Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Nova is a brick wall. He’s scowling at his feet. Unmoving.
It takes Rocky the longest second to answer Matthew. With a level tone, he asks, “What do you want, Matt?”
“Number One,” he corrects.
Rocky just forces a smile.
“You like your sister, roach?” Matthew wonders.
“She’s my sister.”
I breathe harder like I’m being hunted, and most of the nauseous anticipation is real. I have no idea what Matthew is doing, and our fifth is late. He should be here.
With a cock of his head toward me, Matthew suddenly says, “Kiss her.”
Fifteen
Phoebe
THE BADGER GAME (CONTINUED)
Rocky laughs. “You’re joking.”
“Kiss your sister, roach.”
Rocky lets out a weaker laugh, then shrugs like, whatever. He faces me, and the raw, provocative desire to sink into his protective arms and never leave just tunnels into me. It’s a freight train. A bulldozer. A semitruck that slams against me, and I let myself get run over. Until I swallow back every ounce of this feeling. This yearning.
For a flicker of a moment, his gaze switches into something not even close to brotherly.
I refuse to uncross my arms.
He gently runs his fingers against my cheek and lightly kisses the other one.
“On the lips!”
Rocky laughs harder, but the strain in his throat reverberates the sound into a deep cackle. He gestures with his head to Matthew and asks me, “Can you believe this guy?”
“Just get it over with,” I mutter.
He rolls his eyes, and his hand begins to encase my cheek with strength and possession, fingers slipping into my hair. His head tilts, and as I shut my eyes, as my heart slams out of my rib cage, Rocky presses his lips to mine. Warmth explodes in my body, and what should be a peck shatters in the way his fingers tighten through my hair—in the way he draws me against his firm, bare chest. The kiss is pinning me to him, and selfishly, I cling and clutch, and when he teases my lips open, there is desperation on his tongue and a longing that tornadoes between us.
The wine cellar is silent.
Once Rocky breaks away, our breath comes shallow and a little wanting, but he changes his into a laugh and a radiant grin. “How’s that, Number One?”
Matthew is in shock until he shares in Rocky’s laughter. “You sick motherfucker.” Matthew grins, and they literally fist bump, bro-hug.
So gross. I uncross my arms. To keep from physically embracing Rocky, I dug my nails so hard into my arms that half-moon indents mar my skin and sting.
“Do you hear that?” Claire squeaks from the stone.
The door bangs open, and a flashlight beams down into the stairwell.
A cop appears. He intakes the clandestine shit show. Bloodstained faces, wet bodies, reddened asses, and robed figures lording over us.
“Oh shit,” a Firefly member swears.
I hold my hands up, as do Nova and Rocky. It causes everyone else to follow suit.
Once the cop sees Kendra nearly passed out next to her vomit, he touches his radio. “I’m gonna need backup.” To all of us, he says, “All right, you have the right to remain—”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s the problem, Officer?” Matthew asks, tearing off his mask. His prickish face and curly blonde hair come into view.
“Hazing—”
“I’m suing,” Nova cuts in before the officer can list all the crimes. He stands up from the stone. “What you did is fucking heinous. Do you see her?” He’s pointing to Claire.
She nods repeatedly, sniffling, but the waterworks ignite the longer everyone focuses on her. I bend down and splay her jacket over her shoulders, and I check on Kendra. Her pulse is weak.
“She needs the ER—”
“She’s fine,” Matthew says. “Everyone is fine.” He speaks to the Firefly Club members who whisper amongst themselves, stiffening in doubt and fear. “My father—”
“I don’t care who your father is,” the officer snaps, but in the same breath, he zeroes in on Rocky and me. “Cole. Abby?”
Hope strikes Matthew’s eyes. Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easily. “Cole.” Matthew smiles over at him like, Fix this.
Cole nods, then rushes over to the officer. With the officer’s hand on Cole’s shoulder, it’s clear they’re friendly. Because they’re literally father and son.
Everett is wearing an actual police uniform. Not a cheap Party City costume.
“You’re not suing,” Matthew sneers quietly to Nova.
“I could go to the public,” Nova says, more emboldened. “I could bury all of you.”
“Lighten up, bro!” another guy shouts at Nova.
“This could ruin their lives, their futures, J.T.,” I tell Nova, my fake brother’s childhood friend. “We knew what we were signing up for.”
“I’m so dead,” some dude mutters, his hands on his head and his mask already trampled on the stone. “I’m so fucked.”
“My dad is going to kill me,” a girl cries.
Cole pats the officer’s chest in thanks, and Matt intakes a breath and nods to my fake brother. “What’d he say, Cole?”