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)
“Your face?” He sounds more heated.
Rocky calls Jake a white knight, and I’d have to agree—he seems like someone who’d go to war for those he cares about far too easily.
“The guy didn’t say I was ugly or anything. It was an assumption on my part. When he threw his T-shirt on my face mid-act.”
“And you didn’t care?”
“It was a quickie. I didn’t care if he found me appealing,” I admit. “I just wanted to get off. It’s not like I was sticking around. It was between jobs, so I was in St. Louis only for the night.”
Jake processes this, then nods, glancing at my snakebite lip piercings again. “I like them,” he says, this time more firmly. “They’re cute. Like you. And I find you more than just appealing.”
I start to blush. “I, um…” I feel more bashful around him when we aren’t fucking, which is weird. I nod a few times. “The feeling is mutual, so yeah.” Smooth, Hailey.
He nods back to me, drinking in my mesh black top and cargo pants. “Have you always been this alternative?”
“When I wasn’t told I had to dress a certain way, then yeah. I liked grunge when I was younger. Then later, more heavy metal.”
He smiles, leans a shoulder on the bedpost. “How young?”
“Maybe like twelve, thirteen, I was listening to Nirvana. ‘Come as You Are’ got me through a whole lot of teenage angst.”
“I know how that is.” He lets out a laugh in thought. “I used to run ten miles before dawn on Faust’s track.” Faust is the all-boys boarding school he attended in upstate New York.
“What’d you listen to?” I ask.
“The sound of my feet hitting concrete. My heavy, angry breath. The rustling trees.”
I clutch either side of the bed as my mind drifts with the image. “I can picture it. Teenage angsty Jake running down his feelings.”
“I can picture it, too.” He recaptures my gaze. “Teenage angsty Hailey head-banging out hers.”
I smile a little. “I did do that a lot. Even with Phoebe.” I soak in his white button-down, the pressed navy-blue slacks, the brown leather belt on his towering athletic frame. He could be in a J.Crew catalog holding the bow of a sailboat. Pensive and masculine and blatantly handsome.
It feels strange that he’s in my bedroom. In front of me. “Have you always been this preppy?”
“Yeah. My style wasn’t anything I ever questioned changing.” He steps away from the bedpost and finally sits beside me.
My face bakes at his closeness. Too shy to meet his gaze, I focus on my toes skimming the velvety moss-colored rug. “This is a Tibetan rug. Silk or silk blend,” I say absentmindedly.
He glances down at our feet. “How can you tell?”
“The knot structure gives it away. Plus, the wool. It feels buttery soft in a specific way because of Tibetan sheep. The extreme cold climates make the sheep wool denser and longer than other sheep. So when it’s hand-knotted, it enhances the quality of the rug.”
Jake’s gaze bores into me as if I’m rehashing some action-packed story.
I bite my lip piercing. “Anyway, it’s not that interesting. Just a mundane fact about a rug.”
“Everything about you is interesting to me.” His eyes cradle me tenderly, and heat ascends the base of my neck. Concern washes over his expression. “How much sleep did you get last night?”
I nestle my hair behind each of my ears. “Your observational skills are getting better.”
Laughter catches in the back of his throat. “Yeah, no. I’m still average at best. Except, I guess, when it comes to you…” His gaze sweeps me again. “Did you get any sleep?”
My fingers skim the spine of the hardback I’m holding. “Three hours. I spent the night reading.”
He sees my book. “Did you bring that with you?”
I nod and show him the spine: A History of Wolves. “You know it’s ironic that Rocky chose the name Grey when he was born a Wolfe. A gray wolf. Canis lupus.” I draw my finger over the title. “Most people think of penguins when they’re asked what animals mate for life. I think of the gray wolf. My brother.” I pause in thought. “A pack animal that can only be temporarily alone before searching for another pack.” I hug the book, then glance over at Jake. “Rocky can’t survive alone. If he could, he would’ve left us years ago. Unburdened himself with the resentment he carries for our parents. But he never did—he won’t. He found his mate with Phoebe, and his pack with the rest of us.”
Jake extends a hand.
I place the book in his palm and then watch him thumb through the pages.
“I see the connection,” he says, “but why keep reading it if it keeps you up at night?” He slips me a look like he’s trying to unpuzzle me. “Do you think it could help with the job?”