“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 that had dulled over the past few hours. “I have your key.”
“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. She drummed her fingers on her hip, playing up the image of a tramp. “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’s mouth hardened to a disapproving line. He 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. Trent remained blind to his charade.
The elevator arrived. Cora turned toward the lounge, working her hips with more hoochy-sway. Trent wouldn’t be able to look away.
~*~
Cora Rule 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.
Trent made sure the old man was in bed before heading back to the elevators. He’d picked up his father’s alcohol binged-ass a few times too many to just leave him at the hotel room door. The old man’s bones were more fragile now. If he fell trying to walk to the bed, he’d break something.
What had Cora been thinking to take his dad out drinking? Trent had spent the past four hours sitting in the bar, nursing a whiskey and indignation. His dad was living 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. What a cluster fuck that would be. He’d already spent too much time and energy reassuring 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 at the bar, 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. “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 rimmed with salt, drinking 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.” She 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, unable to hide the amusement in her voice. “Tell me the truth. What did you do to the Reverend?”
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.”
Her eyes sparked with the beginnings of anger, striking tinder that fueled the same below-the-belt interest he’d felt earlier outside 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. “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 limits?” She cocked her head so she could meet his gaze.
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.
“Silence? I spent time with your dad and now you’re above playing the game with me?” She was angry. He heard the fire in her tone, saw the spark in her eyes.
The Reverend would have apologized or made light of the situation. Trent didn’t, most likely because he knew the way Cora kissed when she was angry and he was testing her limits.
Without warning, her hand landed on his knee. She rounded it slowly with her palm, as if it was as sensitive to her touch as other round body parts.
Body parts that knew better swelled expectantly.
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 earlier and kiss her. “Is this what you came for, Reverend? A little thrill?”
“No.”
“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.
Her lips pressed on his jaw, bringing with them the scent of vanilla as they trailed lower, along 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 to do so was to compromise his dream farther than he had already. He needed the Reverend’s image intact to make this team succeed, to right his father’s reputation, to make amends to Randy.
“I think you’re lying.” Her warm breath moved over the cuff of his
ear. “I think that bad boy your father talked about has been hiding far too long. 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 pull her lips to his. He wanted to test the feel of her breast in his palm. 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 gripped his whiskey glass.
Cora pulled back and looked him in the 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. “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.”
He still didn’t have a label to put on Cora. Other than trouble.
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.
Chapter 7
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 in his hotel room bed 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 the 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.
Evan Oliver 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 Oliver. If he couldn’t win him over, he had no doubt Oliver would hijack the team from him.
Evan ordered nothing but coffee. Trent ate his eggs and waited for his star player to make headway into his cup before broaching the subject of their meeting. “If you were coaching the team, what changes would you make?” The question really was, “Will you be on board with changes I want to make?”
Evan was as good as his reputation – distant, hard to read. “Jack didn’t hire me to coach.”
“No, but I’d be a fool to jump in and change everything on Day One. I know what I think is working and what’s dragging the team down. I’m interested in what you think.”
Evan didn’t ponder or hesitate. “Our Chaos offense works, but we need at least one more steady guard. High caliber, able to control the ball. Someone mature. A team player that won’t upset the balance of the team – not hot-heads, no felons. Antoine is good until he loses his cool.” And then his words slowed, tinged with a hint of reluctance. “Although Ren has come a long way in a year, he doesn’t have the weight to muscle some of the newer breed of seven-foot tall centers. It’s like pitting a gazelle against a rhinoceros.”
It was as if everyone involved with the Flash drank the same Kool-Ade. They all had the same short-term vision – shore up what hadn’t been working. Why not shake things up and come at the league with a few surprises?
They discussed different players. Evan was a straight-shooter in his assessments. He was fond of his teammates, but none more so than the big center.
“And how would you rate yourself?” Trent asked. “How can you improve?”
Evan’s brows drew together. “You think I have a weakness?”
“Not one you’d admit.”
“Not to a coach with a reputation for prioritizing winning over player safety.”
If there was one blemish on the Reverend’s record, it was Randy’s sacrifice to win the Final Four. One snapped Achilles and one torn ACL in the final seconds for a come-from-behind win made for some of the most watched March Madness game film since Kevin Ware’s broken leg. It made some wonder if the Reverend was as pure as he’d been made out to be.
