Never Stay Past Midnight

Praise for Mira Lyn Kelly

‘Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring? is a hot, steamy romance that takes the main characters by surprise … Take note, I predict that debut author Mira Lyn Kelly will soon become a soaring star rising in the world of romance writers.’ —www.cataromance.com on Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring?

‘This debut book was incredible, and a well-crafted,

supercharged romance!’

—www.marilyns-romance-reviews.blogspot.com on

Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring?

‘Likable characters, humour and scorching passion

ensures that this story doesn’t fall victim to a clichéd premise.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant

‘A beautiful and sizzling love story.’

—www.pinkheartsociety.com on

Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant

About the Author

About 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 she’s been caught by the neighbours, 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!

Never Stay Past Midnight

Mira Lyn Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Also by Mira Lyn Kelly

The S Before Ex

Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant!

Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

In loving memory of John Morrow

PROLOGUE

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 wasn’t her type. She didn’t do casual. They were incompatible in every way—except the one charging the spaces between their odd topics with an awareness he didn’t want to ignore.

As it turned out, Elise was a challenge he couldn’t resist. And by the time her breathy “Just tonight” feathered over his lips, he’d been thanking his stars for that.

Levi drew a finger down the tantalizing slope of her shoulder. That alluring combination of good-girl smile and bad-girl bare skin making him want to sink into her again, spend another few hours lost in—

“So, thank you,” Elise said, abruptly levering to sit and then looking around as if taking in a scene she didn’t quite know what to do with.

Something was off.

“Umm, that was really nice …” She winced a little, hesitated and then reached over to … pat his hand? “And I should get going.”

Nice? What the—? Okay. So she was nervous again.

Because she hadn’t done this before. Made sense.

And he hadn’t been prepared for it … because he hadn’t been with someone who hadn’t done this before.

“Hey, Elise,” he started, reaching out only to have her roll from the bed and start systematically pulling on all the clothing he’d stripped off her less than an hour before. The clothes he hadn’t planned on pouring her back into for at least another hour still.

Over her shoulder, she shot him a hesitant glance. “I’m sure I won’t see you around, so, good luck with the new club in Seattle.”

Levi’s brows drew down at the awkward transition. The new and immediate tension radiating from the body that, a moment ago, had been pliant in his arms.

This was a brush-off. Unmistakable in its familiarity, only foreign in that he generally wasn’t on the receiving end. It shouldn’t matter whether he was the one calling an end to the night’s activities. He ought to be grateful there wasn’t some uncomfortable scene—okay, a more uncomfortable scene—and a slew of misplaced expectations to contend with.

Yeah, he should have been grateful but, watching that tumble of sexy curls spill around her shoulders as she fiddled with the fluttery top she’d been wearing … he wasn’t.

Willing her hands steady, Elise Porter tied her halter and dug an elastic out of her jeans pocket. Gathering her hair in a careless wad, she bound it in place, fighting the slow burn of humiliation crawling over her neck.

Thank you?

I’m sure I won’t see you around?

Talk about killing a moment. She was ruining everything.

Why couldn’t this guy have just collapsed in a heap beside her? Fallen asleep, and let her escape without a word. Without the rude reminder of her absolute inexperience in matters of casual sex?

This wasn’t the memory she wanted to take with her. Heat burning over her cheeks and that single gruff cough of—of whatever awkward response it was—sounding behind her.

Okay, well, no more talk. Even if she’d been doing a passing job of it, a furtive glance at the clock confirmed there wasn’t time. She just needed to get her things, and go. Quickly.

Halter. Jeans. Panties.

Check, check, check.

Wallet and keys. By the door … where she’d dropped them when they got inside.

For shame, bad girl, she thought with a curling little smile she didn’t have the time to indulge in.

But where the heck were her shoes? Searching the floor, she came to a halt at Levi’s bare feet stepping into a pair of faded jeans by the bed.

Oh … “No.”

