CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mira Lyn Kelly
MIRA LYN KELLY grew up in the Chicago area and earned her degree in fine arts from Loyola University. She met the love of her life while studying abroad in Rome, Italy, only to discover he’d been living right around the corner from her for the previous two years. Having spent her twenties working and playing in the Windy City, she’s now settled with her husband in rural Minnesota, where their four beautiful children provide an excess of action, adventure and entertainment.
With writing as her passion and inspiration striking at the most unpredictable times, Mira can always be found with a notebook at the ready. (More than once the neighbors have caught her, covered in grass clippings, scribbling away atop the compost container!)
When she isn’t reading, writing or running to keep up with the kids, she loves watching movies, blabbing with the girls and cooking with her husband and friends. Check out her website, www.miralynkelly.com, for the latest dish!
In loving memory of John Morrow.
SUMMER night, weighted with the heavy thud of bass, poured thick through the converted loft’s open windows above. Industrial fans churned overhead, each slow revolution mixing the rhythm-rich, humid air with the heady perfume of bodies in union.
Levi Davis rubbed his jaw against the smooth curve of a toned calf, before easing it off his shoulder to skim down his side in one long, soft, leggy caress. As distractions went, he couldn’t have done better than this smoke-eyed, soft laughing, yogilates instructor reveling in a one-night exception to the rules she lived by.
Sexy.
Unexpected.
Elise.
Arching beneath him to graze her teeth over the tendon at his neck, she moaned softly, “You are so wrong for me.”
“Completely,” he assured with a gruff laugh as he pushed a hank of sweat-damp hair from his brow and rolled to his side. Took in the trim lines of the woman beside him, the silky waves of her hair spilling over his pillow, the smooth limbs tangling in high thread count as she stretched and twisted amid the sheets.
Damn, she’d been exactly what he needed. A full contact, deep impact, whole mind and body diversion from HeadRush. From the bands and the bars, from walking the rooms and working the customers. From the restless energy that came part and parcel with this leg of the gig. The job was done, the club everything he’d envisioned it could be … The development phase was the fun part for him. Taking his vision and making it real. But once the kinks worked out, Levi was eyeing the calendar, tapping his foot, just waiting for the clock to run down so he could take his profit, blow town, and start again. Unfortunately, a key component to that profit he’d become so accustomed to was a club with a six-month proven track record for pulling a crowd. And he still had a few weeks to go.
So he was stuck.
He’d been stir-crazy. Watching his well-oiled machine run without a hitch. Feeling the press of no pressure around him. The confines of a challenge exhausted.
He’d needed a break to shake it off.
Which was how he’d found her.
Nine-thirty. Both of them walking the aisles of a late-night Chicago bookstore a half-mile away. He’d liked the look of her. So serious, with her nose buried in some beginner’s guide to small business. Liked the sound of her even more when his first teasing comment garnered more than a tentative smile. When her nervous fluster gave way to a burgeoning excitement about the studio she planned to open. And then they’d just talked.
He hadn’t been after a challenge. Not consciously anyway. But it was right there …
He
