Girl Trouble

Dedication

For Tiffany Reisz, my literary Siren and favorite kind of girl trouble.

Chapter One

Kat St. James opened her eyes and saw two other naked bodies in bed with her. It wasn’t an unheard-of circumstance, but not being able to remember their names put her at a distinct disadvantage. She held very still to avoid waking up Blond and Blondie and racked her brain to puzzle out the fuzzy details. Just trying to think kicked off a headache that began in the center of her spine and reached for her eyelashes.

She remembered upside-down margaritas in the kitchen and cigarettes, lots of them, which certainly explained the tequila-and-dead-ashtray taste in her mouth. Her cast mates had been delighted to pour again and again, and Kat couldn’t blame them for wanting to drown her. She had been a straight-up bitch during the shooting of
Proprietors
.

Her memory ran in flashes over the evening, filling in more painful details. Blond and Blondie had arrived together. Blond was a grip—she’d worked with him a few times. She hadn’t recognized the woman, but Blondie’s fresh-faced beauty had stolen her breath. Lust had pulsed through her veins at the exact rate of the alcohol in her blood. She tried to leave the good girls alone. They were too tempting. But booze had stripped away her good intentions. It always did. Good old tequila.

Blond had been on the patio with Cindy, Kat’s body double. From the back, Kat and Cindy were identical, but Cindy couldn’t compete with Kat in a full-frontal comparison, and they both knew it. Kat prowled closer.

“Hey, Cindy, enjoying the party?” Kat kept her eyes on the tall, blond man.

“You bet, Kat. You always throw great parties. Love the band.”

“Uh-huh.” She flashed the practiced grin that had made her famous—part devil, part dare, but mostly just pure fun. She
was
fun, and the raw appreciation glowing in Blond’s eyes and the tequila firing her blood told her he’d like to have some. His arm slid around her waist, signaling he’d be more than willing to disappear with her, but that wasn’t what Kat had in mind.

“Let’s find your girlfriend,” she whispered in his ear.

On cue, the woman appeared in the doorway. She was backlit, smooth, corn-silk hair glowing like a halo around her shadowed face as she walked toward them. Kat felt her nipples tighten and her pussy tingle. Oh, God, Blondie was so close…almost perfect.

“Let’s go, kids,” Kat said to the pair. Her arms had felt light as an angel’s forgiveness as she circled their waists and led them up the back stairs to her bedroom.

Jesus Christ.
That certainly explained everything, didn’t it?

Kat carefully rolled over and eyed the sleeping woman.

In the light of day, she was still pretty. Beautiful, even by LA standards. Her skin was flawless and peachy. Her hair was a near-perfect dye job, highlights, lowlights, the whole shebang. Her breasts were real, her nipples pale brown and soft. She curled in to her boyfriend’s side, one leg nestled between his. Clearly, she was used to being there.

Kat didn’t feel the slightest desire to touch her. In the dark, with all that tequila singing through her veins, the woman had been close enough. This morning, with a crippling case of the hangover blues pressing down on her like a lead blanket, Blondie and boyfriend were just another reminder of who Kat really wanted and didn’t have.

She threw back the covers and gave the bed a hard bounce as she sat up. The couple stirred. By the red streaking their eyes, she figured they might also have a few lucky gaps in their memories. They blinked, gazes darting around the room and settling, uncomprehendingly, on her naked body. Kat stretched her arms over her head, adopting an attitude of supreme, unselfconscious well-being.

“Last night was a blast,” she lied softly. “I hate to throw you out, but I’ve got a reading in an hour.” She leaned over to kiss Bob—that was his name—on the mouth. She kissed the woman on the cheek, closing her eyes for an instant. Self-loathing tightened her throat, so she stood and flashed another smile. “Take your time grabbing your things. My staff is accustomed to guests.” It was a warning designed to put them at ease while encouraging them to leave.

She felt their eyes on her naked back with every step she took toward the bathroom. As she shut the door behind her, she heard them burst into laughter. She ran a bath, hoping the Jacuzzi jets would blast away her acute self-hatred.

Depression plagued her for the rest of the day. It ruined her reading, killed her appetite and destroyed her desire to do anything productive. She knew her state of mind was alcohol induced and temporary, but that didn’t help her shitty mood. The only thing that would cure her was time and a good night’s rest, but it was barely dark, way too early to go to bed, especially when she would lie awake with her memories. She paced the length of her living room and stopped at the well-stocked bar in the corner. Hair of the dog? Maybe just one teeny, tiny hair.

She tossed back a shot of tequila and considered another. One shot was medicinal. Two would make her want three. Three would have her making phone calls, and four would make tomorrow feel like today. She put the bottle back on the shelf and dropped onto the most comfortable couch in the living room. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her arm, sighing loudly, just for effect.

“Ms. St. James?”

She let her arm flop down to her side and opened one eye, beadily.

Her housekeeper was standing in the doorway. “There’s a taxi at the gate. The driver insists his passenger will be a welcome guest.” From her tone, it was clear Mrs. Clarke was not so certain.

Clarke was old school. She did not approve of unexpected arrivals of any kind, and that was part of why they got along so well. Kat knew she could bring home whomever she pleased, and after they cleared the gate on their way out, they wouldn’t get back in without her express permission. She was fairly well convinced Clarke had a brass pair hanging beneath her starched apron. Inexplicably, the middle-aged housekeeper had a soft spot for Kat, who she claimed was not beyond hope of rehabilitation.

“Well? Who is it?”

Clarke didn’t bat an eye at Kat’s peremptory tone. Nothing short of a hundred decibels could ruffle her scales. “Bonita Pritchard.”

