Free Bird: A Biker Erotic Romance by Ellen Graves Read Free Book Online

 
    FREE BIRD
     
    Joelle rubbed her hands together for warmth as her engine warmed up. It was early spring but the chill of winter lingered on, as did the death of her father. Dead on Christmas Day. She hadn’t been there, but the coroner had said he had died instantly. The exit wound was the size of a grapefruit, he had said. All so some no-name vagabond passing through could get his five bucks.
     
    Lorenzo Flotilli had been a proud, principled man with a big heart and a warm laugh. It was just five bucks, dad. Nothing was “just” anything to Lorenzo, however. He fought friends, he fought family, and he fought to win. Some punk was nothing to him, the same kind of lowlife he had schooled as a boy. But now you’re gone, forever.
     
    As she drove down to the corner shop, each burden he had left sank into her mind like a nail in a coffin. The leftover balance for the funeral expenses. The barren fridge. The broken coal heater aggravating her little brother Jimmy’s cough. Her sister Josie’s alcoholic boyfriend, who battered the screen door every Friday night in his red rages.
     
    Please god, I’m not asking for a knight in shining armor. Just give me a little help here.
     
    Things had been so simple before Christmas. College, flirting with boys, and moving forward in life. Home had seemingly tangled its roots back around her, pulling her backward with no escape. She went through her shopping in a haze, not even the morning air or the freezers seemed to faze her.
     
    I can’t do this forever. Once Josie graduates she’ll have to take over. If Josie did graduate. The boyfriend was sinking her grades and the very thought of staying another year made Joelle’s arm feel listless and weak. The weight of the bread and milk was becoming too much to bear.
     
    The line in the corner shop was silent and glum, a mass of people absorbed in their own problems. And then, like thunder cracking through the pall, Joelle heard a voice.
     
    “Oh hey, Lorenzo’s kid, right?” His voice was gravelly yet resonant, teeming with smooth grit. She turned and saw the man in the line next to hers. He towered over her and his leather jacket creaked with his tightly corded muscles. Her eyes traveled up his lean, fit chest and beheld a masculine face.
     
    Eyes as gray as storm clouds stared down on her with a intensity that made her heart flutter. A strong chin and high cheekbones suggested an ability to take a punch. His silver-streaked black hair told her he was a veteran of many things, maybe even war. His features were craggy yet statuesque, as was the rest of his body. Weathered yet strong.
     
    She put her hand above her breasts and caught her breath. “Oh... uh yes. I’m Joelle.”
     
    “Ah yeah… yeah, that’s right. Knew it was J something. The man always had a thing for J’s, could never figure it out.”
     
    She shrugged and looked down, wistful with remembrance. “Neither could I.”
     
    “But yeah, you’re the one who wasn’t half bad.”
     
    Joelle wasn’t sure how to take that. Did he mean she had some kind of reputation, or her siblings did? Or that she was prettier than her sister? She wasn’t some skinny thing like Josie, she had inherited her mother’s Mediterranean curvaceousness. The prominence of her chest jutted far forward, even under multiple warm layers. Her bottom was not very well concealed and strained her tight denim jeans.
     
    The way the man looked at her thick thighs and hips told her all she needed to know about what he had meant by “not half bad.” Still, she teased him about it. “Oh, and was there a daughter who was all bad?”
     
    He chuckled as both moved up their lines. “All bad is just fine, that’s how I like ‘em. Bad is good, but sometimes good is better.”
     
    “My sister could use that advice.”
     
    A glint of recognition sparked in his piercing eyes. He flashed her a smile that made her warm in the chest. “Lady, you could tell her who’s good and who’s