Chapter 128: Chapter Thirteen ~ Roots-1

He tasted like sugar from the cola he'd ordered and his lips were soft against my own. I wanted to moan in relief, to lose myself in just kissing him for a moment. To forget about everything that happened and just transport myself back to that night at the beach house. My fingers trailed through his hair and his dipped beneath my overalls, playing with the bottom of my shirt. His hands were rough and warm against my skin, and I found myself unbuckling the seatbelt to get closer, to take every tame encounter we'd had since the beach house and transform it into something raw and hungry. I wanted to rip apart everything creating our fragile connection and instead forge it with unsatiated kisses. He kissed me until my lips were hot and my breath uneven, my hair a mess of wild tendrils. "Stay with me tonight," he said. He didn't need to ask me now, he already knew. I ignored every thought of Penelope that tried to spring into my mind—and there were a lot of them. I couldn't afford to worry about that now, not when every other part of me was breaking. All I wanted was to embrace the one tether I had to normality. No, it wasn't even normality. Felix Bradford was anything but normal. When we arrived at his, I dumped my purse onto the counter, our arms already linked around each other as we breached the threshold, entwined as he led me up the spiral stairs to his bedroom, too busy to admire the décor as I pulled him onto the bed. It wasn't like the various Tinder hookups I'd had over the last few months—physical and short-lived—it was so much more, a deep chasm of emotion opening in my heart, filled with pain and stress and vulnerability and now flushed with something else. A momentary heat that welded me together. Felix. On his bed, my fingers pulled up the cotton of his shirt, his skin hot. He'd turned on the lamp, a golden glow filling the room, but this time I could see more than I did in the candlelight of the beach house. I kissed his ribs, letting my hands wander across the muscles of his back. He turned over so he could turn on another switch, one that ignited lanterns trimming the walls. My eyes caught on a shadow on his back. "You have a tattoo." Felix gave me a wry smile, flexing so his skin stretched, showing me the entirety of the thin branches. I traced the cords of black, spiraling down from a flat circle at the top. "Is it a tree?" I asked, moving closer so I could get a better look. "Roots," he said. Suddenly it made sense, roots curling and fraying over the muscles of his left shoulder blade. "Something to ground you?" "Kinda." He rolled over so he could look at me, sparkling dark eyes warming me, enticing me and making me burn with hunger. "I think it's sort of deep. Everyone always gets plants or flowers drawn on their skin, but you can have the most beautiful, greenest, blooming plant, and it can still be yanked from the ground. It's the roots--the stuff you can't see--that makes it strong. It's sort of a reminder that you don't know people. Not from the stuff they present on the outside, anyway." "You're..." My whisper dissolved, Felix had stolen any words I might have had. How could he be the guy Penelope spoke about? What was I going to say to him, anyway? You're incredible. Unbearably beautiful. Impossible. It didn't matter, anyway, because he kissed me again, so deeply that I knew we didn't need words to speak anymore. Our communication was in breathless gasps and the grip of our fingers. This was so dangerous—such a temporary vice. But one I couldn't resist any longer. Not when he seemed to feel the same. "Fuck, Josie," he murmured into my shoulder as my shirt landed on his floor and I was left in my underwear. I was straddling his thighs as I pulled his lips to mine again."Are you sure?" "Uh-huh," I murmured against his skin as his fingers slipped beneath my bra strap. "Are you?" He hesitated, just long enough for me to doubt him. "Entirely," he finally said, before rolling us over so I was beneath him. The next morning I woke to the sound of buzzing. I wasn't sure where my cell was, or even where I was, for a few long moments. I was so comfortable, soft blankets tucked beneath my chin. And arms around me. Bare legs intertwined with my own. Felix moaned and patted around him. I peeked out of the corner of my sleep-filled eyes and saw him fish his phone from the pocket of last night's jeans. "Hello," he said croakily after bringing it to his ear. "What do you mean she—" He screwed up his face, catching my eye and pausing. He leaned forward to kiss my temple, and then threw the covers off of himself to walk to the ensuite, grabbing a towel along the way and wrapping it around his hips. I heard him continue his conversation, and then the shower turned on. I was starting to grow salty, when he stuck his head through the door, phone-free. "Want to join?" After one steamy shower and a make-shift outfit of Felix's sweater over my overall dress from yesterday later, I was in his car with a keep-cup coffee and we were on our way to class. "Is everything okay?" I asked. I'd meant to ask once I'd reached Felix in the shower, but his naked and wet body had... distracted me. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?" he challenged. He patted my knee as he circled for a park. We'd be fashionably late to class, as usual. "The call this morning seemed urgent," I said lightly, waiting. I'd immediately wondered if the she he'd been talking about was me. Or Penelope. Or worse—another girl. The thought made me feel nauseous, even though Felix and I hadn't even discussed exclusivity. "Oh," he said. He paused in thought, which meant he was either pondering his answer or pondering his reverse-parking. He put his hand on the back of my seat and twisted to look behind us. I waited until he'd pulled the hand-break before unclipping my seatbelt. "It was Cole on the phone," he said finally. "He's just got stuff going on." I'd heard that so many times now.