Risking It All
Authors: Jennifer Schmidt
Contents
First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2012
Copyright © Jennifer Schmidt, 2012
The right of Jennifer Schmidt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Writer’s Coffee Shop
(Australia) PO Box 447 Cherrybrook NSW 2126
(USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168
Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-117-7
E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-118-4
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.
Cover image by: © Ivankmit, © lilkar
Cover design by: Jennifer McGuire
http://www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/jschmidt
About the Author
Growing up in a small town in the Interlake region of Manitoba, there wasn’t always a lot to do. Having to entertain one’s self, Jennifer soon discovered a love for reading, and later, one of writing.
She wrote her first novel at the age of fifteen. Six hundred hand written pages later, it was put away and forgotten about. It wasn’t until she found an online writing community that she took the first step and, hiding behind a pen name, posted her work. After some persuasion from family and friends, Jennifer shed the pen name and entered the 2010 TWCS Original Fiction Contest and won for best romance. In 2011, she published her first novel
Last Call
, and the short story
A Christmas Kiss.
After moving and living in a couple of different cities around the country, Jennifer came back home to Ashern where she lives with her two young sons, Hayden and Nicholas.
Dedication
This one goes out to everyone who helped in some way while I was writing
Risking It All
. Thank you to all of you who shared your personal stories and experiences when I called for help trying to better understand my characters.
Huge thanks to my editor, Lauren, who threatened to whip, slap, and torture me while editing. And to the rest of my editing team whose countless hours of proofing make me look good.
And to my girls, Mel and Jess, who made me laugh about the most ridiculous things when I bitched and moaned about writing certain parts of this book. You two are the reason why I can no longer shop in the produce section without giggling—and sometimes bursting into tears.
xoxo
Chapter 1
The shrill beeping of the alarm clock woke Kennedy Monroe out of her deep sleep. Keeping her eyes closed, she slid her arm out from under her pillow and felt around the night table in search of the offensive sound. Her hand connected with the little black clock, and she slid her fingers along the side until she found the switch to silence the room again.
Kennedy yawned and turned her head to the opposite side of the bed as she opened her eyes. The bed was bare. The faint scent of men’s cologne lingered on the sheets; the only proof she hadn’t been alone last night.
Kennedy frowned. She looked at the empty side of the bed through sleepy eyes, wondering what time her bedmate had snuck out. She usually heard him leave, or he would at least wake her with a soft kiss good-bye before taking off. She ran her hand over the cold sheets; he’d been gone for hours.
She pulled his pillow to her side, buried her face, and inhaled his scent. She smiled, closing her eyes as images of last night’s activities replayed behind her lids. Her body tingled in response, and she felt a pang of disappointment he wasn’t there to relieve the ache between her thighs.
Kennedy sighed and hugged the pillow closer to her body. Her cell phone came to life from the night table, ringing out the older reggae song
Sweat
by Inner Circle. Her smile grew as she reached for the phone and greeted the caller with a husky, “Good morning, sexy.”
“Hello, beautiful.” His deep voice always made her shiver. “Sleep well?”
“Mmm, very well.” She flipped over onto her back.
“Was my little minx naughty last night?”
“Naughty but very, very nice,” she replied, and he laughed.
“I take it Brooks made it home okay.”
Kennedy grinned at the thought of the night before.
“Yes, he did.”
Memphis Adams chuckled on the other end of the phone.
“Will he be joining us for breakfast this morning?”
Kennedy’s smile slipped into another frown.
“No. I don’t really know where he is,” she said. “He left this morning.”
“Hmm. Well, if you hear from him before we leave, let him know he’s welcome to join us. I’ll be there to pick you up in twenty.”
Kennedy’s smiled returned. “I’m counting the minutes. I’ve missed you.”
“Missed you, too, beautiful,” he told her. “See you soon.”
Kennedy ended the call and tossed off the covers. The silly little grin never left her face as she hurried to the bathroom and turned on the shower, quickly testing the water with her hand before stripping off her black teddy and climbing under the warm spray. She tipped her head back, letting the water run down her face while she massaged a glob of shampoo through her thick, dark curls. The suds slid down her body, covering her skin with foam. She rinsed her hair quickly, grabbed her body wash, and squeezed a large amount of the coconut-scented wash onto her loofah.
