Farrow returns the aroused, taut sentiment. Our short breaths are the only true noise.
The headiest exchange of my life. Undeniable.
He leans forward, his lips an inch from mine. And very deeply, very huskily, he whispers, “What do you want, Maximoff?”
In an instant, I close the distance.
My lips meet his lips, and the tension explodes. We thrust forward together. An invisible divide detonates, blown to pieces.
He deepens the strong kiss. Our tongues wrestling, breath caught in my lungs. I clutch the back of his head. With firm, possessive passion. Wanting more of him.
His muscular arm falls to my broad swimmer’s shoulders. His fingers skim lightly, teasingly against my burning neck. Rising through my thick hair.
Fucking Christ.
A low groan sticks in my throat while we kiss. His smile grows against my stinging lips.
I want closer, but the middle console is in our fucking way. I untuck the black shirt from his pants. My hand slips beneath. Discovering the warm ridges of his abs that flex against my large palm.
My other hand shifts to his jaw, his skin rough from a less-than-close shave. His masculinity pumps blood in my dick, turning me on inside out. I like men that can bench press as much if not more than me. The kind that tries to steer my ship in bed and then relents, ultimately.
The kind that kisses like a fiend but becomes a pleasured puddle while we’re fucking.
Farrow pulls me nearer to his six-foot-three build. Finding extra room to move. He breaks the kiss, only for his mouth to travel down my sharp jaw. To my neck.
Fuck me.
I twist his shirt in my fist and then I climb between the seats. Heading into the back, I pull Farrow in this direction behind me. He follows. Our asses hit the stretched leather seat. No physical objects in our way.
We breathe heavily. Sprinting towards something we’ve never chased.
I yank the shirt over his head. And he tugs off mine. Hot skin against hot skin, tattooed chest to bare chest—I pin him to the side door; his head gently touches the window.
He grins, panting for two breaths. “So it’s like that then?” His fingers hook in my waistband.
I need his hands on my cock. I grind forward, shifting his hand lower. His brown eyes pool with intrigue. And arousal.
“It’s like what?” I ask deeply.
One corner of his mouth curves. “You’re bossy every place, everywhere. It’s like that.” And then Farrow uses his strength and hooks his arms beneath mine. Swiftly, he turns me, my spine meeting the interior car door. Our positions reversed. The back of my head meets the window.
And his knee presses on the leather between my legs. Closer, he clasps my hand. He sucks my ear before whispering, “So am I.”
“Fuck,” I pant, oxygen barely leaving my lips. I’m fucking breathless. Lightning has been striking me on repeat.
I’ve never felt breathless in my life.
I’ve never been with anyone I’ve known. Not like this. Never have I had real feelings beyond physical attraction. Not until him.
Merging the two—the feelings with the physical, it catapults me to a new plane of existence. Farrow lets go of my hand to clutch my jaw. His fingers—on my face.
My neck arches back against the window, my eyes almost rolling but they fasten into a daggered look. Fuck. I need him lower.
When I train my piercing gaze on him, I see how he drinks in my pleasure. Getting off by my expression. He kisses outside of my lips, and I kiss him more fully. Tongues tangled.
He grabs my neck, our pelvises digging closer. Erections bound beneath fabric but fucking dying to meet.
I fist his hair. Tugging. Sitting up more to be at equal height. The handlebar protrudes into my back, but I wrench Farrow harder to my chest.
His lips part into a gruff groan.
I can’t wait anymore. I draw his hand lower. To my zipper. Unzip me, man. I want jeans off, boxer-briefs off.
Farrow palms my cock, then squeezes above the fabric with the perfect pressure—fuck me. Swiftly, he fishes my button through, unzips—and on instinct, I lift his head back up. To kiss me again. Farrow seizes my jaw in a strong but affectionate grip.
Ensuring that I stay still.
So he likes control. Not a new fact, but I wonder if he’d let go, just in bed. And then I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing about me.
