First Star I See Tonight

14

Eric drew his gun as Coop charged ahead into the hallway. Piper followed and peered over Coop’s shoulder to see Logan curled on the floor, eyes closed, not moving. Jada stood in her apartment doorway, hair tangled, one leg of her checked pajamas hung up on her calf, and an orange-and-blue Nerf gun at her side.

“I killed him.” She moaned.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway below, and Tony shouted up from the bottom of the stairs. “Coop! Can you get down here? Somebody called immigration. They’ve herded the staff in the kitchen to check green cards.”

Coop threw up his big hands. “Great. This is just great! Can you deal with boy singer while I take care of INS?” He shot a quick glance between Eric and Piper, then looked back at Eric. “You want to come with me? I might need a character witness.”

“Great idea,” Piper said. With a uniformed cop at his side, nobody would mess with Coop. She was doubly glad that Tony checked green cards before he hired, but that made her wonder: exactly who had called INS?

Eric holstered his gun, bent down to pick up a Nerf bullet, and looked over at Jada. “I’d better run this through ballistics.”

Jada’s eyes widened in horror. He grinned and tossed her the bullet. Piper smiled. Maybe she would sleep with him.

As Coop and Eric disappeared downstairs, Logan stirred and looked up at Piper. “You wanna go fer a ride in mah plane?”

“Sorry, flyboy, I have to work.”

“Tha’s okay.” He dropped his head back to the floor and closed his eyes.

“Ohmygod,” Jada squealed. “That’s Logan Stray!”

“If only you’d figured that out before you fired,” Piper said. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“Something woke me up, and the Pius Assassins are very resourceful.” She went to her knees on the floor beside Logan. “Ohmygod, I can’t believe it’s Logan Stray. I, like, used to love him.”

Her mother appeared in the doorway. Glossy, sleep-tousled hair tumbled around her shoulders, and the unfastened top buttons of her pajamas revealed a column of warm caramel skin. Karah, with her scrubbed face and womanly body, looked more alluring than a dozen overly made-up hair-swingers. Piper was glad Coop had gone downstairs.

“Jada, what are you doing out here?” Karah exclaimed.

Piper saw no need to rat out the teenager. “Sorry about that. We were making too much noise and woke her up.”

Jada carefully slipped the Nerf gun behind her leg where her mother couldn’t see.

Piper gazed down at Logan. “As long as you two are awake, would you help me move him?”

“I will!” Jada exclaimed.

They maneuvered Logan back into the apartment and onto Piper’s couch. She fetched a bucket from under the kitchen sink and put it next to him, just in case.

Jada hovered over him. “Ohmygod, if he, like, gets sick, somebody should be watching him. Can I do it? Please, Piper! I’ll sleep in the chair. Can I, Mom? Please?”

“Absolutely not.”

Piper remembered how much Jada wanted to fit in at her new school and thought about the cred this would give her with her classmates. “It’s okay with me, Karah,” she said. “I’ll watch out for her. And this’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Jada to observe firsthand the perils of fame.”

Karah hesitated, then conceded, maybe because she’d arrived at the same conclusion as Piper. “If there are any problems, send her home right away.”

Problems? How could there be any problems? Piper thought, but didn’t say.

She wouldn’t let Jada sleep in the same room as Logan, even if he was comatose, and she sent the teenager to the bedroom. The club was closing, so she didn’t have to go back downstairs. After she’d washed her face and exchanged her dress for sweats, she curled up in the living room chair.

It seemed as though she’d barely fallen asleep before a thin shaft of sunlight followed by a rap on the door awakened her. She peeled open her eyelids. Across the room, Logan Stray lay on his stomach, a hand and foot dangling over the edge of the couch onto the carpet. In the bedroom, Jada was still asleep.

Her neck was stiff, and it cracked as she pulled herself out of the chair. Cursing whoever was on the other side, she stumbled across the carpet.

Two bright-eyed women with cheery smiles pasted on their faces barged in. One held a cardboard tray of coffee, the other a box of doughnuts. Piper gripped the doorknob to support herself. “You are going to die.”