When she was through, Kennedy shut off the shower, quickly dried herself, and wrapped the towel around her body. She pulled her hair into a wet ponytail and kicked the discarded teddy out of the way, not really liking the damn thing. She only wore it for Brooks, anyway.
Kennedy wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and thought about the two men in her life and how different they were.
Everyone around campus knew who Memphis Adams was when they had attended the University of British Columbia. His face was the only one pointed out to Kennedy the first days of her freshman year. Whether it was girls warning her to stay away from the cocky, womanizing bad boy, or girls swooning over his charming smile and mischievous blue eyes, his name was on everyone’s lips. The boys wanted to be him whether they admitted it or not, and the girls wanted to screw him. Or had already.
Kennedy soon learned there were three types of women in her university: the ones who were bitter because they were the discarded women of Memphis’s past, the ones who were hoping to have the chance to be bitter, discarded women, and the ones who had no interest in
any
way toward him. After hearing all the horror stories about the self-proclaimed Casanova, Kennedy personally thought lesbians were the lucky ones. At least they didn’t have to put up with Memphis’s “if it walks, talks, and acts like a girl, then it’s suitable for fucking” attitude.
Not that she didn’t like what she saw. After all, she was a healthy, straight, sexually active female and Memphis Adams was definitely easy on the eyes. Standing around six feet with a fairly average lean build, he kept his black hair shaggy, the front almost falling over his eyes when he flashed his irresistible grin, which charmed the pants off any woman. He sported a black leather jacket and torn jeans, all while straddling his big, bad Hayabusa motorcycle, a look he pulled off well. If the stories told by the bitter and discarded were true, he was an animal between the sheets—or against the wall, in the classrooms, in the back of some random vehicle, or even on that lucky bike.
Oh, Kennedy definitely looked, and liked what she saw. But easy on the eyes wasn’t worth carrying around the resentment that seemed to follow every woman Memphis seduced. Besides, she was shy, book-smart Kennedy Monroe. She’d much rather spend her nights reading or studying than hang with his harem while he guzzled beer straight from the keg. She liked to keep her feet firmly on the ground rather than speeding down the street on the back of some motorcycle. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to have fun—she was far from a prude—but Memphis was out of her league. If she were honest with herself, the guy intimidated her, not in a threatening way, but she had a feeling if she let herself get too close he would be her downfall. It was much safer to stay away and not become infatuated with the idea of Memphis Adams.
Until all that changed six months into her freshman year. She had been walking back to the dorm, her head swarming with ideas on a paper she had to write, when she smacked right into Mr. Easy-on-the-eyes himself. Kennedy’s books had slipped from her grasp, landing at her feet in a big heap, as she stared up at Memphis’s grinning face.
“Now you I haven’t met,” he said to her. “I thought I knew every woman there is in this school.”
“So I’ve heard,” Kennedy replied dryly.
Memphis’s grin widened. “You’ve talked about me.”
Her cheeks burned, and she dropped her eyes to her fallen books, quickly kneeling to pick them up and avoid his eyes.
But he wasn’t easily blown off. Memphis knelt down beside her, picked up one of the books, and slowly handed it to her.
“That can only mean you know I’m Memphis Adams,” he added.
“Doesn’t everyone know who you are?” She snatched the book away from him and tried to glare at him. “You’re wasting your time if you think I’m about to be the next notch on your bedpost.”
Memphis threw back his head and laughed so loud it drew curious gazes, which embarrassed Kennedy. She scooped up the rest of her books and stood, and was about to walk away when he grabbed her hand and stopped her.
A jolt shot through her hand and up her arm, and she was positive it shocked her heart and sent it pounding. She stared down at their joined hands, unable to force her eyes away, only able to feel the tingling running over her flesh.
“Wait.” He smiled at her. “I think I underestimated you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to judge based on your past experiences of how fast a girl will jump into bed with you,” she snapped, irritated by her body’s reaction to his hand on her skin.
