who made her feel whole. Someone who added colors to the world she’d never seen before. Losing that, she suspected, was going to be worse than if she’d never had it at all.
And without the studio to distract her—
“No,” Levi said, cutting into her spiraling thoughts. “If it doesn’t go through you modify your plan and try something else.”
“There you go again. Always with the straightforward simple solution.” Her eyes heavied as the slow rub of his hands over her muscles calmed the tension within her. “What am I going to do when you’re gone?”
The words drifted past her lips without thought, riding on a soft sigh that ended as abruptly as the calming strokes that spurred them. It was the first time she’d said anything like that. The first time she’d acknowledged that she’d begun to rely on him. And she’d done it aloud.
Strong hands wrapped around her hips and towed her across the mattress and into Levi’s lap. Two shifts and she was laid back, held in the crook of one strong arm, while the other braced on the bed across her torso—the position somehow making her feel both protected and vulnerable all at once.
“So maybe you need a backup plan. Let’s start one.” Thick hanks of hair hung over Levi’s brow, darkening his eyes as they bored into hers. “What if you came with me?”
The words seemed to eat up all the air between them, making her “What?” come out in a wheeze that sounded far more desperate than it should have.
“If the loan doesn’t go through, why not come up to Seattle with me for a while? We’ll work on a new business plan together.” The corner of his mouth eased into that cocky grin. “As it happens, I have a knack for that sort of thing. I’m familiar with the neighborhoods you’ve been looking at around here. We could fly back a couple of times to work out the details. Meanwhile, you could see SoundWave coming together. The grand opening will knock your socks off.”
She had no doubt. Especially considering she was stunned to the point of being blown over already.
He wasn’t supposed to ask her to go.
Granted, what he was talking about was temporary. Nothing more than an extension to their affair with the added bonus of access to his business savvy. Only she still couldn’t get enough air in her lungs and started to shimmy out of his hold. “A new business plan?”
Levi followed her out of the bed. “It’d be a few months. We’re having fun, so why not?”
Why not? Why not? Why not?
It was like a cruel joke without a punch line.
A million reasons. All flashing through her mind in the faces she loved too much to abandon.
“I can’t. My family is here.” And even if she wasn’t leaving for good, a few months was too long to risk being gone. Too much could happen in that time and what if they needed her? This week with her mom alone demonstrated just how quickly things could change. No. She couldn’t leave.
“Besides—” she pushed all the confidence she could muster into her voice “—the loan’s going to go through, right?”
“Right.” That cocky smile closed in on her and then Levi pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips before striding from the room.
She’d blown him off, thank God.
Heart slamming in his chest, fists locked around the edges of the porcelain sink, Levi stared hard into the bathroom mirror.
What in the hell had he been doing, suggesting Elise come to Seattle? It made no sense. Her life was here. Firmly and solidly rooted in all the things she’d never give up. And he was a rolling stone. Practiced in kicking off the moss that amounted to a superficial collection of employees, acquaintances, and belongings accumulated during the development of each club.
It was what he did.
He moved on. Alone.
So what was he doing asking Elise to come with him?
Sure, it wasn’t as if he’d been proposing. He’d basically invited her to a two-month, off-site tutorial on how to set up a new business—and only if her current plans fell through. He cared about her, of course. She was a sweet girl with ambitions he could respect and a struggle he could relate to. So he’d offered some help, figuring it would give them both time to get their fill of whatever it was between them.
He hadn’t been trying to keep her.
Never expected her to agree.
Truth be told, the fact that Elise turned him down flat made her all the more appealing. He hadn’t thought it possible, but she wanted even less from this relationship than he did.
Perfect.
Man, he was a head case.
Pushing back from the too intense guy in the mirror, Levi shook off the tension from his close call. Ignored the nagging tug at his gut and the faintly bitter taste of something he couldn’t quite swallow in his throat.
Maybe tomorrow he’d ease back some with Elise. Only as he swung open the door and caught sight of the bare length of skin exposed as she leaned over the pasta—the tentative smile that seemed to stretch wider with his own—he forgot about any plan he had beyond being with her.
RESTLESS beneath a cover of thin cotton, Elise followed the streak of late-night headlights as they stole through the slats in the blinds and cut a path across her bedroom ceiling.
Though Seattle hadn’t come up once in the week since Levi mentioned it, the moment was never far from her mind.
He hadn’t been pressing for a commitment. She knew that.
Levi had been clear about the temporary nature of the invitation extended. That all he was talking about was a couple of months. A little more fun.
Except Elise couldn’t stop reading it as more than that. She couldn’t stop her thoughts at the point where Levi told her they’d play a little longer before he sent her packing back home with a shiny new plan for a future that would take place in a different state than the one where he resided. No, she couldn’t leave well enough alone. She’d had to take it a step further … to the fact they shouldn’t have been anything but a single night. But already it had been a month and still Levi didn’t think he was going to be ready to give her up by the time he needed to leave. He’d reconsidered his plans, again.
Queasy nerves stirred her belly and Elise rolled to her side, tucking her knees up close.
Now Levi was suggesting—albeit, only as an alternative if her loan was denied—they turn the single month that remained into another three? What then?
Nothing was as set in stone as she’d believed entering the relationship. Levi had destroyed the security she’d had in knowing that, no matter how much she’d begun to care for him, there were those hard and fast rules, inflexible boundaries that kept her from getting in too deep. From finding herself in another position