“And good morning to you.”

“How’d you get in?” Piper growled.

“Cleaning crew.” Jen set the doughnut box on the counter, and Amber did the same with the coffee.

“Go away.”

“Can’t,” Jen said. “Dumb Ass asked me out.”

Amber puffed up with outrage. “She’s thinking about going, and you know he’ll tell her she has to have sex with him to keep her job.”

“Probably.” Jen ripped open the doughnut lid and pulled out a Bismarck.

Piper yawned. “Timezit?”

“Eight o’clock,” Amber said, “and you’re always awake at this time.”

“Not when I’ve been up most of the night!”

Just then, Logan rolled over, and the part of him that wasn’t already on the floor slid there. But he still didn’t wake up.

“That’s Logan Stray!” Jen exclaimed. And then, after a long pause, “Is he alive?”

Piper slouched back into the chair. “I guess.”

“If you killed him, we’ll help you hide the body.”

“I know who Logan Stray is!” Amber sounded as if she’d come up with the answer to Final Jeopardy.

Someone else knocked on the door.

“Will everybody leave me the hell alone?” Piper shouted.

But Jen had already opened the door, and Berni stormed in. Her short hair erupted in an orange geyser around her face, and a pair of pink sweatpants poked out from under another of Howard’s old cardigans. “I knew it! You all came here so you could talk about me behind my back!” She spotted Logan on the floor. “Isn’t he a little young for you, Piper?”

Piper buried her face in her hands. “Will somebody please kill me?”

Berni rounded on Amber. “You’re behind this secret meeting. You think I’m too old to know what I saw with my own eyes. Next thing you’ll try to get me hauled off to a nursing home.”

Piper lunged for the coffee.

“Calm down, Berni,” Jen said. “Stop being so mean to Amber.”

“Me?! Why don’t you tell her to stop being so hateful to me?”

Maybe it was the coffee or the sugar from the doughnuts, but Amber, like Tosca about to hurl herself from the battlement, reared up to her full height and advanced. “I have never been hateful to you, but from the day we met, you’ve either acted as if I didn’t exist or been outright-”

“You called me Mrs. Berkovitz!”

“-or you’ve been outright rude. I was brought up to be respectful of my elders, but-”

“There!” Berni pointed an accusing finger at all of them. “Did you hear what she said? Did you hear what she called me?”

Mild-mannered Amber’s anger was a sight to behold. “Regardless of your age, there’s no excuse for racial prejudice!”

Berni puffed up. “What racial prejudice? Stop trying to change the subject. And how can you talk about respect after the way you’ve treated me?”

Jen was still looking dumbfounded, but Piper was starting to get the drift.

“I’ve treated you with nothing but respect!” Amber exclaimed.

“Like I’m in my coffin. You call that respectful? Jumping in front of me to open doors… running out to get my newspaper in the winter because you think I’m too old and weak to get it for myself… You think I don’t see what you do, but I still have eyes. Piper doesn’t behave like that. Neither does Jen. Is that respectful?”

Amber’s mouth closed on its way to its next sentence. Jen laughed.

Somebody had to be the grown-up here, and Piper figured she was it. “Amber,” she said with forced patience. “Berni doesn’t hate your guts because you’re Korean…”

Berni protested. “What does Korean have to do with anything?”

“She hates you because you were brought up to be respectful of your elders,” Piper said. “Which she is.”

“That was unnecessary,” Berni sniffed. “And I don’t hate her.”

Piper gave Berni a sickeningly sweet smile. “Berni is too old to change her ways, and too inarticulate to have explained what’s been bothering her, so from now on, don’t do another considerate thing for her. Matter of fact, treat her like crap. Then maybe she’ll appreciate you the same way Jen and I do.”

“I don’t know why you’re saying all this,” Berni grumbled. “Amber’s a smart girl. She knows.”

“I didn’t know!” Amber exclaimed. “How could I?”

Berni’s mouth arranged itself in something approaching a pout. “I don’t like feeling old.”

“Good,” Piper said, “because you’re acting like a five-year-old.”

