She set her jaw. “You did not hear me say no. I already told you I’ve been known to use men.”
“You also told me you were off them.”
“But I didn’t say for how long.” Just before she shut the door in his face, she fired her final salvo. “Good night, Rocket Man.”
Piper woke to the sound of a halyard slapping the metal flagpole outside her window. During the night, a deep sense of disappointment had burrowed inside her, and she did her best to shake it off. His failure to execute might have been humiliating for him, but it was a gift to her. Things had gone far enough-much too far-without that final intimacy.
What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. Something about Cooper Graham made her disengage her brain. One thing was blindingly clear: despite their banter, despite the attraction he undeniably held for her, she wasn’t going down that path with him again, no matter how good it had been. Almost fantastic. The hard tension of his body under her palms. Those skillful hands that knew just where to go. She shivered.
They barely spoke over a breakfast of strawberry muffins and a delicious ham and cheese frittata she could only pick at. Piper dreaded the hours she’d be locked in the car alone with him, and as they set off from Two Harbors, she was as tightly wound as an ignition coil.
Instead of berating herself about what had happened, she should be happy that she’d made the great Cooper Graham lose control. But she didn’t feel happy. She could only hope he wouldn’t bring up last night because if he did, she’d have to play all her smart-ass cards, and she wasn’t sure how many she had left.
They’d barely cleared the iron ore docks before he released a diabolical chuckle. “Face it, Sherlock. You’re easy pickin’s. All I have to do is take off my shirt, and you’re pretty much a lost cause.”
And here they went again. Off to the wisecrack races.
“That’s true,” she said. “Male chests have always been my weakness. Seriously, Coop, if you get any more muscular, you’ll be scratching your armpits and wolfing down bananas.”
“You let me worry about that while you figure out how you’re going to help me with my little problem.”
“Excellent idea. Shut up for the next four hundred miles so I can ponder it.”
Another chuckle, which was fine with her, as long as they didn’t talk.
He should have tossed her right back on the bed and screwed her brains out until she begged him to get to the finish line. Instead, he’d been too mortified to think straight, and he’d dueled with her. Winning was in his blood, and he hated feeling like a loser. Hated even more knowing she had to be seeing him that way. He couldn’t pull off to the side of the road and throw her in the backseat like he wanted, but the silence in the car was getting to him. Somehow he had to show her he was still the quarterback of their team.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation last night,” he said, “and you might have a point.”
“I usually do.”
She’d loosened her seat belt enough to tuck a leg under her. If she’d been wearing shorts instead of jeans, he’d have had a clear view of the inside of her thigh. A thigh, he now knew, that was firm, smooth, and fine. He hurried on. “What if I’m missing out by not taking a little more time in the sack with my lady friends?”
She pulled a face. “It’s so sad. All those traumatized women believing your problem is their fault. I should open a counseling office.”
He would not laugh. “Yep. The more I think about it, the more I think you’re right. I might have a sex problem.”
“Fortunately, there are a lot of books on the subject.”
“Hell, I’m not much of a reader. Too many words to sound out.”
“Interesting. I’ve found all kinds of books in the apartment.”
“Cleaning people musta left ’em.” He kept dishing out the bull, exactly the way it had to be between them. “Since you’re the one who pointed out my problem, it’s only fair that you help me work through it. Only as a sex partner, you understand. This has nothing to do with our professional relationship.”
She glanced over at him, all full of fake regret. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’ve kind of lost interest.”
No way a woman who’d responded the way she had last night wasn’t still interested, but he only nodded. “I understand.”
They were quiet for a while. To relieve the tension, Piper called Jada to find out how her killing spree was progressing. Very well, as it turned out. She’d offed five more of her classmates. Eventually, they made a stop for fast food, and Piper took over the driving. By the time they reached the Illinois border, the effort to appear relaxed had left her shoulders screaming. She struggled to find a topic of conversation that would take them through the last leg of this unending trip. “I happen to know you’re a real softy. And I mean that in a nonsexual way. Although…”
He choked on his Coke.
She smiled to herself. “These hospital visits you make to Lurie…”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
He knew, all right. Even though he managed to sneak in and out of Lurie Children’s Hospital without attracting the attention of the press, she’d uncovered the interesting fact that he spent a lot of time visiting sick children. “I can’t picture you around kids.” Another lie. From what she’d seen, he was as relaxed with children as he was around beautiful women. “You can tell me. It’s the hot nurses, right?”
“Now you’re embarrassin’ me.”
“But there’s one mystery I can’t figure out. Not even with my amazing detecting skills.”
“Shocker.”
“When I was following you, you’d sometimes hang out on the mean streets with various scurvy-looking characters. What’s that about?”
He polished off his Coke. “Shootin’ the bull, that’s all.”
“I don’t believe you. Tell me. I’m like a priest.”
“You’re not anything like a priest. You’re-”
“Stop stalling.”
He shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s… I’m not going to do anything about it, so there’s no point discussing it.”
But something told her he wanted to talk, and she welcomed any topic that didn’t lead back to the bedroom. She waited.
He gazed out the passenger window. “I had this idea… But it takes too much time and too much effort, with no guarantee of a payoff.” He turned back to her. “All those empty city lots are a waste. Nothing but weeds and trash.”
She was starting to get the picture. “You’d like to do something more about that than throw seed bombs.”
He shrugged. “There are too many people with no jobs and no prospects. All those empty plots of land. Seems like an opportunity for somebody.”
“But not for you.”
“Hell, no. All I’m interested in now is business.” He pulled out his cell and called Tony.
She listened to them talk about the new bouncer Tony had hired to replace Dell, who’d been fired four days ago. She wondered if Coop had figured out yet that she’d finished her job for him.
After six nights on the floor, she’d done as much as she could. His staff was clean, and she and Tony had put together new procedures that should keep things relatively honest. Her salary from Coop, along with the pay from her chauffeur job, would hold her over for a while. How long depended on what was in the tip envelope the limo owner was collecting for her and how much further she could stretch out her job at Spiral. Her job that was over.
She told herself to think more like a shark and less like a Girl Scout. The salary Coop paid was her lifeline, and she needed to hold on to her job. Except there was no more she could do for him.