Page 66 of Rootbound
“One more, but then we need to eat and caffeinate before you turn into a real monster.” He smiles up at me as he slides his finger in. I groan, letting my head fall back and eyes close again, tender and swollen and so sweetly sore.
He works me over slowly with that one finger, and I catch sight of him palming himself through his sweats, the outline of him impossibly hard again.…
BANG.
BANG. BANG.
BANGBANGBANGBANG
“Tait! Are you in there?!” calls a familiar, faraway voice.
I feel the color drain from my face as Henry slips out of me. “What the fuck?” I say.
Fun fact: Hurrying down stairs sounds simple enough in theory, but it’s actually hysterical and awkward, and painfully slower than you’d imagine. Especially when sharing those stairs with a giant, tightening a toga, and adjusting sweats accordingly. The slap, slap of our feet on the steps echoes as the seconds last hours.
“Stay here,” I hiss-whisper.
“I think not,” he says, clearly trying to protect me. “It’s my house,” he adds.
“Please,” I plead.
He frowns down at me, standing on the bottom landing, but nods. I kiss his arm for reassurance… mine or his, I’m not sure.
BANGBANGBANG
“Goddamn it, Tait, it’s pouring out here, letus in!”
Us?!
Finally, I make it to the door, and take a deep breath before I crack it open.
Lucy’s face comes into view first, sporting a wince. Then Grady’s, trying (and failing) to hide a smirk.
Lastly—“Ava? What the hell?”
Thirty-Two
Tait
Ava shoves past me, followed closely by Grady and Lucy. All three of them freeze to stare up at Henry.
Ava’s stormy expression immediately dissolves, replaced by a hysterical smile. “And who isthis?” she exclaims with a delighted smirk.
Miffed by her initial indignation, my knee-jerk reply is, “Nobody. What the hell are you doing here?”
The expression returns. “I think the better question is what the hell areyoudoing here? You promised you would call me weeks ago, Tait. Enough is enough, let’s have this out like grown-ups,” she says, and I feel myself start to stiffen in rage.
“Howdareyou. You’ve got some nerve, Ava.”
“I do?! What aboutyou?!”
“I’mnot the one who hid that I already had a relationship with all of them, Ave. You let me be the last to know.You want to talk about being a grown-up, well,you first.You know you hid that shit from me on purpose.”
She sniffs, folding her arms and looking down. “I wanted that choice to be about me, not about how it would make you feel, Tait. I’m sorry if that hurt you, but there’s always been so much that does not make sense about this, and I wanted to know the rest of my—our—family.”
“I don’t care that you wanted a relationship with them, Ava. I cared that you lied to me, that you hid things from me.”
“As if you wouldn’t have judged me for it. You’re so self-righteous, Tait. You’re so closed off to anyone and anything that might hurt you that I knew you would have resented me for it!”