Page 31 of Root

“Jessie, listen.” Then I stop. “About Nikolai.”

I should warn her that he’s definitely maf—

“I know he’s mafia and rules Queenstown,” she says. “I know what he is.”

For a moment I don’t speak. Because she’s not throwing mafia around like she thinks he might have earned some of his money doing shady shit. She says it like she knows. “Only people involved in the underworld know who and what he is.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she opens them, releases my throat and traces my lips with a finger.

When she looks at me, as she tries and almost succeeds at distracting me by dipping that finger into my mouth, she’s utterly guileless. And I’m instantly suspicious.

“I work at Bunny Munroe—or did as I’m probably fired—so I think you know I’m telling the truth when I say it’s a low life dive bar that’s connected. There are turfs, and I think it’s on Wilder turf.”

Jess doesn’t seem worried over her job. And she’s right. It is, more or less. Smith turf is like ours. Same with turf belonging to our allies. But not all allies are equal.

And she’s the hot bartender.

“There are gangs,” she mutters, “and Bunny’s used by them. Like I said. Or I think I said. Things are fuzzy. Because, y’know. I got fucking stabbed saving your hot, fuckable ass.”

Did…did she just call my ass fuckable? Hot, I know. Fuckable ass when it’s my ass in question? That’s something new. From a chick.

“And,” she says, continuing, “you had me high on morphine. What if I have a problem?”

“Like heroin? Illegal morphine? Oxy? Porn? Fucking dudes in the ass with a strap-on?” Her eyes light up at that and I give her my most severe look. “Gotta help a guy out, hot thing.”

“I’ll bring the strap-on, you bring the MDMA. Or your big boy pants.”

“I’m not doing drugs.” It still fucking stings from when Nikolai caught me, packed his bags and left. Those things will scar a poor young mind. He’s evil, my cousin. The fuck face. “And you’re not fucking my ass.”

“Really?” She pushes another finger in my mouth and thrusts mimicking a head job. “I bet you fuck girls in the ass all the time.” Her fingers pull free and travel slowly over my sweater. “Do you?”

This is one of her trick questions. “No. Not all the time.”

Triumph flares. And fuck, I’d like a go at all her holes. A number of times. Countless.

“Only,” I say, sure I’m digging a deep, dark hole, speaking of holes. Which I shouldn’t. “When occasion calls for it.”

“Spoken like a fuck boy.”

“Speaking of rude. That’s not nice.”

“Calling it how I see it.” Her hand rests on the buttons of my jeans and my cock lurches, an ache starting in my balls and spreading along the hard shaft. She doesn’t burrow down in my jeans to offer relief and torture, both of them exquisite things when my cock’s in a warm, female hand.

Especially hers.

“Stop thinking of getting jerked off.”

“Your hand,” I say, “is on my jeans, right at the cusp. I’m a guy. I’m going there.”

She brings it lower and traces the curve of my hard dick. “Or maybe you’re thinking of me in a strap-on as I fuck your ass.”

“No,” I say, “I’m not.”

Now I am. I can’t stop. And the idea is as about as appealing as it was the first time she put it there: not at all.

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

I grab her hand and lick her palm then kiss it, biting the fleshy part on the heel of her thumb. “I’m gonna bypass that experience.”

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