Amber’s proper Korean upbringing once again reared itself. “Piper, you shouldn’t say-” She caught herself and took a deep breath. “Berni, from now on, you can get your own newspaper.”

Coop sauntered through the open door. He glanced from the women to the body on the floor. “Is he still alive?”

“No idea,” Piper said, and then, “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Did you check his pulse?”

“I don’t care enough.” Piper looked around her. There were now four uninvited adult people jammed into her tiny living room, one teenager still asleep in her bed, and a comatose pop idol on her floor. “Everybody get the hell out of here!”

“Grouchy,” Coop observed.

Berni bustled toward his side. “Cooper! Mr. Graham! I was hoping I might see you. I have a pound of homemade divinity in my car. I was going to leave it with Piper, but now I can give it to you personally.”

Logan chose that moment to roll over, look up at all of them, and gag.

Jen was the closest, but she was too late with the bucket.

Long seconds ticked by before Coop looked over at Piper. “Yeah…” he said slowly. “I should probably give you a raise.”

Berni pressed both hands to her cheeks in delight. “Oh, Piper! I just love your life.”

That afternoon, Piper tracked down a friend of Taylor’s and learned she’d left Chicago for Vegas to take a casino job. The friend didn’t know where Keith was, only that Taylor had broken up with him because “he was a loser.” Piper intended to check out the story, but it rang true, and Taylor moved toward the bottom of her list of suspects.

At the club that night, she tossed out two members of a rowdy bachelorette party snorting bumps of cocaine off a credit card in the ladies’ room. More lies about the club had shown up online, and she didn’t need Coop’s reminder that Spiral’s reputation had to be spotless. Jonah stopped her as she came back inside from tossing the women out. “Where were you last night?”

With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten all about her ill-advised challenge to meet him in the alley. “I was a little busy babysitting our visiting pop star.”

He smirked. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anybody you chickened out.”

“Amazing. I’ve time-traveled back to fifth grade recess.”

He regarded her blankly. She thought about explaining, but it was too much trouble, and she made herself take the higher path. “I concede. You’re bigger and stronger.”

“I sure as hell am.”

That smirk was more than she could take. “But I’m smarter and faster.”

“Bullshit, you are.”

“I guess we’ll have to find out then, won’t we?” She hated this about herself. Why couldn’t she walk away? No. Not her. She was incapable of turning the other cheek. “I’m not ripping another dress, so give me a few minutes to change after the club closes.”

“Take all the time you want.”

He didn’t believe she’d show up, but he was wrong. She’d be there, and knowing that depressed her. Not because she was afraid to face him. That would either go well or it wouldn’t. But because she still had this compulsion to prove she was the better man. Even to a cretin like Jonah. Thanks, Duke.

Blaming her insecurities on a father who’d loved her, even as he’d forbidden her to show any weakness and suffocated her with his overprotection, made her feel worse. When was she going to grow up enough not to regard everything in life as a test she had to pass to prove her own worth? Unfortunately, today wasn’t that day because she’d backed herself into a corner-again-and she was emotionally incapable of not seeing this through.

After the club closed, she changed into jeans and sneakers, pulled on a Bears jersey, and, full of self-disgust, headed back downstairs. She peeked into the alley to make sure Coop’s car was gone, then stepped outside.

Jonah was already there, standing next to the Dumpster, smoking a cigar with Ernie and Bryan, his best bouncer buddies. She waved at them. “Hey, Jonah. I see you brought backup.”

He hadn’t expected her to appear, and his cigar twitched at the corner of his mouth. His buddies snorted.

“I’m not surprised you didn’t want to face me alone.” She sounded exactly like the eleven-year-old who’d once fought Dugan Finke for pulling up her T-shirt. Dugan had been twice her size and beat the crap out of her, but he’d never touched her or her T-shirt again.

Jonah was in a conundrum. Because she was female, he couldn’t swing at her the way he wanted. All he could do was drop his cigar and look threatening.

She believed in fair play, and she took pity on him. She walked closer and, with a smile on her face, shoved the heels of her hands against his chest, hooked out her leg, and sent him down.

