Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Aaron: Hate to disappoint you, but I’m literally nothing but hard candy shell.
Juliette: Blah. That’s what all the secretly soft people say. But I’m hopeful you’re not secretly a wolf in disguise.
Little optimist.
How naïve she is—and how close to the truth.
Aaron: You’re very committed to this imaginary version of me.
Juliette: Someone has to be. Might as well be me.
Irritation prickles at the back of my neck. Yeah, being kind and caring is great. Being naïve enough to think I have a gooey interior is not.
I frown down at her messages.
Juliette Kennedy is smart. Soft-spoken. Probably says sorry when someone bumps into her… and walking straight into my bear trap with eyes wide open. Shit, she’s not walking—she’s running.
Nearby, a throat clears.
When I look up, her idiot brother is watching me again, only this time, it looks like he has something to say to me. Declan edges closer, towel in his hands.
Aaron: Are you still in the building?
Juliette: Yes, I’m going over some folders for the charitable programs the Ice Wolves participate in. Like the children’s literacy program.
Aaron: Never heard of it.
Juliette: Oh you’d love it. Reading to kids at the library.
Aaron: That sounds awful.
Juliette: LOL
Aaron: I’m being serious. Reading to small children is my worst nightmare
Juliette: Yes, yes, you’re the big bag wolf *eyeroll*
Juliette: So the REAL reason I’m messaging you, now that I know you don’t have a game tonight, is to see if you wanted to hang out. Not like a date, just… hang out. Watch movies or whatever.
Or whatever.
I stare at the messages on my screen.
Slowly lift my eyes to look at her brother.
Declan’s jaw tightens when he realizes I’m grinning in his direction.
Aaron: I could chill and do movies. Or “whatever”
Aaron: Your place or mine?
Juliette: I’m open to either—I didn’t think this all the way through before throwing the idea out there.
Aaron: My place it is, if you’re sure you’re ready to visit the lion’s den.
Juliette: The LION’S den?? Is that bad?
Her back peddling is endearing.
Aaron: Depends.
Juliette: On…?
Aaron: How resilient and brave you actually are.
Three dots disappear and reappear, then disappear again.
My phone pings.
Juliette: I guess you’ll find out.
A low laugh rumbles out of my chest as I run my hand over the rough stubble on my jawline, a reminder that I should shave.
Declan takes another step closer, squaring his shoulders as if he’s trying to intimidate me.
“You got a problem?” I growl at him, mean-mugging him, dragging my eyes over his torso and finding him wanting. Besides, I’m too busy messing with his younger sister to pay him too much attention.
Oh, the irony…
So fucking good.
Seriously, I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d written a script.
I don’t break eye contact with him when I type.
Aaron: I guess I will.
Aaron: Here, let me shoot you my address. I don’t think your place is all that far from mine.
I hit send. Give Declan my best, placating smile.
“When you speak to your sister, tell her I said thanks for accepting my invite,” I say. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
He goes still.
“You’re fucking with me.”
My mind goes to the HR policy and how much trouble she’d be in if this dipshit decides to take me seriously and turn his own sister into corporate to keep her away from me.
“Yes.” I pause to be theatrical. “I’m fucking with you.”
He studies the phone in my hands as though, if he looked hard enough, he’d be able to read the name glowing on my screen.
“You better be.”
Again, my brows rise. “Yeah? Or what?”
We regard each other hotly, tempers flaring, daring the other to blink.
The locker-room noise fades to a dull roar—metal doors slamming, pads clanging to the ground, laughter, staff giving orders—none of it registering in my brain. The air has been vacuum-sealed around the two of us.
Declan breaks contact first.
“You so much as mess with her head,” he says, voice low enough for my ears only, “and I will end you.”
I tilt my head.
Consider him.
My lips curl into a smile. “You’re as cute as she is when you get riled.”
His nostrils flare. “She is nothing like me.”
It’s a direct hit, and it lands where it was supposed to: my ego. The part of me that has always doubted how loveable I am—and how worthy I am of anything that lasts.
“No,” I say quietly. “She isn’t.”
He watches my face intently, searching for a crack in my well-placed armor. Some part of me that shows human emotion. Some part of me that he can find guilty.
He won’t find it because this isn’t about her.
This is about him.
It’s like the universe is handing me a knife, blade first…
“You think this is a game?” he asks.
I shrug. “Everything is a game to someone.”
Red faced, he steps closer. “You don’t get to use her to settle whatever messed-up scoreboard you keep in your head.”
If only he knew how accurate that was.