Page 76 of Root

Fuck boy’s a prop, a shield like my make-up and rings and attitude.

I want to ask, and the words are there, but I’ve got a mission with my brother’s life on the line. Information, that’s what they want, or they’ll burn me down too.

Shit, I’m probably wrong about Rush, only I can’t shake the rightness of my sudden thoughts.

“In this library where I hardly come?”

“Yes,” I say, glad to grasp the lifeboat of snark. “Because I’m such a fan of yours I know every single place you go. Should have known you can’t read.”

“You’d be surprised by how good my reading skills are.”

The zigging and zagging inside stops and plummets like a frozen anvil. He’s not talking about books.

He means me.

I lift my chin, putting the papers back, and go to rise, but he shakes his head and gives me a small shove with his foot, so I fall on my ass.

“Didn’t say you could get up.” He watches me, the smooth fuck boy charm mask firmly in place, but his eyes…they glitter and spark with something much more compelling. “And I think you are a fan. You hate it, but you’re a fan.”

He crouches down, running fingers along the curve of my cheek.

“And you don’t know what to do, am I right, Jessie?”

I go to say something but no words come, and he traces the shape of my mouth. His touch is electric and heat pools deep between my thighs.

“Yeah,” he says softly, “I am. I’m so fucking right. You hate it even as you want it. You like spending time with me, clothes on, definitely clothes off. You fucking loved the pounding I gave you and the dirty talk, didn’t you?

“Maybe you hit on the things I like.”

“Being gangbanged? Fisted? Sure, maybe. But if you do like it, and I’m not one to judge, that shit meant nothing. When I touched you, it meant something, didn’t it? For a bit I thought, fuck…I thought maybe I went too far. And in a way I did, because you can’t stand someone being nice, someone being gentle, someone getting so intimate with you they ate you out after we both came. And you know why I did that?”

“To try and prove you’re above me?”

Rush sighs, and takes my cheeks, urging me forward, my mouth close to his, and there’s something so compelling about this naked Rush I go. His breath’s warm and my mouth waters for his kiss, his tongue.

“Nah, I’m taller than you, I’m already above you.”

A small sound escapes me. “Ass.”

“I did it because I like you, Jess. Right from when you decided to punch me in the face with your brand of flirt. I did it because I wanted to. I want to do all the things with you.”

He closes the gap and the bastard kisses me. I melt. I can’t help it. I melt into him and annoyance surges with the softness he creates in me. I shove him and climb on him as he hits the floor.

Rush grabs my hair, pulls my head back and licks my neck.

“So,” he says as he sucks on my lobe, “wanna go to town and feast?”

“I thought you said feast?”

Dante’s sitting next to me on the kitchen island and we both look at the bowl of bright yellow sauce-covered pasta. He meows and it sounds so disdainful that I’m inclined to agree.

Rush has no qualms about digging into his bowl and there are at least eight bowls, two pots and a pile of utensils littering the bench he leans against.

I’m not sure how he managed to use all of that for box mac and cheese, but I guess it’s a skill.

I want to be mad, I do. For everything he said, for how he saw through me, but I’m taking this time to breathe, to uncoil the tension in me from the ideas that burst into my fucking stupid head when he said feast.

Not sex.

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