My Wicked Valentine (Club Wicked 1) Read Online Free

the doorway to his office, a warm breeze in an otherwise cold and
sterile day.
    He was in so much trouble.

Chapter Two
    Lucia kicked the door to her apartment closed with a
muttered oath. She tossed her briefcase onto the counter separating her tiny
kitchen from her miniscule living room and removed her heels before chucking
them through the bedroom door. On the subway ride home she’d been propositioned
for sex three times and groped once. The groper soon regretted his action when
she stomped on his foot with her heel.
    Her head pounded, her feet ached, and she wanted to call her madre to complain about her day, but
explaining to her very Catholic mother the situation she found herself in just
wasn’t going to happen. She tried calling her best friend, Chloe, while she
took off her jacket, but there was no answer. A quick glance at the clock above
the long ago bricked-up fireplace showed it was still early afternoon.
    Too many thoughts and emotions were whirling around in her
head, and she couldn’t focus on any of them. After rooting around in her almost
empty refrigerator, she found her last emergency beer stashed behind a gallon
of milk. After twisting the top of her bottle of Tecate with a practiced motion,
she sipped at the smooth beer with a sigh. She wandered toward the door leading
to her balcony, the main reason she rented this small, cramped third-floor
apartment.
    Before opening the sliding glass door, she put on the
knee-length sweater and warm boots she kept next to the door. She slid the
glass door open and stepped out onto her terrace, then took a deep breath of
the chilly air. A wrought-iron chair sat next to a mismatched table that looked
all too bare in the late winter months. During the summer she decorated her
porch until it almost exploded with floral colors. And for Christmas she wound
lights through the white-painted iron bars of the porch railing along with some
greenery. Most of the people living in the apartment building were elderly, so they
appreciated her efforts to brighten the place up. Unfortunately, at the
beginning of January, she really didn’t have anything to decorate for.
    Unless she decorated for Valentine’s Day, which in her
present mood was not going to happen.
    She took a deep drink of her beer, trying to ignore the cold
wind blowing up the edge of her sweater. Her anger still burned in her chest,
and she could practically hear her brothers teasing her about her hot temper.
Regret mixed with irritation, and she took another drink, trying to ignore the
little voice telling her she just messed up, big-time.
    I work my ass off in
the hopes of getting one big break. Now I finally got that break, and I act
like an immature girl who’s never had sex. So those people like that kind of
thing, no big deal. It’s not like I’m scared or anything. Just because the
thought of Isaac tying me up and doing wicked things with me has my panties
soaked only proves my terrible taste in men.
    The wind blew a drift of snow off the porch above her, and
it fell like glittering sand through the air, swirling on the currents of
breeze reaching between the buildings. Okay, so maybe she should have heard him
out, but she’d been so sure he’d been propositioning her that her temper had
slipped its leash, and he had gotten a taste of who her brothers liked to call
“Loco Lucy.”
    She closed her eyes and leaned back against the brick wall
next to her patio door, the coldness slowly leeching through her sweater and
stealing her warmth. Dammit, she needed this job, desperately, and more
importantly, she needed to pay her workers. The guys who did all of the
organizing and maintenance of her supplies down at her warehouse worked hard,
and they deserved more than she had to give. It was only because of the
recession that she could find skilled workers at an affordable price, way less
than they were worth.
    The seamstress, the baker, and the liquor company were all
getting impatient for her to settle up