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

them into the tops of the boots before padding over to stand closer to him. If she didn’t think it would send him running, she’d have hopped up and sat on his shoulder, cradling his head like those monkeys who over-love their owners. Not that Josh owned her. Which was too bad.
    “How are you? Are you okay? How are you even here right now?” she belatedly asked, shakily sighing her pleasure at this spectacular turn of events.
    When he didn’t reply, but stood staring down at her with narrowed eyes, she inched even closer and reached for one of his tattooed hands to bring it to her cheek for an affectionate rub. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered in wonder.
    His brows slammed down, and he patted her shoulder in an uncharacteristically awkward move before extracting his hand and going over to push the chair in at the table. How long had he been sitting there in the dark? What had he been thinking about? His time in prison? What would he do now that he was out? Return to running the salvage yard he and Nick owned together, she guessed.
    How the hell was he out? Did he hate her mom for putting him away? And, in effect, hate Tish, too? She’d been too afraid to ask him while he’d been inside, but that would explain why he’d stopped seeing her, and the get-it-away-from-me look in his eyes now.
    She didn’t voice any of her many questions but stood silent. Waiting.
    “Good behavior has its perks,” he finally said. “So does knowing the right people.” He swiped a finger across the counter as if doing a white glove test. “They call it early release. Why the fuck are you out on your own this time of night? Doesn’t the bar have a day shift you can work? And who the hell has been cleaning this place? It looks as if no one lives here, yet I can smell you all the fuck over it.”
    Oh, shit. Did that simple animalistic observation have to tickle every erogenous zone she had?
    “I, uh…” She cleared her throat and tried to pull her head out from under the sheets. “Um, I clean up every little while, but since it’s usually only me, I’m pretty tight. I don’t spread myself all over the house and make messes in every room. And I go to school during the day, which means I have to work at night. You know that. Unless you didn’t read my letters. Then you wouldn’t have known.” Why was his face flushing like that? “Are you hot? I can turn down the thermostat if you’d like. I don’t keep it very low because my uncle insists the bills are included in the rent.” She smiled, thinking of Nick. “But he won’t let me pay rent. When I push about it, he tells me to give it a rest and enjoy my good fortune. So I am. That’s another reason I like to take good care of the house. It’s the first place I’ve lived that feels like a real home to me. That’s pretty special.”
    How had she forgotten the square cut of his goateed jaw? And had her subconscious seriously neglected to add the thickness of his inked neck to her many dreams, and that gorgeous tattoo of the Grim Reaper holding up a royal flush? It stretched from below his left ear to disappear under his shirt. She knew the Reaper’s billowing cloak covered his shoulder and reached almost to his elbow.
    He took a couple of steps toward her. An odd light had entered his eyes, but it was gone in a blink and he stopped in the middle of the room. “This is your home, Tish,” he said gruffly. “It always will be.”
    She was too busy trying to understand his odd behavior to do much more than nod.
    He tipped his head to the side as though needing to stretch out his neck. “So you’re tight, and you don’t spread yourself around,” he mimicked, his voice layered with something she couldn’t name. “Because you’re here alone all the time? Where the fuck is your goddamn mother?”
    The effervescent joy bubbling around her heart began to go flat. What was happening here? Why was he acting like this? She knew him as well as she knew