First Star I See Tonight (Chicago Stars #8) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,45
she simply felt it. Or maybe it was something else . . . The calculating look in his eyes. A certain wiliness . . . What was he up to?
He dipped his head and brushed the corner of his eyebrow with his thumb. “If I were going to do this . . . which I’m not . . . I’d expect something in return. What are you prepared to offer?”
“What do you want?”
“An interesting question . . .”
He started smoking her with his gaze. Burning right through her lame-ass chauffeur’s outfit. Peeling off every ugly piece of it. And taking his time with it. She might not be smart about everything, but she was smart about this, and she rolled her eyes. “Stop messing with me. You can have any movie star you want, and you’re only trying to make me squirm. Just like last night. Well, guess what? It’s not working.”
“Are you sure about that?” The words slid from his lips, all silk and seduction.
“I’m pretty much un-squirmable.”
“Is that so.” He stroked the side of his jaw, leaving a dirty smear behind. “Did I ever mention what a bad lover I was when I first started out?”
One thing she had to say about Coop Graham: he was unpredictable. For a reason all his own, he’d decided to steer them into dangerous waters. She needed to back off, but she couldn’t do that, not with the way she’d responded to him last night. That meant it was kickoff time. “I don’t believe you did,” she said.
“I got lots of complaints, so I had to work at it. Treat it as a job.”
“Put in the extra practice time, right?”
“Precisely. When I think of the mistakes I made . . .”
“Mortifying, I’m sure.”
“But I kept my eye on the ball.”
“Only one? Curious. Oh, well, I hope your deformity didn’t make you too self-conscious. I’m sure you could still—”
“I finally got the hang of it when I was about—”
“Thirty-six?”
“Eighteen. I was a fast learner. All those older women willing to take a young kid like me into their loving arms . . .”
“Blessed are the merciful. But . . .” She smiled her own wily smile. “As entertaining as this is, you don’t have any interest in me. Both of us know you are completely out of my league.”
At first he seemed to appreciate her acknowledging this indisputable fact, but then his expression clouded over. “Hold on. Last week you told me how you’re a real man-eater.”
“There are limits. You’re an entirely different species from the Officer Hotties of the world. Way above even my head.”
He actually seemed miffed. “Now why would you say something like that about yourself? Where’s your pride?”
“Firmly entrenched in the real world. You belong in bed with superstars. Look at me. I’m thirty-three years old. At best, I’m average-looking, and—”
“Define average.”
“I have ugly feet, I’m at least ten pounds overweight.”
“For a cadaver.”
“And . . . I don’t give a crap about clothes or the way I look.”
“Now that part is true. As for the rest . . . You’ve heard of power blackouts. All I’d have to do is turn off the lights.”
He said it with such mustache-twirling, over-the-top villainy that she would have laughed if so much hadn’t been on the line. Instead, she advanced on him. “Let’s get serious. A woman’s life is at stake. I need you to do this. And your better self—assuming you have one—needs for you to do this.”
He’d gotten wise to her tactics, and her swipe had no effect. “Try again, Sherlock. That wasn’t even a first down.”
She’d run out of arguments, and she slumped against the brick terrace wall. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I sure as hell do. Mind your own business.”
She took a deep breath, then slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”
***
Coop popped one of the small yellow pear tomatoes in his mouth. It didn’t go well with the remnants of his cherry sucker, but he needed to stall. She was right. He’d been messing with her. Trying to make that wrongheaded kiss seem as meaningless as it should have been.
He gazed over at her. She looked so damned disappointed in him. Like she’d caught him torturing a kitten. What she wanted was over-the-top and doomed to failure, but he still felt about two feet tall, an emotion he hadn’t experienced since his college coach had deservedly called him out for too much partying.
“All I’m asking for is an hour,” she said. “Two at the most.”