Cursing, he was back on his feet in a flash, temper on fire, poised to launch. She braced herself, but before he could get to her, his pals sprang forward and grabbed his arms.

“Don’t do it, J.”

“You can’t hit her!”

Jonah struggled to get free. “Let me go! I’m going to take her head off!”

“Try it!” she countered.

He screamed more invective, and since he couldn’t get to her, it wasn’t honorable to keep taunting him, so she joined him in ordering his boys to let him go. They were so engrossed in yelling at each other that none of them noticed Coop’s Tesla squealing into the alley.

Just as Jonah managed to work himself free, Coop threw himself between them. “What the hell is going on here?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he swung hard, catching Jonah in the side of his jaw and sending him bouncing against the Dumpster. “You’re fired, you son of a bitch. I don’t ever want to see your face around here again.”

“She started it!” Jonah cried, cradling his jaw.

The adrenaline that had been driving her began to ooze away, leaving her tired and dispirited. “I kind of did,” she said.

Coop swiveled around and stared at her. When he finally spoke, each word was a surface-to-air missile. “You kind of did?”

“I hit him first.”

Ernie and Bryan nodded. “She did, boss.”

“I’m not good at self-restraint,” she said, as if that weren’t blindingly clear. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fire Jonah.”

Coop’s dangerous eyebrow went up.

“You would?” Jonah said, clearly dumbfounded.

“Not because of me, anyway,” she said.

Coop was furious. “Maybe I should fire you instead? Because clearly you can’t be left unsupervised.”

“If I could respectfully disagree…” Ernie said. “She’s been making our job a lot easier.”

To her shock, Jonah spoke up, even as he continued to cradle his jaw. “That bachelorette party tonight. A couple of ’em were causing trouble, and she took care of it.”

Coop looked ready to explode. “Everybody get the hell out of here!”

She was more than willing to do that.

“Except you.” His finger aimed at her temple. “Stay right where you are.”

He kept her waiting until all three men had hastily driven away, and then he grabbed her arm and started dragging her toward his car.

She tried to dig in her heels. “It would probably be better if I went to my apartment now.”

“You’re going to my place.” He planted his hand on top of her head as if he were a cop and shoved her into the Tesla’s passenger seat. “I don’t want Jada and Karah to hear you scream.”

Not good at all.

He took off down the alley, tires spitting gravel. Even when he was calm, he was an aggressive driver, and since he wasn’t calm now, he was hell on wheels. As she breathed in the scent of his brown suede jacket, she ticked off all the ways she’d failed them both. She’d been juvenile, unprofessional, and hotheaded-dangerous qualities in an investigator. And all because she hadn’t been enough of a grown woman to put her leftover childhood insecurities behind her. Coop had every right to be furious with her.

The area around his garage was mercifully free of predators, except for him. When she didn’t get out of the car quickly enough-and why should she hurry?-he extracted her. As soon as her feet hit the cement, he pressed her against the car and ran his hands over her body, touching pretty much whatever he wanted to touch, his jaw set like tempered steel. “Not armed?”

“I wanted to teach him a lesson, not kill him.”

His hands slid up the insides of her thighs, then moved from her butt to her waist. When he was satisfied, he led her from the garage. “Let’s go.”

“Look, Coop… I understand you’re pissed, and I don’t blame-”

“Oh, no. I’m not pissed. I’m way beyond pissed.” He clasped her upper arm again, not hurting her, but holding her in a lock she’d have trouble breaking.

They were inside his condo much too soon, but now that he had her there, he didn’t seem certain what to do with her. A perfect time to make a dash toward the kitchen. “Hungry? I’ll fix you an omelet.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m trying to decide whether I want to do this rough or easy.”

She held up her hand. “I vote for easy.”

“You don’t have a vote.” He tossed his suede jacket over the back of the couch. “So I’m clear… You started the fight, right?”

“Technically.”

“Technically?”

“We have a history, but-”

“And you decided the best way to handle that history was to go after a former Clemson linebacker in the alley? Do I have that right?”

