the conundrum of having handed his entire life over to Paul all those years ago—was that whenever he tried to take it back, he just fucked everything up. As if he had an adult body and all these wrinkles, graying hair, and an increasingly iffy back, but his ability to function like everybody else had been arrested at nineteen.

  He’d fumbled through that encounter with Katie like a dumbass teenager.

  Maybe it would have been okay if he’d been able to concentrate when he kissed her. Lately, he had trouble concentrating on much of anything. Even drunk, alone in a hotel room with a beautiful woman, the messages kept playing back through his head.

  Someone knew what he’d done and was going to expose him. And the list of possible someones was awfully goddamn short.

  He’d spent three months frozen in place, trying to work up the nuts to do something about it. He and Paul agreed that they couldn’t turn the messages over to the Palmerston Security guys, not if they wanted to keep them quiet.

  Paul said not to sweat it, but Paul had been smoking way too much lately. He’d dropped some weight, and he looked like hell. He was sweating it, and he didn’t even know everything. Judah had stopped showing him the messages after the first couple.

  He could handle this, but he needed Katie to help him. Which meant he needed to come up with some appropriately
apologetic words.

  “Jesus, what do you want me to say?” he asked.

  “ ‘Oh Katie, I’m so sorry for making you drive to Louisville, skipping our meeting, and then refusing to talk about the case.’ ” Her voice had taken on a singsong quality. She was enjoying this way too much. “And for being a jerk.”

  “When was I a jerk?”

  “You’re a jerk all the time. Seriously, you don’t know this? Does nobody ever tell you anything?”

  He shook his head, and Katie made a winding gesture in the air with her index finger that meant get on with it.

  “Fine. I’m sorry for … for dragging you to Louisville and …” His eyes cut to Sean, then back to the ceiling. This was surprisingly difficult. “And wasting your time.”

  Katie laughed. “That was terrible.” She gripped his arm and rose onto her toes to kiss his cheek. “We’ll have to work on your apologizing. Come on, let’s sit.”

  They settled onto the fussy upholstered chairs of the suite’s sitting room. Ginny had booked them in a place called “The Mansion,” a big nineteenth-century house whose owners believed in window treatments and period furniture. Judah took the couch, perching on the edge and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands spread. “Where should we start?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us why you hired us?” Katie asked.

  “Jamie Callahan said you know what you’re doing, and you’re discreet.”

  It was more than he could say for his own security force. When he and Paul wanted something leaked, all they had to do was make sure someone on the security team knew about it. Palmerston was good at keeping him alive but shitty at protecting his privacy. And it would be churlish of him to resent it, considering he’d forked over his privacy to Paul’s management a long time ago.

  Judah’s manager believed information was a currency, one they had to guard like gold. Paul didn’t trust anyone, and that philosophy had served Judah well over the years. Only Paul could have quashed the story of what happened with Ben Abrams as effectively as he had. Only Paul could have turned a gay nineteen-year-old from Iowa into America’s heartthrob, shot him to the top of the charts, and kept him in the public eye even when he hadn’t managed to record a song worth listening to in years.