Kat’s hangover disappeared in an instant. Adrenaline shot through her veins. It made her heart race, her mouth dry and her fingertips ice cold.

“Finally.” Her exultant tone drew a raised eyebrow from the starched Mrs. Clarke. “Let her in.”

Bonita stiffened as the taxi accelerated around the hairpin curves of Kat’s long driveway. When they crested the top of the hill, she caught sight of the enormous house and was relieved to see it was situated on firm ground, not hanging over the edge of a cliff, supported by tall struts, like so many of the homes they had passed on their way through the Hollywood Hills.

The driver screeched to a stop in front of the house. She felt no impact, but a fiery crash was coming. She had set it in motion the moment she decided to leave Come Again, the sex shop she owned, in Crystal’s capable hands and left Norton. She’d picked up speed when she got on the plane, and now that she was on the ground in California, every moment before she saw Kat reminded her of the swift slide on the airport runway before the brakes engaged. The only question was whether Kat would hit the brakes or drop a lit match just as Bonita reached her door.

One could never tell with Kat.

Bonita released her seat belt. Should she ask the driver to wait? The old Bonita Pritchard would have him stay until she was sure she didn’t need a ride back to the airport. But this new Bonita was feeling decidedly optimistic. Well, optimistic for her, which was more like fatalistic but forging ahead anyway.

“Last chance, Beauty. Come and get me.”
A husky whisper, a lighthearted challenge left on her voicemail. It put her on edge, just as it did every time Kat called her out to play. This time her siren song had called Bonita across the entire country.

She leaned forward and paid her fare. “You can go. I’ll be fine.”
Probably. Maybe.
She scrubbed her knuckles across her cheeks and rubbed her eyes, a niggling, gypsy fear stealing around the edges of her mind. Kat didn’t know she was coming. She could be working late or partying with a houseful of people. Heck, she could even be out of the country.

The driver got her bag out of the trunk and left it under one of the two palm trees that flanked the front walkway. He jumped back into the taxi and zipped down the driveway. Before Bonita could really consider her half-formed plan of throwing up in the astonishing, brightly tiled fountain, two uniformed security guards appeared, no doubt notified by the other goons at the front gate.

“Good evening, Miss. We’ll need to see your bag before you enter the house.” Bonita suppressed a giggle at being called “Miss”. The security guard was all of twenty-something to her round thirty. She said nothing as they waved their metal-detecting wands around her body and checked her bag, instead focusing on the calming gurgles and the truly stunning Talavera tile work of the fountain.

“Thank you, Miss.” The guard rang the bell for her and nodded politely, then silently disappeared around the side of the house with his partner. Without a warning sound, the front door swung open.

Bonita stared at Kat.

She was ten times more beautiful than she had been in her last movie. Twenty times more magnetic. And about a hundred times more distant. Each film took her further out of reach.

The reality of their situation ripped into Bonita with the punishing lash of a whip. She had been foolish to come here.

“Hello, Beauty.” Kat’s voice was pitched for privacy, and she wrapped her tongue around the words as if she could taste them, teeth flashing.

Saliva rushed to Bonita’s mouth, and blood rushed everywhere else, her long-standing, automatic reaction to being near Kat. She wanted her, immediately, hopelessly and helplessly, any way she could get her. She was drawn to Kat’s fearlessness. Her beauty. Her bad-girl, gonna-fuck-you-’til-you-drop, bone-deep sensuality that was so different from Bonita’s restrained desires.

She tried to tune all of that out and focus on the not-so-hopeless part. Kat had long ago chosen her career over love, but Bonita didn’t need love. She just needed Kat once in a while.

She swallowed. “You answer your own door? I’m impressed.” Oh hell, three years of virtual silence and the best she could come up with was lame sarcasm? That wasn’t what she’d meant to say at all.

“Don’t be. I knew it was you.” Kat tossed her head. Her inky-black hair rained over her proud shoulders. Kat’s hair had been an untamable mane since childhood. Even when her mother had been able to catch her and hold her down, she had never been able to get a brush through all of it. “Come on in, little Beauty.”

“I’m not little.” Bonita squared her shoulders.

“No, but you’ll always be younger than I am. I like to keep you in your place.”

“Two months, Kat. Two months younger than you.” Bonita tried to brush by her, but Kat put a lazy hand on her bare arm. Her jasmine scent made Bonita dizzy with longing, so she held her breath. At least once a month, she would wake from a dream and swear she could smell the warm, seductive scent on her pillow.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me hello? How long has it been?” Kat asked.

“You know as well as I do how long it’s been.” She stumbled over the words. Why did Kat always do this to her? Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. Her brain couldn’t quite bridge the synapses. Her skin felt dry and taut. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Kat’s dark gaze.

“Aside from polite e-mails and skillfully timed voice messages, I’m positive that I haven’t heard from you in three years, darling.” Kat let a bit of Western New York slip into her voice. “And you never answer when I call. Caller ID has given me a fucking complex.”

Kat held her hostage in the doorway, stroking her arms and making the hairs stand on end. Bonita’s breath whooshed out of her lungs. This was why she kept her distance. Being near Kat was dangerous to her self-control. Yet here she was, square in the lioness’s den, planning to bait her, no less. She
was
a total masochist.

“I’m here, Kat,” she said quietly. “Can’t that be enough for now? Can’t I just be here? With you? Can’t we spend some time together?”

“Of course, Beauty.” Kat drew Bonita into the house and shut the door behind her. There was more of the pretty tile in the entryway, textured terra cotta inset with smaller, more intricately designed squares. Hardwood floors stretched beyond the tiled foyer, and to the left, a carved wood staircase with a wrought-iron railing hinted at more grandeur above.