Steel Lust Read Online Free PDF

never walk
anywhere again.”
    He gave her a half-cocked smirk. “You probably wouldn’t be
stranded in Toledo with a broken wheel axle either.”
    She narrowed her eyes playfully. “Is that a foreign-car
joke?” She stepped into the garage and marched around the back of the Jeep.
“Are you making fun of my poor broken Honda?” she asked, poking a finger into
his chest. “I’ll have you know that car has lasted me a good, long time with
zero trouble before today.”
    He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but he was
laughing.
    “I don’t doubt that it has.”
    She gripped the tails of his scarf and went up on her toes
so they were almost nose to nose. “But?”
    He chuckled. “No but.”
    “That’s what I thought,” she said and released him. Then
clutched his scarf and pulled him close again. Her mind blanked when he got
even closer than before. Instinct and desire to kiss him threatened to take
over whatever rational thought she had left.
    “Yes?” he asked mildly.
    “Thank you.” She let go and fixed his scarf. “For
everything.”
    “You’re welcome.” He went around her to open the passenger
door. “Not that you need to thank me. I got out of a day’s worth of boring
paperwork in exchange for a night out in Chicago with a certifiable bombshell.”
    Oh yeah. He was totally getting laid later.
    “How do you know my mother is going to be there?” Even as
she teased him she thrilled at the compliment.
    Without missing a beat he said, “Lucky guess.”
    “Well this must be a lucky day for both of us,” she said and
climbed into the seat.

Chapter Four
     
    The gallery had a prime location in a small storefront in
the heart of Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile, but the crowd was quite a bit
less stuffy than he’d seen at openings he’d been to in the past. There were the
usual handful of old-money art benefactors who took themselves way too
seriously, but there was a good mix of younger, more down-to-earth artist types
as well.
    And it was a good thing he did well in crowds because he’d
hardly seen Joy all evening. For that matter, he’d hardly spoken to her since
they’d left his house hours ago. She’d spent most of the three-and-a-half-hour
ride on her phone with her family, who had to be the worst grapevine ever.
    From what he’d overheard, the broken axle on her car had
turned into her getting into an accident, which quickly turned into her
clinging desperately to life, alone in a hospital bed hundreds of miles from
home.
    She’d laughed about just turning her phone off for a while,
but she was also dealing with the photographer she’d hired so she could attend
her sister’s big evening as a guest. Since the photographer had called her
constantly throughout the drive, turning off her phone wasn’t an option.
    After they’d arrived at her Lakeshore Drive condo she’d
deposited him in a guest room, which had an attached bathroom of its own, and
then disappeared. Thinking he had time, he hadn’t hurried about getting ready,
but she’d been waiting for him when he joined her in her living room no more
than fifteen minutes later.
    She hadn’t done anything more than freshen up her makeup,
change into a knee-weakening little black dress and pin a large red flower
behind her right ear at the base of her ponytail. She looked just as stunning
as he imagined she would have if she’d taken hours to get ready.
    They’d met her family at dinner before the opening. He was a
little worried he would be crashing a private celebration, but there had to
have been more than twenty people already at the table when they arrived. On
time, no less. She’d introduced him to her sisters and mother—who’d thrown her
arms around him, and thanked him profusely in Spanish.
    Truly, he hadn’t minded that part one bit. Not only was
Angelina Pope one of his all-time favorite blues singers, the woman really was
a complete knockout. And while Joy was by far the most beautiful, vivacious