by Mel Curtis
Cora knew she deserved some of her reputation, but not any of Gemma’s censure. Her sex life was no one’s business but her own. “Don’t paint me as the villainess in whatever romance you’ve been reading lately.”
“What you’re doing is like trying to bring down someone the caliber of Peyton Manning or John Madden.” Gemma’s spiteful manner was tempered by her picking up Brutus and cuddling him. “Can’t you leave sports coaching to Amber? She knows what she’s doing.”
Across the room, Coach Parker’s young assistant watched Gemma with the wide eyes of the star-struck. It wasn’t lust in his eyes. Gemma, in her fashion-mistake-clunky combat boots, black skirt, tight curls, and Poindexter glasses, wasn’t one to inspire lust. No, this guy was looking at Gemma with cupid-struck, date-appreciation eyes.
“Why don’t you focus more on mingling – ” Cora made a subtle gesture with her head in the assistant coach’s direction. “ – and less on things you don’t understand. You worked for my dad and he was no saint.” Understatement of the Millennium.
Gemma scoffed, but said nothing more as Amber and Evan walked up to them. It was time to leave. Gemma wasted no time. Without any acknowledgment of her admirer – the girl had no boy radar – she handed Brutus to Cora and made her exit. It took a few more minutes for Amber and Evan to say their goodbyes.
“I’m instituting a hands-off rule on Trent Parker.” Amber led the way down Jack’s driveway, away from the party noise. “I saw him drag you away from the bar. When are you going to open up and get to know someone before you get to know someone?”
“You sound like Daddy.” When he’d remembered he had a young daughter whose mother was gone far too often. Brutus shifted in her shoulder bag. “Nothing happened.” Not that Amber would believe her.
“Sex solves nothing,” Amber quipped.
Behind her, Evan cleared his throat.
“Oh, don’t you start.” Amber sounded as if she’d been married for years, not less than two months.
“You made me a promise on national television.” In two strides, Evan blocked their path on the walk and gazed at Amber in a way no man had ever looked at Cora – love laced with desire. “A family.”
“We have a family. I gave you siblings,” Amber muttered, watching a dark green Jag drive past.
Evan washed a hand over his shaggy hair. “The season is starting. I’ll be traveling most of the time and – ”
“We were talking about Foundation business.” Amber sounded defeated, not angry.
“You’re trying to have a baby.” Cora felt like thunking her head. Why hadn’t she realized? When she’d returned from her honeymoon, Amber had given up caffeine and alcohol.
“Cora.” Amber sighed.
Evan took Amber’s hand, making Cora feel uncomfortably like a third wheel.
“Cora.” Amber’s voice noticeably softened. “Make sure nothing continues to happen with Coach Parker. We need you to meet your sales quota early.”
Amber and Blue were always saying shit like that. They tossed her big clients as if she’d been at the Foundation for five years instead of five mostly-miserable months. Cora was a quick study, but her experience as a life coach could fit in a tweet or two. Okay, maybe a long Facebook post.
But now she understood. There were the other Rules. The ones Blue and Amber deemed it important to find. But they also wanted her to get up to speed so Amber could take time off when the baby came. Only Amber seemed to be putting off having a baby until Cora met the conditions of Daddy’s will. As much as Cora didn’t want to acknowledge her sales quota was tied to their new half-sibs, she had to acknowledge Amber’s longing for a family of her own.
“I won’t let you down.” Cora promised. “You can get pregnant any time.”
“No,” Amber murmured. “I can’t.”
Cora’s heart panged.
“Miss Cora!” It was Archie. He wobbled on the front porch, as if tipsy. “This party’s winding down. I bet you know where to find the best action in town.”
“Make some excuse,” Amber said softly. “I need you to be responsible. Look at Coach Parker standing behind him. He’s frowning.”
Trent’s frown was as large as a jumbotron. Cora couldn’t tell if it was directed at her, Archie, or both. It didn’t matter. Cora felt squeezed by negative expectations.
