Page 128 of Root

“You guys got a shower in?” he asks, not turning as he sets his towel down in a deliberately dropped heap on the floor of his bedroom suite. “Not together, because that would be weird. Weird and wrong.”

I bite back my laugh. Oh, fuck, I’m going to miss him.

For a moment I close my eyes like I’m trying to block the memory of him talking of him calling me his girl.

Because I can’t think about it.

I want to belong when I can’t.

“Seems you found your place,” I say.

He flicks through his closet. “Master of mirth?”

“No.” I take a breath. “With your cousin.”

“It was my idea, Jess.”

His voice is hard and I swallow. “I know. It was wild and flamboyant and the kind of moment that begged to be pegged.”

Rush snorts. And I flex my hands, trying to work out how the short distance between us is so huge.

“It was stupid and it worked,” I say. “They wrote you off as a spoiled kid, and you were all Calamity Jane—”

“Calamity fucking Jane? Can’t you think of a damn gangster? Like…Bugsy Siegal?”

“Who?”

“Never mind.” He pulls out two T-shirts. “Continue.”

“You went in and took them out like they were your target practice pieces. Your cousin, I’m betting, is handy with a gun, but he couldn’t have pulled that off.” I wipe my suddenly sweaty fingers on my jeans.

“Nikolai let me do it. But he’d have had them all dead in moments.”

“You’re both different in your approach.”

“I’m learning that. And I see that’s okay. I had to save you, Jessie. And I had to wait, make sure the main players were there. Take the leaders out and the operation goes back to just groups of thugs. And yeah, I tracked your phone.”

“Figures, I got out of here way too easily.”

“It’s not Rose’s fault,” he says.

I move then, cross that vast chasm and hug him. I lay my cheek against the heat of his back and wrap my arms around him. It’s like coming home, and how he melts into me makes me want to cry. “You’re an idiot. I’m so angry at you.”

“I’m angry too.” He runs his hands with the shirts over mine.

“I’m angrier.” I turn and press my lips against him because I have major feelings for him. And holding him, I don’t know what I would have done if he’d died.

I can’t even…

I bite him. He laughs, the rumble pure honey for me.

“I could have lost you, Rush.” I squeeze him tight. “And I don’t want a world where you’re not in it.”

Because…oh, god. Because I love him.

He turns and captures my mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue seducing mine.

He tastes warm and wet and good. He’s like excitement and home. Rush is everything.

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