Risking It All Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About Author

  Dedication

  Ch 1

  Ch 2

  Ch 3

  Ch 4

  Ch 5

  Ch 6

  Ch 7

  Ch 8

  Ch 9

  Ch 10

  Ch 11

  Ch 12

  Ch 13

  Ch 14

  Ch 15

  Ch 16

  Ch 17

  Ch 18

  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.

  He raised an eyebrow and smirked as he stood.

  “Why do you assume I want you to jump into my bed?” he asked, still not releasing her hand.

  “Oh, please.” Kennedy smirked and snatched her hand away, hoping he hadn’t noticed how sweaty her palm had become while in his grasp. “Like I said, everyone knows who you are.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.” He crossed his arms and gave her another pantie-drenching smile. “I wasn’t aware being me was so horrible.”

  “From what I’ve heard, being you isn’t horrible.”

  “Then there’s no harm in having a little dinner with me since I’m not so horrible.”

  Kennedy swallowed back the “yes” that wanted to burst from her lips and shook her head, taking a small step back.

  “I’m not interested in being added to your list of women. Ever,” she said.

  His grin remained in place as he leaned forward and said, “You’ve just issued a challenge, Kennedy Monroe. I look forward to it.” She opened her mouth to ask him how he knew who she was, but he leaned in even closer, so his mouth was practically touching her ear, and whispered, “Just because we haven’t met doesn’t mean I don’t know who you are.”

  Kennedy shivered like she had that day as she remembered their first meeting and the seductive way the words rolled off his tongue when he spoke in her ear.

  She expected him to live up to his challenge and make a pest of himself, but he didn’t. She thought he would conveniently end up wherever she was, trying to flatter his way into her bed, but Kennedy only saw him around campus, watching her but never making a move to approach her. And damn it, even though she had acted cold toward him, she liked the attention he gave her.

  A month after her collision with Memphis in front of the dorm, Kennedy had been enjoying an afternoon of no class, strolling along Vancouver’s waterfront, when she spied him photographing the ocean.

  She stopped and watched him as he took careful aim with his lens and snapped off a round of pictures. For the past month her thoughts had been consumed with this man, and here he was, on the same waterfront as she was. He paused, lowering the camera to observe a couple strolling along the beach, and then called out to them. Kennedy assumed he asked if he could photograph them because when they started walking again he pointed the lens in their direction.

  She stood there for a while, watching as he interacted with people, snapping pictures of random individuals or structures. She tilted her head, smiling as he bent to retrieve a little boy’s Frisbee and tossed it back to him. Seeing him out there, he looked like a completely different person than the one everyone described to her. She didn’t know him very well—or at all, really—but she could tell he was happy in that moment. Memphis was doing something he loved.

  She figured the leather jacket, ripped jeans, and motorcycle created the facade he used to keep people from knowing the real Memphis Adams. He only used it to pick up chicks and have a good time, but out there, staring at the water, was the real Memphis.

  He didn’t have his armor on out there. The leather was replaced with a gray wife-beater that clung nicely to his upper body and black board shorts hung where his ripped jeans usually rode low on his hips. He was barefoot, and she imagined how warm the sand must have felt on his feet.

  It was that Memphis Adams she decided in that moment she wanted to get to know.

  So she approached him. When he saw her, he smiled and slowly lifted his camera, silently asking permission to shoot her. She shrugged, as if to say, “what the hell,” and nodded.

  “I didn’t think of you as the artistic type,” she told him.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t judge people by what others say about them,” he replied.

  Kennedy smiled sheepishly and looked down at the sand, kicking it with the toe of her sandal.

  “I’m not going to have sex with you, Kennedy,” he declared out of the blue.

  She looked up, surprised and disappointed by his statement.

  “Why not?” she asked, and blushed at the way the question sounded.

  Memphis chuckled before saying, “I’ve been watching you, and I think you’re too special for that.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the line, and he continued, “There’s something about you that makes me want to know you. I want to be your friend, Kennedy, and if I fuck you, I wouldn’t be.”

  Kennedy stared at him, stunned, as the slight wind whipped her hair around her face.

  Be friends with the campus Casanova? Was that even possible? Did he have any female friends? Did he even know how to be friends with a woman? And how could she be certain this wasn’t some reverse-psychology ploy to get her between the sheets?

  She searched his face, looking for something that would trigger her sixth sense and twist her stomach in the way it did when she knew she was about to do something she would regret.

  But she felt none of that.

  The only thing her sixth sense was telling h
er was, for whatever reason, she could trust Memphis. She wanted to trust him and know who he really was. Wasn’t that the reason she had approached him, after all?

  Finally, she nodded.

  “I’d like that. To be your friend,” she added and he smiled.

  They had been inseparable from that day forward. Rumors started that they were dating, and the legions of Memphis’s discarded and hopefuls—as Kennedy liked to refer to the women—wanted to know how she tamed the wild playboy. Despite denying there was anything going on besides friendship, her fellow dorm mates couldn’t wait to run back to her when they spotted Memphis with other women, smirking when they tattled on his activities as if to say, “I told you so.”

  Kennedy laughed at how petty they were to try and destroy what they believed was a monogamous relationship. Memphis was true to his word and never tried to make a move on her. And buried deep down, Kennedy was more than a little disappointed. But what she gained by being friends with him was much more than what any crush she had on her best friend could have given her. She knew things about Memphis that no one else knew. He trusted her in ways he never trusted anyone. That was worth more than a roll in the hay with her number one forbidden desire.

  In return, Memphis taught her things about herself. He showed her it was okay to lose control every once in a while, that flying down a dirt path to a secluded hideaway on the back of a motorcycle was actually fun. He made her open her eyes and see that she didn’t have to pick the safe career her parents wanted her to have; it was okay to choose something she really wanted to do and not something they wanted her to do.

  Memphis Adams turned out to be the yin to her yang. They were opposites who completed one another.

  Even after university they never strayed too far apart. They still lived in Vancouver, blocks from each other, only apart when Memphis was away on a work assignment. He was still the carefree spirit he’d been in college, not wanting to be tied down to one person for too long.