“I am responsible, unlike Daddy.” There was a limit to the amount of bossing Cora could take in one day. She turned to Amber. “Responsible is putting your name on a baby’s birth certificate. Responsible is showing up for work every day to a job you were forced to take and working toward an unreachable sales quota with difficult clients.” She smoothed her skirt. “You and I may approach life differently, but we’re both responsible.” Cora gave Archie her most mischievous smile, satisfied to see the Reverend’s frown deepen. “I’ll help you make time for motherhood and find Daddy’s other kids, but you have to give me space.”
Amber’s frown mirrored Trent’s. “But – ”
“She’ll be okay.” Evan tugged Cora’s hair. “Let her go, babe.”
With a belabored sigh, Amber did.
Chapter 6
L.A. Happenings by Lyle Lincoln
…Speaking of hot, I recently met Daisy Hoyt of Hot Security & Investigations. Daisy and staff claim to be able to find things you’ve lost as well as guarding what you have. You aren’t going to have problems blending into the Hollywood scene as bodyguards. She promises all her guards are at least an eleven on the hotness scale.
It was just after midnight when Cora entered the lobby of the Beverly Hilton with Archie. She’d taken him on a bar crawl, four bars in four hours. The old man had been drinking steadily, but pacing himself. Mostly, he’d talked her ear off about his young fiancée while she drank soda water.
“I’ll get going as soon as you pick up your key.” Cora didn’t have to escort him in. Archie wasn’t drunk. But there was her crap day and as soon as Archie was off to his room, she was off the clock. The hotel lounge was calling her name. She knew for a fact this dark, swanky bar made a mean margarita on the rocks.
“Dad.” Trent appeared in the doorway of the lounge, as if he’d been waiting for his father to return. She felt his eyes upon her, dark and disapproving. That look honed the edge of tension in her shoulder blades.
“How sweet. My son’s waiting up for me.” Archie’s words suddenly slurred. His steps slowed and became unsteady.
“Don’t you mean: my son’s waiting up for me again.” There was more than a trace of impatience in Trent’s voice. His words and a glance Cora’s way were heavy with condemnation. “I have your key, Dad. Let’s get you to your room. Alone.”
Trent thought she was hooking up with his dad? This man had a lot to learn about women. Her heels staked claim on the other side of the imaginary line he was drawing in the lobby.
“Hello, Reverend.” Cora smoothed her skirt, pleased when Trent’s dark eyes followed every movement of her hand. “Trying to break up our party? Or did you want to make it a threesome?”
Trent’s gaze hardened in a way that made Cora’s skin tingle. “Dad may not have told you he’s engaged and expecting.”
“I did better than that. I showed her pictures.” Archie chuckled sloppily. He deserved a Razzy for his rotten performance.
“I hope Mary Sue Ellen was dressed,” Trent muttered.
“Miss Cora, if you knew my boy when he was a pup,” Archie snapped, momentarily forgetting he was pretending to be drunk. “You’d never have suspected he’d grow up to be such a killjoy.”
Trent took his father by the arm and led him to the elevators.
“Was he a bad boy?” Cora trailed slowly behind them, unwilling to let Trent off so easily. “I have a weakness for bad boys.”
“I was afraid he’d get more than one girl pregnant,” Archie confided over his shoulder.
The Reverend was a reformed troublemaker? Now all those mixed signals made sense. Cora resisted the tug of a grin, resisted the raise of
her eyebrows. She didn’t resist the urge to follow them. This was priceless. “What a shame he settled down.”
“You can say that again,” Archie grumbled.
Trent poked the elevator button, his scowl dropping deeper than the Grand Canyon.
“Bad boys have all the fun.” Cora released the smile she’d been holding back. “Same as bad girls.”
“Thanks for seeing Dad home,” Trent said firmly. “But you’re not coming up.”
“My chaperone says this is good night.” Archie blew her a sloppy kiss, as sloppy as his portrayal of a drunk.
The elevator arrived. Cora turned toward the lounge, working her hips with so much hoochy-sway, Trent wouldn’t be able to look away.
