Read Joker's Wild for Free Online

he was wearing sharply creased khaki trousers and a Hawaiian print shirt. His beard had been neatly trimmed, and he’d gotten a haircut.
    “You’ve cut your hair,” she said. “You look like one of the Beach Boys. Do you sing, along with your other talents?”
    “Me? Ha! Woman, my singing would scare buzzards. Come on, up with you. We have places to go and people to see. Where are your shoes?”
    “They’re upstairs, but I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Yes, you are. You’re going to see your grandmother,” he said quietly, and left the patio.
    Before she could protest, he was back, sitting on the end of the wicker lounge, fitting her feet gently into a pair of soft leather loafers.
    “Gran? I don’t know. I’m scared, Joker. Gran doesn’t know how bad my knee is, and I don’t want her to worry.”
    “You think not seeing her will keep her from worrying?”
    “You’re right, and I’ll go, but not today. I told you yesterday that I don’t want to see anybody yet. I’m a mess.”
    Ignoring her protests, Joker handed Allison a lipstick and pulled a hairbrush from his back pocket. “I brought these from your dressing table.”
    Joker took the hairbrush and began to pull it through Allison’s dark, silken tresses. He’d never brushed a woman’s hair before, not since his sisterDiamond was very small. Though Allison held herself like the great stone sphinx, he found the action curiously gratifying.
    “In your pictures your hair is always pinned up in a little knot. I didn’t know it would be so long.”
    “Look, Joker, I know you think you’re helping me. But I’d rather you didn’t. I need to look after myself.”
    “Perfect!” he announced. “Now you can add hair-dressing to my list of talents.” He lifted her and strode across the patio and around the house. He hitched up the hem of her T-shirt dress and deposited her on the back of the seat of a shiny red motorcycle. “Will this hurt your knee?”
    “I’ll manage,” she said stiffly, knowing that it would be sheer torture.
    “I’m sorry. We could drive your car, but I don’t think I can squeeze into it, and my van is in the shop. We’ll use it next time.” He fastened a shiny red helmet over her head and a matching one over his own.
    The man was impossible. Nothing stopped him. Once he’d declared an intention, he plowed full speed ahead. Here she was straddling a motorcycle, going for a visit she was scared silly to make, with a man she was growing to like more and more.
    “What do you think, Beauty?”
    “A red motorcycle? Why not?” She admitted with reluctant amusement, “I like a discreet man.”
    “Yes, well. I like color. It goes with my vibrant, exciting personality, don’t you think?” He turned the key, and the machine roared to life. Allison’s smile at the sight of the red bike had warmed his heart.
    She held on for dear life as the machine lurchedforward. He definitely had a way of getting to her, she thought. “Eric the Red and a red bike? A perfect match,” she commented dryly.
    Joker didn’t hear her. Her words were caught by the wind and flung away behind them as he maneuvered the machine around and drove down the long drive to the road. She tried to maintain distance between her thighs and his body, but the seat was amply filled by her companion, leaving little space for her slight frame.
    As a skater she was more than used to two bodies moving together as one. But this sensation was disturbingly different. She couldn’t tell whether it was the wave of pain radiating from her knee or the rough texture of his cotton trousers rubbing against the inside of her legs that set off the quivers in her lower body. The woodsy smell of his cologne whipped past her face and caught in the helmet she was wearing. And the feel of her breasts pressing against his back conjured up intimate forbidden fantasies that made her heart beat so fast that she was certain he could feel it through his shirt.
    Allison forced her