Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
But they all ultimately did.
If I were stronger, I’d return the locket, but when I thumb the outline of the heart, I feel the fond memories between me and her, where she’d smile so brightly and twirl me around like I was her beautiful mini-me, and we’d dance to Heart’s “Barracuda” and make virgin daiquiris. Days of innocence and childlike wonder.
So I keep it close, protecting these pieces of her I still adore.
When she says, “Keep in touch,” and we split from her and head back to our spot on the beach, we’re all quiet. Each processing what she’s confessed about our father.
THIRTY-THREE
Rocky
If I were to choose to lie on the beach, it’d be at a resort or someplace where my back wasn’t being killed on the hard fucking sand. I didn’t pack chairs for this little therapeutic outing because we’ll be here for under an hour. At most.
Phoebe can’t sit still unless she’s watching a movie or in the middle of a job. It’s why five minutes into being here, she took a walk with her brothers.
While she’s gone, I’m on my feet, popping the tab of a beer that Jake just handed me. He shakes melted ice off another can and rises beside me. His eyes are on my sister.
Hailey flips a page in her book, sitting cross-legged beneath the shade of the blue umbrella. She wears a long-sleeve black T-shirt and dark pants. A typical Hailey beach outfit. She burns easily and usually avoids the sun.
His concern has been at a twelve since she got in the car last night. It’s impossible for me not to notice how often Jake checks on her. It’s so apparent, so in my face that it’d typically grate on my last nerve.
Now—after what happened to Hailey at the Koning estate, after knowing I couldn’t be there for her in any capacity, after knowing she might be pregnant with Jake’s or Oliver’s baby—I like that Jake is attentive toward my sister.
I like that he loves her.
I haven’t talked to him one-on-one about the baby or Hailey’s pregnancy. I was way too worried about Phoebe coming off of the drugs.
Four years ago, when Phebs gained consciousness in a Nashville motel, she said it felt like waking up underwater. I think this time was easier for her but harder in different ways. We’re a real couple, so I could hold her for longer…and we had sex. Deep, penetrative, I will fuck you inside out type of emotional sex that she’s been craving more and more. Over and over. I love fucking Phoebe like I’m staking my territory. Claiming every fucking inch of her as mine. It’s euphoric and detonating.
The only downside? This almost torpedoed too far.
She spaced out for a full minute. Not the first time this has happened. I only saw because I’d been taking her from behind while she held the lip of the sink. I could see her eyes glaze in the mirror. I slowed down, then fisted her hair and lifted her head up so she could see me as I thrusted into her cunt.
“Look at me,” I gritted in her ear. “I’m the only one who’s ever going to be inside you. The only one who’s ever going to fuck you.” She regained focus with parted lips and hitched breath as I rammed deeper. “All of you,” I grunted out. “Mine.”
“Stop,” she moaned in a way that said, Never fucking stop.
I pulled out. She was about to protest, but I flipped her around and pushed back inside her, just needing her to fully face me. I didn’t trust that I could read her well enough with her face obscured. I almost forgot the blip of a moment because our sex is soul ripping. Like Phoebe is trying to fuse bodies, and all I want is deeper, harder, more.
While we got dressed in the bathroom, I asked her, “When you space out—”
“I don’t space out,” she defended.
“This isn’t a critique on your performance,” I said. “I’m not giving you an F here.”
She slowly slipped on her Strawberry Shortcake shirt. “What are you asking?”
“I just need to know if you’re coherent enough to actually use a safe word when that happens—when you need me to stop.”
We have a safe word in place—Miami—because when we fuck, no means yes and stop means go and I need to know when to literally stop. I thought maybe she’d be too stubborn to use it when she needed to. Now I’m wondering if it’s something else.
She pulled her damp blue hair out from the collar of her shirt. “If I wanted you to stop, I could’ve said it. But I didn’t want you to…” She trailed off, then threaded her arms together like she was done. There was definitely more there. That was not the fucking end of her thought.