“If you give a bully an inch…”

“That’s only true when you’re twelve!”

Before she could concede his point, he stalked toward her. “If you had problems with Jonah, you should have come to me.”

Suddenly, she was as hot as he. “I handle my own problems.”

“By damn, not any longer. I’m either going to fire your ass or… or…” He seemed to be having difficulty coming up with something more dire, even though getting fired was at the top of her personal dire list. “Or… spank it.”

“You’re not serious.”

He actually seemed to ponder. “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess I am.” One of his long arms whipped out, snaked her waist, lifted her off her feet, and dragged her to the couch. Seconds later, he turned her upside down over his lap.

She blinked.

His palm came down hard on the fleshiest part of her rear. All the blood rushed to her head. “Ow! Oh, my god! You are kidding me!”

Another smack. “Does this feel like I’m kidding?” Whack.

“It feels like you’ve lost your mind.”

“Never felt saner.” Whack. Whack.

“This is wrong in so many ways. I don’t even know where to start. Ouch! Yes, I do know! I’m calling my lawyer.”

“You don’t have a lawyer.” Another smack. “Besides, don’t you read? Rough sex is the rage these days.”

“Only between consenting adults! Stop it! Do I look like I’m consenting?”

“If you weren’t, I’d be on my ass right now.”

True. She was hardly helpless. She let another smack land, then gritted her teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You worry about yourself.”

Another whap. And then his hand stalled. His palm curled around the sting. Lingered. Rubbed.

“Cooper Graham! You are feeling me up.”

“I’m sure I’m not.” His hand slid between her legs, cupping her through the denim, and his voice held a husky edge that made her weak with lust. First she’d engaged in playground behavior, and now she’d let herself be turned on by caveman theatrics. She was hopeless. And, despite all the lectures she’d given herself, she didn’t care. “My mistake,” she said, her voice as raspy as his.

He slipped his hand under her Bears jersey and traced his thumb up the bumps of her spine. He stalled at her bra. “You have too many clothes on…”

She didn’t know whether he helped her or she levered herself up, but within seconds, she was on his lap, straddling him, her knees sinking into the couch cushions on either side of his thighs.

He clasped her waist. She slipped her hands around the back of his neck and gazed into that granite-carved face. “Are we really going to do this?”

His forehead creased. “It seems like it.”

It seemed that way to her, too. “What about your scruples? I’m still the hired help.”

He leaned forward and nibbled on her bottom lip. “You’re not the help. You’re the obstacle.”

She nuzzled the cleft in his chin. “To what?”

“My peace of mind.”

That was something she definitely understood.

He brushed his lips across hers. “What about your scruples?”

“Temporary leave of absence,” she murmured.

He found the corner of her mouth. “I never spanked a woman in my life. Never even thought about it. Damn, it felt good.”

She resisted the urge to rub her tingling bottom. “It didn’t hurt one bit.”

He drew back so that she was looking straight into those tarnished golden-brown eyes. “I’m still furious with you,” he said.

“Understood.” She met his gaze straight on. “If it’s any consolation, I’m even more furious with me.”

Maybe that satisfied him because he brought his lips to her neck. “Promise you won’t fight any more of my men?”

She tilted her head to give him more room. “I promise.” Unless they’re not watching out for you.

He dumped her off his lap. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

She was done for. Hopeless and reckless. She reached for the bottom of his sweater and pulled it over his head.

It didn’t take long before they were both naked and back on the couch. Even a short interruption while he protected them didn’t dampen her desire. She wanted this-wanted dirty, no-holds-barred sex with this man. And maybe, maybe, she wanted to make him lose control the same way he’d done last time.

But he wasn’t playing her game. “Keep your hands to yourself, lady,” he said as she reached for him.

“You, too,” she replied. “No. Wait. You can put your hands anywhere you like.”

And he did.

She straddled him, the position opening her to the intimate abrasion of his fingers. His eyes were darker now, burnished with desire, but their gazes were no longer locked. That was an intimacy neither of them wanted.

