Hold Me Until Morning

by Christina Phillips

  Except her head was sorted. She didn’t have to think about what she wanted to do with her life. She already knew.

  She just had to find the right moment to tell her mom. And time was running out.

  I could just fire her. People fired their managers all the time—but this was her mom. It wasn’t that easy.

  She’d answered a few of her mom’s frantic messages with texts, telling her she was fine and not to worry. Although it seemed her mom was more concerned about Paris pissing off influential producers than the possibility she’d been permanently traumatized by catching her own mother doing unspeakable acts.

  She shoved the nightmarish images to the back of her mind and dragged her fingers through her wet hair. If she were alone she’d just scrape it back into a band and be done with it. But she wasn’t alone. Cooper was here.

  Betraying warmth stole through her body. Yes, Cooper was here, and she found him even more irresistible this morning than she had yesterday. She’d half hoped he’d get her unspoken message that she didn’t want them getting friendly, but obviously he didn’t get subtle.

  And she had to be honest—she’d felt like a right bitch giving him the cold shoulder when they went out yesterday. It wasn’t as though he’d done anything to deserve it.

  Apart from getting a massive hard-on.

  Well, that could happen to guys for all sorts of reasons. She couldn’t hold that against him.

  I wouldn’t mind holding him against me.

  She blew out a long breath. It had been almost two years since she and Hudson fucking Bartholomew had split up. Which meant, despite what the tabloids said, it had been almost two years since she’d gotten laid.

  It was very inconvenient that the first guy she’d wanted so badly since Hudson happened to be the one guy she shouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Messing around with her brother’s best friend was wrong on so many levels that she didn’t know where to begin.

  But it wasn’t her overactive hormones that had her melting all over her bed as Cooper had left her room earlier. It was the way he so obviously was trying not to act on the magnetism between them.

  She knew when a guy was attracted to her. Without fail, they came onto her with some cheesy line or other.

  Cooper had offered to help tame her backyard.

  He’d even thrown out that line about her being the little sister he’d never had. And the look in his eyes had been so far from brotherly it was a wonder she hadn’t spontaneously combusted.

  This week was going to test her acting abilities to their limit if she had to pretend to feel nothing but sisterly affection for him. On the other hand, how amazingly cool was it that he didn’t seem to care at all about her Hollywood career? He really was treating her as if she were simply Scott’s younger sister.

  She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Well, that was a lie. It had been ten years ago, before her mom had landed Paris’s first contract. And the boy treating her that way had been…

  Cooper Grayson.

  Cooper was in the front yard finishing the daily maintenance on his souped-up Harley when he had the weirdest feeling of being watched.

  He swung to find Paris leaning against the front doorframe, cradling a mug.

  “Hi.” Her smile did embarrassing things to his body. Did she have any idea how sexy she looked in those cut-off shorts and plaid shirt? “I brought you a coffee.” She offered him the mug she held.

  “Thanks.” A cold beer would go down better, but it wasn’t even nine in the morning and that was too early, even for him. He strolled over to her and took a reviving hit of caffeine and tried not to inhale the faint scent of oranges that wafted from her on the warm July breeze.

  “The pancakes were yummy,” she said, folding her arms, which had the distracting result of pushing up her breasts. Not that he noticed.

  “Glad you enjoyed them.”

  “I was thinking you could teach me how to make them.”

  Was she joking? She didn’t look as if she was. “They were just pancakes. I didn’t do anything special.” Although the kitchen looked like a mismatched nightmare, he’d had no trouble getting the battered old stove to work. In fact, it was in better condition that the one in the house where he and his brothers had grown up.

  “Is that a no, you don’t want to show me how to make pancakes?” Her smile turned challenging.

  “Will I regret it?” He took another mouthful of coffee.

  “I hope not.” She was the picture of innocence as she gazed at him with those big green eyes of hers. “I’ve been told I’m a quick learner.”

  He choked on the coffee. Thank fuck it hadn’t squirted out his nose. “You’re a quick learner in the kitchen?”

  Her lips parted and formed a seductively pink pout. There was no way in hell she wasn’t doing that on purpose. “I don’t know, Cooper. I’ve never had any instruction in the kitchen before.”

  He had the sudden image of her wearing nothing but a lacy French maid’s apron, bent over the kitchen table, displaying her cute, naked ass.

  His for the taking.

  He only just stopped himself from groaning out loud. It was hard enough keeping his distance as it was. It was going to be fucking torture if she decided to show off her lethal flirtation techniques for the rest of the week.

  But he wasn’t going to let her get away with it unchallenged. He offered her one of the slow grins that Ella, who worked at Grayson’s, his brothers’ security company and really was like the sister he’d never had, told him could melt a frigid virgin’s chastity belt at twenty paces.

  “You sure you don’t want me to show you what we could do with melted chocolate, champagne, and strawberries?”

  The tip of her tongue peeked between her lips. He had the oddest notion she had no idea she was doing it. He found that even more of a turn on than her previous flirting.

  “Doesn’t seem like there’s much skill involved with that.”