A bark of masculine laugher answered and her gaze shot the length of him—taking in everything from his commando state beneath the low-hung denim, to the hard-cut ridges banding his abdomen, and the wry twist of his mouth and crinkled lines around his eyes.

God, he was good-looking. Too good. She swallowed, turning away before she went all weak-kneed again … and ended up back in the bed she’d just squirmed out of.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean don’t get up,” she said, an anxious sort of desperation driving her to put some distance between them.

She’d known exactly what she was getting into with Levi when she came back to his apartment. Sex. Simple and straightforward. A good time. The kind she’d read about in magazines and seen on TV. No strings. No repercussions. No expectations she couldn’t meet.

It was a one-time, one-night concession granted on the grounds of extenuating chemistry. That and maybe the crazy high she’d been riding since submitting the loan application for the yoga/Pilates studio she and her fellow instructor hoped to open. She’d been ready to burst for hours after leaving the bank—excitement and anticipation thrumming through her veins—with no outlet in sight. So she’d hit the bookstore, intending to brush up on her business know-how, only she’d brushed up against Levi Davis instead.

He’d been gorgeous and funny and so totally, unapologetically everything she’d always stayed away from. But she’d laid the first brick in the foundation of a new life that afternoon. And that night, marking the occasion with one reckless act of indulgence had proved too tempting to resist.

The only thing was, Elise didn’t do casual sex. Not that casual even remotely described the kind of carnal intensity she’d experienced in the bed behind her. She made love. Or at least that was what it had been through the two long-term relationships that, until an hour ago, had been the sum total of her sexual experience.

So this was a one-time, magic-ends-at-mid- night, exception to a rule—albeit a rule forged more from a lifetime of habit and circumstance than any real moral standpoint, a rule nonetheless. And with mere minutes until twelve—the time she’d sworn to herself she’d be gone by—she was in jeopardy of violating the most critical element of the exception.

One night.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m going to scoot out of here … just as soon as I find my shoes.” Or maybe without the shoes if she didn’t find them in the next one-hundred-twenty seconds.

Levi flicked on the bedside lamp, throwing a weak circle of light around them. Scanning the floor, he picked up the duvet piled at the foot of the bed.

“Here we go.” He handed over one while considering the other thoughtfully. “It’s like a spike heel, a boot, and a sandal all in one.”

Yeah, well, that was all well and good, except she didn’t really want Levi’s take on her shoes or anything else for that matter. No more charm. No more chatter. No more opportunities to taint a memory she fully intended to savor for time eternal with her clumsy replies and awkward talk.

She just wanted out. She needed to go.

Balancing on one foot rather than revisiting the scene of seduction to sit, Elise hopped about, working the boot onto her foot.

Sweeping his own set of keys off the floor and then grabbing hers, Levi eyed her feet. “Are they comfortable enough to walk in or should we drive?”

Uh-h-h … “You don’t need to take me back. Really, I’m good with picking up a cab.” HeadRush was right next door and the popular South Loop club had a line of taxis stretching halfway down the block. There wouldn’t even be a wait.

“We’ll drive, then.”

Opening her mouth to protest, she closed it just as quickly beneath the pointed, unyielding stare leveled on her. A reminder of the authoritative edge that had periodically revealed itself through the course of the night. Two hours ago she’d found it dangerously exciting. Attractive. But now—well, fine, she still found it attractive, just not so convenient.

Not when she only had—a quick glance at the clock beside his bed showed the time at eleven fifty-nine. Her heart sank as the numbers flashed to twelve.

Now she’d done it.

Another broken rule.

That would be the last though—and getting in a car with a stranger didn’t count, considering she’d already been in his bed. So no more broken rules. No more missteps. Just straight home and a polite goodbye.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded graciously. “Thank you.”

It was ten more minutes. Really, what could happen?

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU did it in a car!”

A week already and still with this.

Elise pushed a windblown curl from her brow and stared, disbelieving, across the hood of the Volvo Wagon at her sister. “That is not an explanation for setting me up on a blind date. Which, incidentally, I can’t believe you’re dropping on me the same hour you stick me with babysitting Bruno, the puppy beast. There’s got to be a rule about that or something.”