“They shoot horses, don’t they?” It was Archie’s favorite comeback toward any college upstart whose ego threatened the concept of team. Trent tossed it out like a grenade.
Evan considered him with icy, gray eyes. “I’ve got a workout in forty minutes. You’ve already decided what you’re going to change, with or without my support. Why don’t you get to the point?”
“Fair enough.” Trent set down his coffee cup. “Let’s start with bottom feeders. I don’t tolerate hangers-on, drug dealers, sycophants, and the like. There’ll be no team sex toys or yes-men whispering in players’ ears about how great they are.” The Reverend was pleased to see Evan nod. “And I don’t believe in empty words, like paying for the power of positive thinking. I believe in preparation and training. I believe in courage and balls-to-the-wall play.”
“Careful, careful. This may be Tinsel Town, but we still have some moral values. You can’t date my sister-in-law once and then expect my help jettisoning her.”
Trent must have looked confused, because Evan added, “Brunette? Smart ass? Can hold her liquor?”
“I don’t – ”
Evan swore and reached for his cell phone.
“ – know what you’re talking about.”
Evan turned his phone display so that Trent could see.
“Holy bells.” There was Trent, a look of pure pleasure on his face as Cora kissed the hollow of his neck. He’d fallen into her trap in the bar last night. Years of a clean record and his first night in Beverly Hills resulted in this? “It’s not what you think.” Damn it! This was almost exactly what Evan and everyone else who read this gossip site thought.
“We’ll see.” Evan blanked his screen.
“Regardless, I’m going to recommend the Flash severs ties with the Dooley Foundation.” If for no other reason than Cora silenced the Reverend too easily.
Evan’s chilly demeanor dropped several more degrees. “The Dooley Foundation is an integral part of this team and the reason the Flash has made it to the playoffs the past two seasons.”
“Weren’t you the key to their success?” The press had certainly made Evan out to be the hero. But the press could be manipulated.
Evan shook his head. “I came from the street ball circuit, where I played one-on-one. If it wasn’t for Amber getting my head on straight about what it means to be on a team, there’d have been no Flash post-season and I wouldn’t be sitting with you right now. Jack would have cut me loose.”
“I’ve met your wife. She seems sharp, but Cora – ”
“Is as ruthless as either of us. She may look like a piece of fluff – ”
Trent silently disagreed. There was nothing
insubstantial and fluffy about Cora.
“ – but she knows the Rules and she knows basketball. If you hurt her...” Evan scowled. “Setting aside my family concerns, if you’re trying to garner my support in cutting loose the Dooley Foundation, you’re screwed. Think about it. Baseball players are superstitious. Basketball players have no lucky rabbit’s foot, no four leaf clover, no underwear that doesn’t get washed all season. I have to believe in me to play at this level.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “But this team has something to hold onto. Here. Inside.” And then he tapped his chest, before signaling the waitress for more coffee. “Damn it, I sound like my wife.” His smile clearly showed he didn’t care.
“We’ll agree to disagree on that point.” There’d be no support to rid the team of the Dooley Foundation from Evan. “I run uptempo, but I play my men until they nearly drop.” An image of Randy writhing on the court in the final seconds of the championship game scrambled the eggs in his stomach.
“That explains why Jack hired you. He believes players are replaceable commodities.” Evan considered Trent. “Our guys work out together. Rookies and veterans alike. I don’t tolerate slackers. We watch game film four nights a week. When training camp begins a week from now, you’ll be happy. You won’t be burning through players because they’re out of shape.”
Trent must have looked doubtful, because Evan added, “Come in early Monday morning. You’ll see our workouts aren’t for sissies. And if you want to earn my respect, you’ll work out with us.”
“That’s against NBA regulations.” There were strict rules on when coaches could begin working with their teams.
“You’re not on the Flash’s payroll until the first day of training camp.” The first officially approved day of player-coach interaction.
A technicality. A risk. The Reverend would never cross that line.
After a moment’s consideration, Trent nodded. He needed Evan’s respect if he was going to claim a leadership role. If he couldn’t get it by attending some cream puff training session, he’d find another way.
Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015 Page 6