  “You’d be surprised. There’s an art to melting chocolate.” Not that he had a clue. He’d never melted chocolate in his life before, but the look of fascination on her face was worth any mockery he might suffer from his two brothers if this conversation ever got back to them.

  “Well.” She appeared to consider his remark. Her pupils were so huge the green had all but vanished. What the fuck was he doing here? Playing with fire, that’s what. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. “We don’t have any chocolate.”

  He stared at her, and at the exact same moment that he laughed, so did she.

  “You won’t get out of it that easily. I have a bike and I know where the nearest grocery store is.”

  “Who says I want to get out of it? We should go buy some right now so you can’t change your mind.”

  “On the bike?” His mocking challenge was out before he could stop himself. Having Paris cling to him as he rode through the mountains was an even worse idea than taking her pancakes in bed.

  “Sure.” Her answer was breezy. “Your bike doesn’t scare me. I had to ride heaps when they had Lola dating a BDSM-obsessed biker for last Christmas’ cliffhanger episode.”

  He knew she played a sexy character called Lola in Sunset Heights, but he’d never really watched the show.

  “BDSM?” He hoped he didn’t sound too keen. BDSM had never interested him. It gave him flashbacks to when he was a kid and his drunken father would pull out his belt to give him a thrashing—hardly a memory he wanted to surface when getting naked with a girl.

  She smiled sweetly. It was nothing like the smile she’d given him earlier, but it was still a knockout. “The cliffhanger won awards. Though my favorite negative review said ‘Sunset Heights fails to deliver on its promised porn’. Cool, huh?”

  “If you say so.” Soap opera and porn? He’d have to check out that episode later. “You might want to change into jeans.”

  “I’ll be five minutes. I need to change my hair as well.”

  He snorted. That was a new one. “Take yo
ur time.” Then he couldn’t resist. “Babe.”

  Chapter Four

  Paris took the spare helmet Cooper offered her and matched the mocking grin he threw her way. There was no way in hell she was going to tell him her stunt double had been the one doing the scenes on the bike, and the closest she’d gotten to roaring along a deserted beach as the sun sank beyond the horizon was the green screen in the studio.

  Her mom had ensured Paris’s contract didn’t allow her to do anything that might endanger her. She was only looking out for her but the problem was she didn’t seem to realize Paris was now capable of making her own decisions.

  Except, deep in her heart, she knew that wasn’t true. It was more that her mom didn’t want her making her own decisions.

  In the spring last year she’d been accepted into Brown to study Liberal Arts. Her mom had never seen any problem with private tutors and home schooling to fit around Paris’s work commitments, but for years she’d clung to the dream of going to college to finish her education. She wanted the freedom of attending classes that she’d chosen, and the experience of mixing with other students. Basically she just wanted a life that didn’t revolve around her acting.

  Her mom had persuaded her to defer for a year, and after that one conversation, they’d never mentioned it again.

  A couple of weeks ago she’d shot her final episode of Sunset Heights. Everyone on the show had to sign nondisclosures. That was how much the network wanted to keep Lola’s shock departure under wraps.

  The relief was amazing. Another year of playing Lola and she might just’ve lost her mind.

  The only problem was, her mom seemed to have completely forgotten about Brown.

  “Here.” Cooper handed her a pair of biking gloves. They looked a lot smaller than the ones he was pulling on his own hands.

  “You carry spares with you?” She tugged on the leather gloves. They were pretty cool. “Girl-size spares?”

  “I always like to be prepared.” He flung her another of his wicked smiles and she pulled a face at him.

  “Spare helmet, spare gloves. Anything else you have tucked away I should know about?”

  “That would be telling.”

  She shook her head in mock disgust. “I can imagine.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being prepared.”

  She fell into step beside him as they made their way to his bike. It looked bigger than ever now that she was going to be riding it.

  “I’m sure the bike they used on the show was smaller than this.”

  “Do you need a hand getting your leg over?” He leered at her in such an over-the-top way she laughed.

  “No thanks. I’m perfectly able to get my leg over by myself.” Right on cue she imagined swinging her leg over Cooper. They were naked. Of course. She smothered a sigh at her lack of control, swallowed her trepidation, and recalled the instructions she received last year on how to mount a bike.

  A bike. Not a man. She gritted her teeth and waited until he’d pulled on his helmet and was in position before she jammed her own helmet on her head and followed those instructions with flawless precision. She didn’t even need to clutch his tempting body to keep her balance. Instead, she gripped the handle behind her and sat up straight so she wasn’t touching him at all.

  He twisted round. His visor was still up and she tried not to focus on his come-to-bed-eyes. Not that she succeeded.

  “You okay?” His voice came through her earpiece, sounding sinfully intimate. “Feel free to wrap your arms around me if you need to. I won’t mind.”

  “I bet you won’t.” Neither would she. But it wasn’t going to happen, because she had the terrible fear that if she wrapped her arms around him, he might guess she wasn’t just flirting because there was a spark between them. She was flirting so he wouldn’t guess how desperately she wanted to drag him off to bed.