It should have been a perfect day. Following a pre-dawn rain, the sun shone bright against a vivid blue sky dotted with cotton-ball clusters of pure white. It was the first she’d had off in two weeks, and she’d intended to spend at least a piece of it jogging the lakefront paths. She hadn’t even made it past Burnham Harbor when her phone rang, and her sister’s latest emergency sidelined her at the entrance to Soldiers Field—where she stood now, withering on the receiving end of her sister’s caustic glare.

Ally Porter-Davis shook her head, disappointment coloring her words. “A car, Elise.”

Yes, well, more accurately, she’d done it in a bed. And then a car. And then against the door just inside her apartment. But somehow she didn’t think the clarification would win her any points.

“The car part was an accident.”

Ally’s brow arched impossibly high. “An accident? Like he, what, just fell in?”

Cheeks flaming, Elise shook her head. “No! Like I wasn’t planning for it to happen again … we were at a stoplight and he asked how long I’d lived in the neighborhood and when I looked back at him to answer …” She closed her eyes, awash in the heat of that moment, the look in his eyes when they’d skimmed down her body; the feel of those big hands pulling her over him left her shuddering—

“That! Right there.” Ally rounded the back end, tapping her fingers against the backseat window as she passed. “That look and—and full body meltdown—that’s the reason I’m setting you up. You need a man. A relationship with someone nice and reliable. Someone you can lean on. Not some thanks-for-the-free-ride-in-my-car guy you’re too ashamed to give me the name of either.”

“I don’t need anyone. And, nice try, but I’m not giving you his name because you’d have him Googled and the whole sordid scenario up on Facebook with six of your mommy-and-me compadres posting comments in less than an hour’s time.”

“Excuses.” Ally popped the trunk and took a step back as her six-month-old Great Dane bounded free of his confine, spun around with a frighteningly exuberant bark, and then lunged, pinning Elise to the passenger side door. “And about Bruno. Thanks for bailing me out with him. You were the only one I could ask.”

The wind knocked effectively from her lungs, Elise stared down at the two saucer-sized puppy paws, planted dead center over her breasts. Shooting an accusing look at her sister, she wheezed, “You are so on my list.”

Ally waved her off, closing the trunk with her hip. “Your ‘So hip-deep in trouble’ list?”

For crying out loud. Well, if she broke it down to the acronym, then yeah. This was what happened when people had babies and they struggled with creative ways to stop swearing. “That’s the one.”

“He’s a puppy. You can’t put him on your list.”

As if. Bruno might be the one feeling her up, but it was Ally who’d dropped not one bomb, but two on her today. “I’m not talking about Bruno. I’m talking about you!”

“Me?” Ally spun on her, one hand fisted on her hip, the other swatting at the air in indignant protest. “I’ll grant I owe you for dog-sitting like this. But on the date … I’m doing you a favor. That little incident last week was a cry for help if ever I heard one.”

This was what she got for confiding.

“It wasn’t a cry for anything—” Bruno stomped his big paw with renewed puppy vigor “—aghg, Bruno, no!—least of all matchmaking services.”

“Right. You haven’t been out on a date since Eric. And that was over a year ago. I’ve been telling you for months it was time to move on and find someone new, but you keep brushing me off with all the business about not being ready and no time or energy, needing to ‘do something’ with your life. Blah, blah, blah … And then you go and pick up some random guy—who does not count as a date, by the way—and do it in a car. I’m sorry, but if that doesn’t smack of desperation, I don’t know what does.”

Elise coughed out her protest. “I am not desperate!”

“Denial, is it? Well, consider this my intervention, sister. Some day you’ll thank me.”

Some day she’d strangle her.

“I’m not going out with him,” Elise said flatly, considering only too late where that kind of statement would take her.

Ally’s arms crossed as her upper lip curved into that bossy big-sister sneer. “And I’m not canceling for you.”

A battle of wills. The kind that never seemed to end the way she wanted it to.