~*~
Cora had gone into the bar with a come-hither, full-body communiqué that spoke to Trent in a bedroom whisper all the way down the hallway to his father’s third floor hotel room.
I’m ready for a bad boy, her hips had said.
But you aren’t a bad boy, her smile had said.
Got that right. Trent had spent the past four hours sitting in the bar, nursing a whiskey and indignation while his dad lived Trent’s NBA dream – bar-hopping with a sexy babe. If Trent hadn’t intercepted them in the lobby, Cora might have succumbed to his father’s charms. Just when he’d finally convinced Mary Sue Ellen’s parents and the press that his father truly loved the young co-ed.
The elevator was too slow returning to the third floor to collect Trent. It was too slow taking him back down to the lobby. Impatience burned low in his gut, making him turn toward the lounge instead of the walkway that led to his first floor, poolside room.
Cora perched on a barstool, legs crossed, foot bouncing in those sex-me-up zebra heels as she laughed with the bartender. She glanced up with a flirty smile when Trent climbed onto a stool next to her. And then the smile faded as she recognized him. “Reverend.”
The Reverend had long since gone to bed. Trent’s entire body throbbed with frustration, unspent energy, and lust. “Is something amusing?”
“Life.” She sipped a margarita on the rocks, rimmed with salt. She drank him in with those dark eyes of hers that seemed to see too much and hide more. “I like your dad. He likes pushing your buttons.” Cora grinned as she set her drink down. She leaned closer. Kissably closer. She had no idea she was playing with fire. “Hell, I like pushing your buttons.”
The bartender slid a whiskey in front of Trent. “Thought you might need another.” He retreated to the far end of the bar, taking out his cell phone, giving them privacy.
“A third myth busted. He drinks. He cusses. He kisses on the first meet.” Cora leaned back, not even trying to hide the amusement in her voice.
Trent didn’t touch the whiskey for fear the next thing he’d touch would be her. “Stay away from my dad. The last thing we need is more trouble with women.”
She sipped her drink. Her eyes sparked with the beginnings of anger, striking tinder that fueled the same below-the-belt interest he’d felt earlier at Jack’s. “So quick to misjudge. About me and the Dooley Foundation.” She flicked out her tongue to catch a few stray grains of salt on her lips. “It makes me wonder how you’ll manage the other pleasures Hollywood has to offer.”
“This conversation derailed quickly.”
“Did it? You could’ve gone straight to your room. Instead, you came here.” One finely manicured fingernail tapped the rim of her glass. “Why, Reverend? To set limits on my relationship with your father? Or to test your own?”
He struggled once more to categorize her. He, who based his career on reading people, couldn’t read this woman well enough to choose a strategy for dealing with her. Worse, he couldn’t understand why his attraction to her was so intense. She was sharp and sexy, but he also sensed a vulnerability and softness at odds with the image she projected.
“Are you threatened that I spent time with your dad?” She was angry. He heard the fire in her tone, saw the spark in her eyes. “Are you jealous?”
The Reverend would’ve backed out, back stiff, reputation intact.
Trent dipped his finger in his whiskey, wiped a few grains of salt from the rim of her glass, lifted his hand toward her as if…
As if he was going to line the gentle slope of her cleavage with salt and then follow it with his tongue.
As if he was going to trace a line up her thigh and then suckle the salt trail until he reached the saltier hole between her legs.
As if…
Cora captured his whiskey-salted finger between her lips. Her eyes held his while she gave his digit a wet, hot blow job.
“This isn’t a foot massage in a dorm room,” he choked out. There was nothing innocent in her ministrations. This was a promise of sex. Hell, his dick was stiff and ready.
With one last swirl of her tongue, Cora popped his finger out and pressed his palm over her heart. “You didn’t come here looking for a shy coed.”
True. He imagined curling his hand around her neck and pulling her lips to his. He imagined sliding his hand down and hooking his fingers in the V of her bra.
While he was wrestling with his imagination, her hand landed on his knee. She circled it slowly, as if his knee was as sensitive to her touch as other round body parts.
He suppressed a groan.
