Banging woke Johanna. She sat up in bed, at first not recognizing where she slept. More knocking came, and a loud, familiar, male voice called her name, bringing her back to the moment.

She scrambled out of bed, flipping lights on as she went to the living room. Her heart raced with happiness.

"Bug, open up," roared Chief.

"I'm trying." She struggled with the lock, finally feeling it give away, and opened the door.

Chief stood with his hands planted on each side of the door frame, taking up the whole opening to her apartment. His gaze bore into her.

She lunged.

He caught her.

In her subconscious, a door slammed but the force of Chief picking her up, pressing her against the wall, swept her away.

Chief bent his head and inhaled deeply.

She wrapped her arms around him and peppered his neck, his head, with kisses. Her thoughts collided with the pure joy of having him back.

"Are you okay?" She brushed his hair back, trying to see his eyes. "Where have you been?" She pushed his head up off her neck. "Karla left me." Holding his face in her hands, she said, "I thought you left me, too."

She slid down his body, and her bare feet hit the floor. Holding on to him, she tried to read what was going on.

"Johanna." Her name ripping from his throat before he captured her mouth again.

Her whole body sang. She grabbed on to his beard and hugged his thigh between her legs. He assaulted her mouth, diving his tongue, sucking on hers.

Overwhelmed because this was nothing like the first kiss she'd shared with him when she was sixteen years old, and the feelings snuck up on her. It also wasn't like the kiss they'd shared last weekend.

His kiss was her kiss. Filled with desperation and the need to possess each other.

Tangled in his beard, she held on while Chief's hands squeezed her ass. She wanted to crawl up his body and rub the ache building inside of her.

Her body trembled and she moaned, ecstatic that he held nothing back. The fire inside of her had banked without him near, and he gave her air, igniting the embers.

His hardness pressed against her lower stomach. She lifted her leg, running the inside of her thigh against his rough jeans. The friction tightened her stomach, flooding her with need.

Afraid of him stopping and pushing her away like the other times, she slipped her hand between their bodies and grabbed him through his jeans.

His hands tightened, and a groan came from him. Her sex pulsed and she squeezed him through the material.

"Oh, my God," said a female voice. "Joanna!"

She pulled her head away from Chief, panting, and stared in shock at Lindsay and Ashley standing at the entrance to the hallway. She glanced back at Chief and returned her gaze to her friends.

She saw them.

She heard them.

She felt their surprise.

Caught in an emotional and physical high for Chief and hearing the utter shock from the other side of the room, she couldn't move.

Lindsay tugged the hem of her oversized shirt down to her thighs. "What are you doing?"

Johanna looked to Chief for an answer. He held her in front of him, unaffected by the extra people in the apartment.

When she'd come home, the girls weren't here. When had they come home?

"He's like her dad," whispered Ashley, covering her mouth.

She'd never confided her feelings for Chief to anyone. Not her friends, not Nene, not Karla or the boys. Deep down, she knew no one would understand. But, Chief knew. He'd always known.

"Get dressed for riding, bug," whispered Chief.

She glanced between him and the girls waiting for an answer. There was never any question that she would go with Chief wherever he planned to take her.

Chief slapped her ass. "Get a move on."

Startled into action, she hurried toward her bedroom, squeezed between Lindsay and Ashley blocking the hallway, and slipped into her room, flipping the light on. Standing beside her bed, she thrust her hands into her hair, trying to collect her thoughts.

Before she could think of what she needed to do, Lindsay grabbed her arm. "Is he abusing you?"

"God, never." She laughed softly, a verge of hysteria hitting her. "Why would you say something like that?"

"Because he's your guardian or whatever." Ashley sat down on the bed. "Has he kissed you like that before?"

She nodded, stepping over to the dresser, and pulled out a pair of jeans. It was the middle of the night or early morning. She'd be cold on the motorcycle even with Chief's body protecting her from most of the wind.

"Um..." Lindsay whispered, "Did he force you to be one of his whores?"

"That's ridiculous. We were kissing." She opened the closet, peeked inside, and not wanting to step inside, pulled a long sleeve shirt off the closest hanger. "You can't give me shit for having him here when both of you have guys who have stayed in your room with you."

"But, Chief?" Lindsay stared at her. "I don't get it. He's old."

"Stop. He's Chief." She pulled the shirt over her head. "Ash, hand me my phone. You're probably sitting on it."

Ashley scooted and searched through the comforter finding the cell. "As soon as you leave, I'm calling Olin."

She grabbed her makeup pouch off the dresser and put it in her purse along with her cell. "Wow, that's friendship."

"What am I supposed to do," whispered Ashley. "This isn't right."

"Call Olin. Call anyone you want if it'll make you feel better. Go for it." She turned to her friends.

Ashley looked away from her. Olin already told her that his relationship with Ashley was secret. If Ashley's dad found out, he'd stop giving her the extra two hundred dollars she needed to afford her part of the rent and forbid her from going to the Brikken clubhouse.

She hadn't said a word because Ashley was her friend and her dating life was nobody's business. Ashley was an adult. Besides, Brikken didn't need someone's irate father knocking on the clubhouse door. Most people were scared of even driving by the Brikken property. The town was made up of ignorant fools who couldn't see past their noses.

"Look, I'm sorry." She pressed her hand to her stomach. "I'm okay. I want to go with Chief. Can we talk about this later?"

Lindsay and Ashley nodded. She swallowed, needing to focus forward and not behind her.

"Okay, I'm going to take off." She held out her arms. "Do I get a hug or anything, or are you guys hating on me right now?"

Lindsay hugged her tight. "Be careful."

"I'll be fine." Nothing would happen to her when she was with Chief.

"I won't tell Olin. But you're going to have to explain to me how this happened and when." Ashley stood from the bed. "Blink once if he's forcing you to go with him."

She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled. Having grown up with the girls, they often carried their childhood habits with them through the years. "I'll either see you sometime tomorrow, or I'll call you. I don't have to work until Monday, so..."

"Okay," whispered Lindsay, following her out of the room.

Chief was gone from the living room. She walked out the door and found him sitting on his motorcycle in the parking lot beside her car. She ran down the walkway and slid on the seat behind him. He handed her a helmet. From experience, she had the strap firmly connected under her chin and held on to him by the time he pulled out into traffic.

Adrenaline hyped her. She alternated between squeezing her arms around Chief and rubbing the outside of his vest over his abdomen to reassure herself that he was here. He'd bridged the boundaries that had existed between them.

The fact that he was here, loving her, staying with her, filled her with confidence that her feelings were valid and returned. He had struggled to stay away from her for years. Years. Her whole life.

At least it felt like she'd waited forever.

The doubts over if she'd ever receive what she wanted and needed came and went. Hope only fortified within her when Chief came around and gave her attention to hold on to during the times he spent away from her. He made her strong and in the next second made her weak.

An addiction that made it impossible to be happy without him.

Reaching the Brikken property, the gate opened at Chief's arrival. Johanna, looking forward to being invited into Chief's life in a way that had always remained separate from her. She paid no mind to the frantic activities swarming around the clubhouse or the extra people present at three o'clock in the morning.