“Which means, Elise, if you don’t show up, then Hank—a nice, emotionally in-touch, stand-up man—will be sitting there Friday night … waiting …” Ally’s face screwed up into a facsimile of the would-be angst this Hank would suffer “… wondering why … Was it something about him …? Maybe he should just stop trying … putting himself out there and give up …”

Ugh.

This was why she never won … her sister knew just how to hit her.

Elise let out a long-suffering sigh that Ally batted off like a gnat as she pulled open the rear door of the wagon to check the infant restraints and coo at her groggy son. Straining beneath Bruno’s weight, Elise pushed to her toes and craned her neck to catch a peek of that beautiful downy head.

“So sweet,” she whispered to her sister, who beamed back appreciatively as she quietly shut the door.

But then Ally was back to business. Hand on hip, stubborn chin leading the helm. “You might like him. Come on, it’s a couple of hours. What’s the big deal?”

The big deal was Elise didn’t want to like this Hank who came so highly recommended. She was afraid to meet some guy who might be perfect, because she wasn’t in a place in her life with room for a perfect man.

Her thumb rubbed at the fourth finger of her left hand, and that same twinge of bitterness and sorrow stirred at the feel of the bare skin there.

She simply didn’t have enough to give. Not yet. She was starting her own business. Trying to build something, not just for herself, but for all of them. And even once she got it going, she’d probably still need to hang on to one or two of her other jobs. Between that and the situation with her family, she’d be lucky to find herself with five minutes to spare. Let alone the requisite time for phone calls and dates it took to get to know someone.

Whoever this Hank was, he deserved more. Better. “I’m really not interested.”

Ally clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and shrugged. “But you’re going anyway. Later, sis.”

Six miles and Levi hadn’t found it yet. That quiet numb where thinking shut down and nothing registered but the repetitive slap of his feet hitting pavement. The quiet place where he could mentally disconnect. Recharge. Clear his head. Following the network of intersecting paths at the south end of Grant Park—the grassy lakefront oasis within an urban sprawl, proudly referred to as Chicago’s “front yard”—he pushed toward the pedestrian overpass and the far-reaching tracks that ran beneath. Tried to find some sort of Zen place within the gusty wind and rush of traffic, but he couldn’t quite get there.

Sweat stung his eyes and oxygen burned through his lungs with each hard pull of breath. Still he kept thinking about the call earlier that morning from his guy in Seattle. Another problem with the contractor. The kind that Levi could have resolved within thirty seconds if he’d been there, but now had them pushed back another day at least.

Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off—

“Bruno, heel!” The cry rang out, tugging Levi’s consciousness out of that middle space and settling it firmly on a remarkably familiar knot of blonde curls bobbing atop a tight little curvy package of a woman as she stumbled down the path, one arm tethered to a dog almost as big as she was.

Elise. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he followed her with his eyes.

Miss Exceptionally Distracting herself. She’d blown his mind with that crazy, bendy body and those soft, breathy cries at his ear. Her smart-mouthed teasing, nervous fluster, and broken rules.

They’d been good together and he liked her a damned lot. But he had his own rules regarding women like Elise—women who were all about commitment. To their families, their relationships, themselves. He left them alone—and he’d already broken his rules once just to get a taste of her. Only that taste merely whetted his palate for more and it had been a near miracle that he’d finally let her go. Which was why, as much as he might like another foray into the kind of compelling distraction she’d offered, he veered off to the opposite path from the one she occupied. Pushed his thoughts to the rising skyline reaching wide ahead of him. Michigan Avenue … still a good distance from Elise’s Printer’s Row apartment.

He didn’t remember a dog.

That one would have been tough to miss.

Turn it off, turn it off, turn it …

Of course, now that he’d seen her, now that he knew she was right over there, she was back in his mind, daring him to revisit the details of a night he hadn’t quite had enough of. Thinking how he’d gotten lost in her body … in her laugh … in that hellfire hot kiss when she’d been pinned against the steering wheel—