Steel Lust Read Online Free PDF Page B

and
incredibly sexy of the three sisters, Mama Pope had blessed all three of her
daughters with her incredible genetics.
    Middle sister Sunny had an almost androgynous look to her,
with her dark curls cut short and a less-is-more approach to makeup that made
her that much more captivating. The dark pantsuit she was wearing just barely
concealed her curves, but they were definitely there.
    Youngest sister Love was the glamour girl, with her hair dyed
a caramel-colored blonde, cat’s-eye black eyeliner and vivid-red lips. She was
wearing a low-cut, floor-length dress in the same shade of red that left every
single one of her curves on display.
    Leo had no idea how Sunny’s husband Greg survived family get-togethers
without stroking out from lack of blood to the brain in his skull.
    And Joy…he could hardly see straight every time she got
within ten feet of him. She’d blown through the door of Lust for Life early
that afternoon and he hadn’t had a clear thought in his head since. The woman
was the embodiment of raw sex. And his physical reaction to her—to the sound of
her smoky voice, her spicy scent, the touch of her hand—shook him to his core.
    Throughout the evening she would appear at his side, drag
him to this person or that group and introduce him by saying, “This is
Leonardo,” with that sexy little Spanish twist she kept putting on his name.
She’d follow it with a pregnant pause before adding “from Grind” as though the
person she was introducing him to should know exactly what that meant.
    Even funnier was the way most people acted as though they
did.
    If they’d been in Detroit, or even in parts of New York City
where his band had become popular he might have believed some of the younger
crowd knew who he was. But the band’s following in Chicago was small and
consisted mostly of people in their late teens and early twenties who’d been
raised on their parents’ grunge. If he was going to guess, a large number of
the present crowd leaned toward blues, jazz or opera.
    For Leo, the second biggest thrill of the night, after
getting an eyeful of Joy in that dress she was wearing, was getting to meet her
father. John Pope was a soft-spoken, elegant man whose legendary career as a
blues producer and highly sought-after studio musician was almost five decades
long.
    Leo had no idea how long they’d been standing in the corner
talking music when he caught sight of Joy watching them from across the room.
His gaze locked on hers for a long moment. He watched her set aside her
half-full glass of wine on a nearby table without looking. She headed through
the crowd toward them as if she was moving in slow motion, never dropping her
eyes from his.
    It took him a long moment to realize John had stopped
talking.
    Leo turned back to her father and muttered a weak apology.
    “It’s quite all right,” John said, his gaze drifting between
Leo and his daughter. “It still happens to me when I look at her mother.”
    He flinched, his mind spinning for an explanation. Surely he
hadn’t meant that.
    “Dad, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to steal your new
friend for a few minutes.” She looked up at Leo with an odd kind of light in
her eyes. “Do you mind?”
    The question was rhetorical, of course. She’d already hooked
her arm through his and was leading him away.
    “Where are we going?” he whispered close to her ear.
    She didn’t look at him. “You’ll see.”
    They were making their way through the crowd, past the bar
near the back of the room, heading toward doors that were nearly invisible,
they were so well camouflaged as part of the wall.
    “This is nice,” he said as they stepped into a deserted
hallway. It was as bland as the exhibit in the gallery itself was colorful.
    Without missing a beat she said, “This is the best part of
the place.”
    She hung a sharp right at the end of the hall, stepped up
one step leading to the second floor and turned. Suddenly his arms were full of
her.