Page 10 of Root

I grin at him. “You need glasses.”

“Eagle sharp, Rush. I’m not playing poker because you have no concept of a fucking poker face. You always lose.”

I snort. “Only because you never let me win.”

“Why are you here?”

I shift. Nikolai’s always rough and sharp-edged, but it hides his soft, lovable center. I can say what I want about him, but anyone else? They’re fighting words.

“Bored?” I shrug. “There’s chess?”

“I have to make you play chess. Yeah, you’re fucking bored.” He sets the dumbbells down. “You want to break some kneecaps, that it?”

“Maybe.” I love riding with the guys, taking care of business. Some business, I amend. Not the real hardcore, not the stuff Nikolai loves. He likes to keep his hand in the game.

Other bosses, the ones who haven’t aligned with him over the years, don’t. They only travel in entourages and have their goons do most of their business.

Tony would prefer Nikolai to act more like that, but Nikolai is out to prove a point, when he isn’t sleeping with the hottest women I’ve ever seen. Even in that, he’s no player. Everything he does has a reason, a place.

Me? I love to fuck, and don’t get me wrong, the girls I get are hot. It’s just…I want a taste of the caliber Nikolai pulls.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rush. I really don’t need first row fucking seats to your sex thought processes.”

Heat bites. “Who said I’m thinking of sex?”

“That.” Nikolai waves a hand at me. “Trust me, I’ve seen it on you plenty. Maybe don’t be so…thirsty.”

“Thirsty?” I squeak the word and throw his towel at him. “I get plenty of sweet pussy.”

He smacks me up the back of the head for reasons I can’t fathom. He’s said worse, much worse. “What was that for?”

“Bragging.”

“And you don’t?”

“No. What I say is never bragging.” He checks his watch. “I need to get ready.”

I perk up. “Can I come?”

“It’s boring.”

So’s chess, but though I’d never tell him, I like it okay. I think I’d like whatever he’s up to more, though.

I follow him up the stairs and hang about in his room as he showers, glaring at his stupid suits that are all the same. When he comes out, he’s dressed in trousers and a shirt, his tie around his neck.

“Fuck, you really are bored. You can come to Fanny’s if you want. It’s nothing exciting.”

I grin. “Two words: strip club.”

“Here’s three more. We’re. Fucking. Working.”

I sit on the sofa and set my feet on his coffee table, breathing out an exaggerated sigh when he gives them and then the floor a look. I drop them down.

“Niko—”

“Nikolai.”

I practically stick out my lip. “C’mon, dude.”

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