His Young Queen: (Steel Jackals MC #1) Read Online Free

mornings to make her lunch and walk her to school. Josh occasionally picking her up at the end of the day and her proudly getting onto the back of his bike while her friends ooh’d and ahh’d because he was so intimidating and beautiful. Josh and Uncle Nick standing at the back of the auditorium, scaring all the other parents because they were proudly wearing their cuts as they clapped and whistled their approval as she took a bow after collecting her first place ribbon at a local spelling bee. And that last tender hug he’d given her when he’d told her not to come back to the prison to see him anymore.
    Emotion rose in her so strong she wasn’t sure how to process it. “Josh?” she tried to say but was hampered by that warm palm covering half her face.
    “Unless you gave someone else permission to use that nickname you hate, yeah, honey, it’s me.”
    He released her and went to step back, but she was having none of that. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him as tightly as she could. She tried like hell not to cry by swallowing repeatedly, but it didn’t help.
    “Whoa,” he chuckled, wrapping her up again.
    She closed her eyes and savored the sound as her tears overflowed. Her breathing slowed then, and the world paused as everything inside her aligned once more. All she was reconnected, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Tish came to life. Body and mind she felt herself bloom. For this man. The desolation she’d felt without him, the resentment and confusion she’d felt since he’d shut her out disappeared, and the sigh that came from her was the slowest, happiest sound she’d ever made.

~ Chapter Two ~
     
    “Josh,” she whispered. “You’re home. Oh, my God, you’re really here.” She pushed her face into his neck and tried to compose herself. She was shaking like a leaf. “I missed you so much.
    “I got that.” He pressed a kiss to her hair and ran his hand over it as he held her tightly enough to let her know he’d missed her, too.
    “Why wouldn’t you see me anymore? You know what? Never mind,” she tacked on right away. Who cared about that now? “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re here.”
    “I told you back then that shithole was no place for innocent and soft. A girl like you should never have stepped foot in there.”
    The protective note laced through his voice really shouldn’t have sent heat sizzling down her spine, but it did. It zipped through her and settled low in her belly.
    “Okay. Enough with the strangle.”
    When she didn’t budge, he reached up, untangled her arms, and pulled them from around his neck. He walked away, and a second later, light flooded the room. “What the fuck are you doing out so—?”
    He’d come around to face her, and because she was gawking through another squint, she didn’t miss how his big body slowly seized up, his face darkening into that typical don’t-fuck-with-the-biker look he’d always effortlessly worn. He stared. She stared. He was just the same but appeared…grim. As if he hadn’t smiled in ages. His normally warm gold eyes were now dull, his tattooed skin paler than she’d ever seen it. He still wore his dirty blond hair in a faux-hawk that was tousled and long enough to flop on his forehead. So damn sexy, he was well over six feet and solid as stone.
    “You look fuckin’ different.” His voice was a low growl. Angry sounding. “This what you wear to work every night?”
    Her knees continued to knock, and she was beginning to think her heart would never slow. Swiping at her damp cheeks, she looked down at her uniform and hurriedly kicked off her black and gray cowboy boots because they looked out of place in the house. They weren’t so conspicuous when four other servers were wearing them as they traipsed around the wooden floors covered in peanut shells, but here they looked as though Tish was playing dress-up.
    “Yeah. They make us.” She slipped her socks off and stuffed