She lowered her mouth to his, delivering a deep kiss, a kiss that began to feel as if it held too much of her. A hand tunneled into her hair, keeping her there. Mouths, teeth, tongues merged and battled. She lowered her hand to clasp him, but he was having none of it. He pushed her back into the cushions and pressed open her thighs. He gazed at all he’d exposed, and then claimed what she so willingly offered.

The press of his thumbs into her thighs, the sweet laceration of his mouth, the teasing, the torment… And then the abandonment. The cruel, callous, abandonment… until he shifted his weight.

This time there was no mistaking that hard thrust-sweetly painful. Her fingers dug into his back, slick now with sweat. The delicious burden of his body pressed down on her. Into her. Deep and deeper still, this tight, powerful breaching.

A crazy fracas broke out behind her eyelids. Inky swirls orbiting into a whirling vortex that spun faster and faster until it erupted into a perfect supernova.

He thrust on, full press. Her head thrashed. She cried out. His hips drove deeper. Stilled.

Finally… The silent howl of his arched neck. Muscles convulsing. The long shudder of his body.

And then the quiet.

They calmed. When she could breathe, she maneuvered for a more comfortable position only to send them both to the floor.

They lay there for a few moments, on their sides, wedged between the couch and his flying saucer coffee table. His finger circled the breast he’d neglected while he’d been busy with other parts. “You felt like a virgin.”

“It’s been a while.” She rested her head in the crook of his arm and gave in to the inevitable. “This can’t interfere with work.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, even more vehemently than she had.

“Because if it’s going to…”

“It won’t. We’re too smart for that. And we both know this had to happen. Now we’re going to see it through.”

“Lovers when we’re naked,” she said. “Business associates when we’re not.”

“I couldn’t have phrased it better.” He wedged up on one elbow. “Have I mentioned how much I like you? When I don’t feel like killing you.”

She smiled. “I like you, too. Most of the time, anyway, and that’s rare. I’m much too critical of your sex.”

He tweaked her nipple. “From the way you were screaming, I think my sex did pretty damn well for itself.”

“Definitely better than last time.”

“You aren’t going to let me forget, are you?”

“I’m not that decent.” She tugged hard on a piece of his hair. “You’d better not try that spanking thing again, because you won’t get away with it twice.”

“I’ll treasure the memory.”

She traced her fingers down the hard slope of his arm. “You should know I’m not usually so selfish. I believe in giving as well as taking.”

“You’ll have to prove that.” He nuzzled her neck. “Let’s hop in the shower so I can see if you’re all talk.”

“So soon?”

“I’m a highly trained athlete. I have powers far beyond those of mortal men.”

She definitely couldn’t argue with that. He helped her off the floor, and they headed for the open staircase, but before they got to the top, she had to make sure they were clear. “We agree, right? No games. We’ll do this until we get bored with each other or until another ravishingly beautiful movie star decides she needs some quarterback arm candy.”

He grinned and squeezed her rear. “It’s a deal. And no screwing around with your cop boyfriend.”

“Not until I’m done with you.”

His walk-in shower was bigger than four of her bathrooms. Its tumbled marble walls, multiple nozzles, and movable showerheads became a sexual playground for an inventive couple. Which they were.

“You’re definitely not selfish,” Coop muttered sometime later as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

Not selfish, but maybe stupid, she thought. She pushed the idea aside. She finally knew what she was doing. She’d set her boundaries and been up front about her needs. Most important, she was aware of her limitations when it came to having a relationship with a wealthy celebrity sex god, a man so far out of her realm of experience that the two of them barely occupied the same planet. She wasn’t beautiful or sophisticated. Didn’t care about clothes or makeup, and wouldn’t know how to swish her hair even if it were a foot longer. He was attracted to her out of novelty. And novelty was, by definition, temporary.

She gave them two weeks max before it fell apart. And she was okay with that. Two weeks of mind-blowing sex was perfect. But as she wrapped herself in an oversize bath towel, a shadow fell over one corner of her heart, a premonition that, when the sex stopped, she’d have lost a friend. One of the best friends she’d ever had.