Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
I scoop her up—cradling her in my arms.
“Rocky?”
“Don’t open your eyes.” I step out of the bathtub and into the nearby glass shower. Setting Phoebe on her feet, I shove the showerhead toward the wall. Then I swivel the knob and pull her away as cold water hits the tile. I wet a washcloth, and while the shower warms, I clean her face.
Her lips tic up, just slightly. She holds loosely to my waist.
“Cumshots over blow jobs, huh?” I ask her, seeing that she has a preference.
“I guess so.”
“Bad experience giving head?”
She stiffens a little, her eyes still shut. “I’ve just never enjoyed it. The whole act hurts my jaw. But I did want to try with you.”
I stare at her beautiful dark lashes. “Why?” I ask, tossing the washcloth aside. When I adjust the showerhead so warm water sprays down on us, she opens her eyes on me.
“I thought maybe it’s something you need.”
I laugh. “A blow job?”
“You mean it’s not your number one fave thing in the whole wide world?” She crosses her arms. Her snide attitude back in style. “You don’t dream of being sucked off by me? You’re not throwing yourself into oncoming traffic every day that my lips aren’t wrapped around your hard…fucking…cock?”
I exhale this graveled guttural noise. She knows how to rouse the fucking beast inside me—the one that wants to defile her pussy.
But I force the desires aside for a second. “I don’t need a blow job.” I could tell there was a hang-up with her surrounding them, and I figured I’d rip the Band-Aid now and find out why.
“But you like them?” she asks.
“Not if you don’t enjoy it. And it’s not a loss if you never want to suck my cock. There are too many other things I can do to you that’d turn me on more.”
She tries to stifle a smile, but her cheeks flush with affection. I pull her into my arms while water slips down our bodies.
“I love you, Rocky,” she says so softly into my chest.
My lungs elevate with the depth of that truth. “My Phoebe,” I murmur. I press a kiss against her temple and whisper, “Still spending life in prison for me?”
“Forty years with parole.”
I stare her down. “Only forty years?”
“Five years. Home arrest.”
Our smiles rise at the same time, then I spin her around. She relaxes her shoulders against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her abdomen, holding her for a second while the water cascades on our bodies.
She shuts her eyes, and I feel her hands on my legs, telling me to stay. I’m not going. Our breaths are in sync, and as I track my fingers through her hair, scraping them along her scalp, she melts further against me.
And I think, I need to tell her.
I need to tell her everything about today. Because why? This moment is too peaceful, and I can’t relax? Because I’m afraid to be calm inside the eye of the storm with Phoebe?
But then I remember.
We are the natural disaster.
Our peace is a Richter scale of 7.0 and climbing. The earth should be quaking.
When we hop out of the shower, I tell her, “Refill the tub, I’ll be back.” Towel around my waist, I go grab a couple green bottles of Sanpellegrino from the kitchen fridge. I’ve had enough alcohol today. (Thanks, Trent.) Sparkling water it is.
Phoebe and I lounge on either side of the tub, our legs threaded. A thin layer of soapsuds shrouds her body, and I’m taking a hearty swig of water as she says, “How’s your knee?”
I take a quick glance at my kneecap. No scars, no noticeable issues, but it’s sore as fuck in this scrunched position. “It feels like I should’ve gotten it looked at years ago, and I didn’t.”
“When did you even mess it up?” Her brows crinkle as she fights for the memory.
“Somewhere outside of Boston.”
“I asked when, not where.” She splashes me lightly.
The water sloshes at my chest. “Hey.” I point my bottle at her. “Don’t be pissed at me if you can’t connect place with time.”
“Somewhere outside of Boston isn’t even an exact place,” she counters. “And you never talk about it.”
“About my knee?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a bum knee, Phebs. There’s nothing to talk about.” I wish she hadn’t brought this up. “I tripped.”
“You’ve said that before, and I still can’t picture it.”
“I stepped in a fucking hole, and my knee decided to take a wrong turn. It dislocated. Probably tore some ligaments. I don’t know. It’s never been right since.”
I hope she doesn’t press.
She nods slowly. “Okay. You tripped.” She partially believes me, and that’s good enough. “Your badass cred has shot down.”
“I’ll cry about it later.”
She motions to my neck with her Sanpellegrino. “The scar on your neck shoots it back up, don’t worry.”
“Oh yeah. Some shady friend of the mark almost slitting my throat at sixteen—what’s more badass than nearly pissing your pants?”