Lucy Ellis - Mistresses - Just One Night - Never Stay Past Midnight / A Dangerous Solace / One Secret Night

“I should have canceled … I just thought if I saw you tonight—”

She broke off with a weary shake of her head that made the center of his chest ache as if he’d taken a blow to it. “What did you think?”

“That you’d distract me. Do what you always do and make me forget about everything else.” With each word, her eyes darkened like a swollen rain cloud about to burst. “Just for a few hours.”

“That’s what you want? Me to make you forget?” He would have liked her to confide in him. To share her burden, but maybe the distance she kept was smarter than this playacting at intimacy he couldn’t seem to resist.

“It was stupid—”

Catching the soft curve of her cheek in his palm, Levi tipped her face to meet his. Gave in to a single second of wondering how this woman had the ability to affect him so completely differently than any woman he’d met before. And then pushed every ounce of his cocky arrogance to the fore as he intentionally crowded into her space.

“What, you don’t think I can do it?” Fingers trailing lightly up her hip, waist, and ribs to graze the outer swell of her breast, he lowered his voice to a slow, seductive taunt and spoke against the soft shell of her ear. “Guess I’ve got something to prove, then.”

“Come on. You need to eat.” Levi laid the boxes of pasta all’arrabbiata, fresh baked bread, and insalata caprese across the foot of the bed as Elise curled her legs beneath her at the center.

“I know. I just lose track when there are too many things on my mind.”

Forking up a spicy penne, Levi pulled a distraught frown. “Are you telling me I didn’t distract you enough?”

Hand up to him, she clutched the sheet to her chest, laughing. “I’m distracted! I swear.”

So distracted, it was a miracle she was sitting upright and not sleeping in a boneless heap of sated exhaustion.

“Yeah, well, just in case—” He rounded the bed, coming to sit behind her as he held the pasta to her mouth, waiting for her to bite.

Delicious.

“Let’s talk about your favorite subject. The studio. Do you want to tell me about the wood you think would be best in the studios or the quotes you got on the Pilates machines? I’m game, either way.”

A weight lifted as she drifted toward the comfort of her fantasies and plans—the productive escape she used to shut out all the things beyond her control.

Even Levi saw that she’d turned talk about the club into some kind of security blanket.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, wondering again what she would do if the studio plans fell through. She’d put everything into this one, abstract idea.

Her breath came short. “Oh, God, what if the loan doesn’t go through?”

Fingertips trailed down her spine and then the flat of his heel rubbed low across her back. “It will. Don’t worry.”

“It’s just that I can’t even imagine what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.” Peering over her shoulder at Levi stretched across the bed, she confessed, “I haven’t got another plan. I mean, it’s not as though I won’t have work. But there’s no next step. No fallback plan. I’ve put everything into this studio and suddenly I feel like if it doesn’t go through, I’m going to be left with nothing.”

Suddenly nothing held a whole new meaning for her. When things had ended with Eric she’d been upset. She’d felt abandoned. But even just twelve months ago things had been different with her parents than they were now—she’d looked into her father’s eyes and, once in a while, she’d still seen him looking back. Today, even her mother was shutting her out.

And then there was Levi. She’d never shared a connection with anyone like this before. Whether it was one-sided or completely skewed the scales in balance didn’t matter. She finally knew what it was to have someone 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.