Page 116 of Root

“We can run it,” I say.

“I’m not giving you land.” Lucy’s eyes narrow.

“For you,” I say. How the fuck would Nikolai handle this? Shit.

“I was promised a smooth world here, if I entered into a neutrality pact with Nikolai. All the plans and deals are off if this doesn’t work.”

“The thing with peace,” I say, snatching her hand as it starts to drift lower and Jess snarls so low I’m not sure anyone else but me hears it, “is it’s only as good as it lasts. We can take a firmer hold on it, and we run these bastards out of town. They’re trying to turn others against us with promises of dirty, quick money, so we stop it.”

“I’m listening.”

“We stop it, turn those people back and against them, and we take Bunny Munroe and the land.”

“I don’t play that way. They won it—”

“You don’t. But we do. This is Nikolai’s town he’s sharing with you. And I’ll deal with the dirt.”

She steps back. “Get the girl a drink, Antonio,” she says to a slender man who’s by the door. He let me and Tony in. “And send in Gustav. We four—” her gaze flicks to Tony, “are going to talk.”

After the meeting, I exchange a look with Tony and he goes to the bar. As do I. Jess is silent. She holds a tequila, at least I assume that’s what’s in the glass, and she looks both fierce and lost in her combat boots, black jeans with the rips she wore when we met, and a T-shirt bearing Andy Warhol’s silkscreen green coke bottles.

And those magnificent tits fill it out in all the right ways.

I know those tits.

I want to, in this bar with clientele that keeps looking at her because she doesn’t fit their idea of this establishment, taste those tits.

I’d peel her shirt up, bra down, and suck the absolute fuck out of them in here if I thought I could.

Then again, they’d get to see her beauty that, quite fucking frankly, they don’t deserve.

Also, I’m furious at her.

“Rush—”

“Nope, Jess. Not fucking yet. Smile, drink your fucking drink, and then we’re out of here. Also?”

“What?” The surliness almost makes me smile.

Almost.

“Keys.”

She hesitates, drinks half her drink and slams them down on the bar. I pick them up and put them in my pocket.

This really isn’t the suit I want to get on a motorcycle in, but she sure as shit isn’t gonna be the one in charge of it. Not after stealing it. Not after drinking.

I take a sip of my coke and then flirt with the bartender a little. I don’t even know what we say, it’s more a by rote flirt, but I’m perked slightly by the heated anger that rolls off Jess.

The moment she’s done with her drink, I pay and steer the punk goddess out of the place and onto the street.

“It’s half in the fucking road, Jess!”

I hand her the helmet and get on, and the moment she’s seated behind me, her proximity making me fucking hard, I head home.

But as soon as we pull into the garage, I turn off the bike, and then I drag her the fuck out of there and into the far reaches of the garden.

I pace, then I turn and stab a finger at her. “I saved your ass, Jess.”

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