AllFreeNovel
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Days at the bakery start early, but nights at the clubhouse seem to go on forever. After just a few days, this routine is starting to catch up with me.
When my phone vibrates on the table and Mom’s text message flashes on the screen, I know my night just got longer.
“Honey, rent is due. I can cover most of it, but I’m short until the end of the week. Do you think you can cover the rest?”
Shit, rent. I can’t let Mom carry the whole month’s rent on her own. She mostly lives on tips, and the last time she covered the rent by herself, she walked to work rather than asking me to cover her bus pass. Not to mention the pervy old landlord will offer to let her pay in sex, and I won’t let that happen. Again.
“On my way,”I text back, abandoning my barbecue and beer to bolt out of my seat. I have to search for Ace since I need his permission to leave.
But just then, Joaquin steps in my path. “Going somewhere?” he asks with a panty-melting grin.
“Yeah, I need to find Ace,” I say, half-turned on and half-distracted by my new task.
“Ace is off with McKenna,” he says in a deep purr that wakes my clit up and makes my nipples go hard.
“I need to talk to him,” I say and quickly explain to Joaquin my predicament.
His flirty grin disappears, and a serious expression replaces it. “I’ll talk to Ace. Don’t leave without me, yeah?”
I nod and watch Joaquin walk away, his steps determined. I can’t help but smile because I realize Joaquin is more than a pretty face. He’s hot as fuck, sure, but that protective streak is just as big a turn-on as his thick cock.
Jeezus, just like that, my body is craving Joaquin again. Thinking of wrapping my lips around that cock and making him growl my name when I should be thinking about Maven andFor Goodness Cakesand paying the rent.
Joaquin returns with a slightly less serious expression on his face. “Let’s go,” he says and motions to someone behind me. “Diesel is coming with us to keep watch.”
“No one travels alone,” I say, mimicking the words Ace says all the time just in case his troops are tempted to forget.
I hop on the back of Joaquin’s bike, my hands instantly roaming his body. He’s so strong and so hard everywhere, and I want him. Again. Now. His breath hitches when my hand slides down his abs, and I grip his waistband.
“Willow,” he growls over the roar of the engine. “You’re distracting me.”
“Sorry?” I tease, not sorry at all.
His deep laughter sounds as we turn onto my block.
“Park in the back,” I tell him. “I don’t want to run into the landlord if he’s home. His windows face the front of the building.”
Joaquin nods and slows the bike to circle down the narrow alley that leads to the back entrance of our apartment. I can feel the heat of his body against my back as I step inside the place I share with my mom, wondering if what he sees—a tidy but shabby home—makes him see me differently.
“It’s just you and your mama?”
I nod and search for my checkbook that I never use except to write the rent check since the pervert upstairs refuses to take a bank transfer or any other payment method from the twenty-first fucking century.
“Just been us since my dad split ages ago. I was about ten the last time I saw him,” I say as I sign my name. “Last I heard, he’s locked up in Tennessee.” I tear off the check and toss a breezy “Be right back” over my shoulder.
Joaquin says, “Oh,” and follows me up the narrow staircase, where I slip the rent check under the landlord’s front door.
I turn quickly, eager to get away before the old, perverted fuck opens the door, but I slam right against Joaquin’s chest.
“Well, hello there,” I say with a wicked grin.
He grins back and shakes his head. “Sup?”
I put my hand on his chest and let it slide down his jeans until I find his cock, long and hard. “You.”
“Is that right?”
I nod and squeeze his cock through his pants. “I can feel how hard you are, Joaquin. The question is, what are you gonna do about it?”