  He tapped his visor down. That she could no longer see his face didn’t help at all. Then he lowered her visor, and it was beyond crazy the way her breath stalled in her chest at the almost-but-not-quite contact of his gloved finger.

  When he finally turned around, she let out a silent sigh of relief and relaxed her death grip on the handle. Excitement bubbled in the pit of her stomach. She had the feeling she was in for the ride of her life.

  Cooper hit the road at a less breakneck speed than if he was riding alone. He always did when he had a girl ride pillion, but every other girl had plastered herself to his back and hugged him in a rib-crushing grip.

  He’d been hoping Paris would do the same. Although it was probably just as well she didn’t, seeing as it was hard enough to concentrate just knowing she was right behind him.

  He checked his mirrors. There was nothing on the road. He’d seen no suspicious activity first thing that morning when he’d given the area a good sweep through his binoculars while she was still in bed. The gossip on the online tabloid sites was that Paris O’Connell had fled to Europe to recover from collapsing on set four days ago. If anyone was that desperate to get a sly shot of her, they’d be in London by now.

  He wasn’t taking any chances.

  He didn’t go to the same town as the day before. He parked in the lot behind the grocery store and scanned the area. Like the previous day, tourists overran this place, too. He pulled off his helmet and waited for Paris to slide off his bike before joining her. She flipped up her visor and then shifted as though she was uncomfortable.

  “You okay?” The trip had only been forty minutes, but maybe he should have taken a break halfway.

  “I’m fine. My butt’s kind of numb, though.”

  He’d been trying not to think about her butt. Before he could stop himself the words were out there: “Want me to take a look?”

  She wrinkled her nose. He wasn’t sure whether that was because she was trying not to laugh or the thought of him checking out her butt didn’t fill her with the same happy thoughts as it did him.

  “I’ll pass.” She eased off the helmet. He didn’t know what kind of glue she’d used, but her wig didn’t budge an inch. “God, this wig makes me so hot.”

  He almost told her she didn’t need the wig to make her hot, but this time managed to curb his tongue. Shame he hadn’t learned that trick years ago. It would’ve saved him a shitload of trouble with his old man.

  He fixed the helmets to his bike. “I’ll get the champagne. You sort out the chocolate and strawberries.” Not that he had any intention of leaving her side, but whatever. He also needed to get some provisions. They’d only bought rabbit food the day before.

  She pushed her sunglasses up her nose with one finger. “I don’t drink champagne.” There was a defensive note in her voice, as though she expected him to laugh. He eyed her as they made their way to the main road. She was looking dead ahead.

  He wasn’t sure why she’d gone all prickly. Not everyone liked champagne. He’d only had it once and couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. “What’s your poison then?”

  She shrugged. “Depends how I feel.”

  “Like to keep your options open, huh?”

  “That’s right. It’s my choice.”

  He was definitely all for choice. When he was eight, his older brother Alex had caught him stealing one of their dad’s beers. Alex had held him down and made him drink the whole damn bottle. Cooper had vomited the rest of the night, but he’d learned his lesson.

  He hadn’t touched beer again until he’d turned twelve, in a futile attempt to drown his guilt over Alex being arrested. All his brother had been doing was trying to save Cooper’s ass from their dad’s drunken fury.

  He soon learned beer didn’t drown anything. Instead, the fear had hit him that he’d turn into his father. It was enough to scare the crap out of him.

  Sure, he’d hung around the back streets as a teen, drinking and smoking shit, but unlike his friends, he’d known when to stop tipping the booze down his throat. While they’d been crawling in the gutter with killer hangovers, he’d
been the bookie for his other brother Jackson’s illegal street fighting operation.

  His choices might’ve given the welfare people a seizure if they’d known about them, but the fact was, they were his choices to make.

  Why had she told Cooper she didn’t drink champagne? Paris tucked her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans and refused to look at him. Just because she hadn’t been able to stomach alcohol since leaving rehab didn’t mean she wanted anyone to know that.

  It was easy to pretend to drink at the parties and endless glitzy functions she went to. It was all about being seen with the right people at the right time. At least by being sober she never ended up in the tabloids for flashing her thong in public.

  She figured it would be a lot harder to fool Cooper when it was just the two of them together in that tiny cabin. Except now he’d gone quiet, and that was so unlike him. He probably imagined she was being some kind of drama queen.

  She’d certainly drank anything that was offered to her when she’d been sixteen, but she didn’t want to remember what a mess she’d been at sixteen, because it only reminded her that when she’d split up with Hudson a few years later, the thought of drowning her sorrows had made her physically sick.

  “Lemonade could work.”

  She stopped dead and turned to look at him. “What?”

  He flashed his dimple at her. She really wished he wouldn’t. “You do know I don’t have a fucking clue what to do with chocolate, strawberries, and champagne, right? I mean are we supposed to pour it into the chocolate as it melts or what? Why waste good money? Lemonade might work.”

  He didn’t think she was being a diva at all. She had the scary urge to wrap her arms around his neck. She managed to contain herself. “Sure, we can try that.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and nodded across the street. “Want to stop off here?”

  She barely glanced at the coffee shop. “Sounds good.”