She slid her hand up his thigh, coming to rest near trouble. It was all he could do not to latch onto her with both hands as she’d done at Jack’s and kiss her. “Is this what you came for, Reverend? A little thrill?”
“No,” he lied, fingers tangling with her bra strap.
“Thou shall not steal, nor deal false, nor lie one to another.” Minister Bishop’s pulpit voice.
Why had the Reverend gone to bed, but not the specter of his ex-father-in-law? The Reverend might have talked sense into Trent. Minister Bishop just pissed him off.
“I think you’re lying, Reverend.” Cora pressed her lips on his jaw, bringing the scent of vanilla as her mouth moved lower, along the cord of his neck.
His throat nearly closed. The bar became dimmer, more intimate. More dangerous.
Still, he didn’t move. He wanted to take her up on the challenge. His body ached for the thrill she offered. But he knew banging Cora was detrimental to his footing with Jack.
“I think that bad boy your father talked about has been hiding far too long.” Her warm breath moved over the cuff of his ear. “You want to be corrupted by the big city, don’t you, Reverend?”
“Stop calling me that.” A huskily murmured command in a voice he barely recognized as his own. For the second time that day, Trent was hard and wanting.
She brushed her cheek against his and chuckled. “Ah, Reverend, we all have a past we can’t run away from.”
He wanted to test the feel of her breast in his palm. He wanted to plunder her mouth. He wanted to lose himself in her warmth.
But he had his father and Randy to protect. Or maybe he’d been the Reverend too long. One hand stayed at his side. The other was trapped in her lingerie. One flick of his hand and her bra strap was off her shoulder.
Cora pulled back and stared into his eyes. Her gaze was a foreign language – relief or regret? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was he missed the heat of her touch, the sweet smell of vanilla, and the tantalizing promise of sex.
“You need to be ready for the big show, Reverend.” Her gaze cooled. Her tone no longer teased. She removed his hand from her body. “You have to set aside your past and the mistakes of the last play to make it at this level.” She finished her margarita, dropped bills on the bar, and swiveled on her stool, preparing to leave him and his indecisiveness. “Or your time on this stage will be very short.”
Was that a bedroom challenge? Or some of her life-coaching crap?
“See you around.” She walked out, swinging hips filling him with ball-aching regret.
He still didn’t have a label to put on Cora. Other than trouble.
Chapter 7
L.A. Happenings by Lyle
Lincoln
…Isabelle Chavez may star in the sweetest tween sitcom on television, but her diva status continues to blossom. In a very public tantrum on set, she fired another assistant and her stylist.
…Speaking of stylists, can someone recommend one to Trent Parker? I saw pictures from the Flash meet-and-greet…Honey, that jacket needs to go.
…And finally, for someone with the last name of Rule, Cora knows how to break ‘em. Look at the photos, folks. Cora was seen doing a bar crawl with the elder Coach Parker, then had a nightcap with the younger Coach Parker. Yawzer.
Trent hadn’t dreamed of Cora Rule’s lithe body.
He hadn’t fantasized about slowly disrobing her.
He hadn’t experienced a midnight-stiffy wake-up call as he imagined taking her.
Oh, the lies the Reverend told himself.
At least, Trent hadn’t awakened smelling vanilla. Life was good. How could it be anything but when he was an NBA coach, embarking on a new life?
It was Friday. A week before he officially went on the Flash’s payroll. He’d invited Evan to meet for breakfast. Evan had suggested a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop on the seedier side of Westwood. It made Trent feel like home – worn linoleum tabletops, haggard construction worker clientele, jaded waitresses. Evan had insisted on meeting him at six a.m., which would have been ungodly, if Trent’s body wasn’t still on a central time zone clock.
“Good morning,” Evan said, already at a booth with a cup of coffee when Trent arrived. Evan was the heart of the L.A. Flash. The star player had pulled the team together last season by ignoring their coach and running the uptempo, Chaos offense.
If there was one player Trent needed on his side, it was him. If Trent couldn’t win Evan over, he had no doubt the superstar would hijack the team.