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Leon owns the bakery. He helped his daughter open the bakery, then she fell in love with some soccer player and moved to Europe. Leon’s wife kept the bakery running until she died. Through a friend of a friend of a colleague sort of thing, Chad told me about this place and when I talked to Leon about running it, all he asked of me was to leave everything the same on the inside. He wanted to be able to visit the bakery and think about his wife and his daughter.

This place is more or a less a glorified part-time job for me.

I take orders, I bake stuff, and I run the register when people come in to pick up the items they’ve ordered. This place isn’t open like a normal business with coffee, snacks, and chilled out jazz echoing through a Bluetooth speaker.

The annoying buzzer for the entrance goes off and I assume it’s just Leon checking up on me.

I walk from the back of the bakery and feel all the air instantly sucked out of my body when I see Corbin standing there.

He’s massive. Muscle on top of muscle.

Prison muscle.

My jaw instantly begins to quiver.

As does between my legs.

“You were a good girl last night, darling,” Corbin says in his deep, powerful voice.

Heat races to my cheeks.

I’m fighting off the urge to smile.

I can’t help but think about Chad right now.

Sitting in some conference room with some expensive coffee in front of him. Another meeting. Suit and tie. Laptops and tablets. Stupid laughs and even stupider banter.

And here standing in front of me is six-foot-six of pure sexual, violent muscle.

The darkest and scariest eyes I’ve ever seen.

I swear I can still feel the tightness of the handcuffs on my wrists from the night I last saw him. When he was taken from me. Thrown into a prison cell for a decade.

I walked away free and clear because the only thing I did wrong was let a man like Corbin fuck me senseless.

Which wasn’t a crime then… nor is it a crime now.

Maybe morally it’s a crime, but you know what?

Fuck morals.

I know what I want. I know what I crave.

Corbin begins to walk toward me.

I want to know how he knows where I am. How he found me.

Yet at the same time… there’s a thrill in not knowing.

Is he following me? Is he stalking me?

He’s a criminal. Literally a criminal.

Corbin walks right up to me and he touches my face.

His hand is huge. And rough. Strong and callused.

He smells manly. Dried sweat. The smell of oil. Grease.