The second our lips break, I put a firm hand on his chest. And I guide his back to the bottom of the leather seat. Until he lies supine.
His ravenous gaze swallows me whole.
I expect him to protest about the new position, but he clutches my shoulder and pulls me down on top. Our movements quicken, feverishly. Our legs intertwining. Our dicks grind before I stroke the outline of his length, rock-hard. Fuck.
Me.
I unbutton his black pants. He yanks my jeans halfway down my thighs, revealing my green boxer-briefs. We exchange hard, rough kisses in every free second.
His lip piercing no longer cold but warm against my mouth. I unzip him—we stop.
We suddenly freeze as my phone vibrates in my pocket. Loudly.
Incessantly.
Someone’s calling me. Our chests visibly rise and fall. His lips reddened from my force, and before I tell him I have to answer, he’s already digging into my jean’s pocket. Retrieving my phone.
He remembers that calls are more important than texts. I never ignore phone calls. I can’t. Not if family may be in trouble.
I just realize his earpiece is out. And also his radio. He left both on the passenger seat up front.
Checking the caller ID, Farrow says, “It’s your dad.”
15
MAXIMOFF HALE
MY DAD IS CALLING ME. Greaaaat.
I sit up off Farrow, and he sits up with me. Turned towards one another still, our arms are on the back of the same seat.
I steady my breath. Used to the worst timing for most things.
Farrow presses the green accept call button and hands me the phone. Basically saying, I’m okay with you talking to your dad, wolf scout. Do what you need to do.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, putting the call on speaker for Farrow.
Almost subconsciously. Throughout the years—but also while he’s been my bodyguard—he earned my trust, and now I can reciprocate. In my life, that’s monumental.
Farrow combs a casual hand through the just-tugged strands of his white hair. His lips quirk when he catches me staring longer.
I made out with my bodyguard.
Officially.
I’m in the no-takebacks fly zone. While I hover here, I just want to do so much fucking more. My brain is zeroed in on him.
And as far as I can tell, he’s just as honed in on me.
“Hey, Moffy.” My dad’s naturally sharp-edged voice fills the car, but he can’t see anything. Thank God. “I’m the bearer of shitty news tonight.”
My brows knot. “How shitty?”
“Hold on…” He must pull the phone away, his voice harder to hear. “What are you doing awake—no, never mind. Bed. Now.”
“Dad.” I know that voice and her serious tone like he’s unconscionably destroying her favorite pair of boots and gothic makeup. It’s my little sister Kinney. “You don’t understand. The witching hour is at 3 a.m.—I need to commune with my people.”
“Wait…are you dead? Did I forget to print an obituary of my own thirteen-year-old daughter? Let me think about this.” My dad’s dry voice definitively says I’m not thinking about this. His thick sarcasm makes Farrow’s lips upturn even more towards me. Knowing exactly where mine originates.
“Dad,” she huffs.
“Kinney Hale,” he refutes, “I banished ghosts from this house millenniums ago. They’re all afraid of me. You’re wasting your time. So bed. Now. You have school tomorrow.” He must put the phone to his ear. To me, he sighs, “Kids.” Just to piss her off.
“I’m not a kid, you troll.” I can actually h
ear her stomping away.
My dad laughs. “I love you, little Slytherin!” he shouts after her. And to me, he asks, “Sorry, where was I?”
“Shitty news,” I say, hesitant to pull off my jeans in case I need to go home for whatever reason. Farrow stays as motionless as me.
“Are you in your car?”
“Yeah. You’re on speaker by the way.”
“Farrow, is he speeding? If he is, you have my full permission to ground him. Take away his phone. He hates that.”
Farrow is smiling like a Cheshire cat. Loving this too much. I glare and flip him off. He clasps my hand. “He’s only five-over,” he says easily, still smiling. I bring our hands down, examining his tattooed fingers that spell k.n.o.t., the other hand reads: t.a.m.e. in black ink. Farrow watches me fixatedly but adds to my dad, “Let’s blame traffic.”
It’s more than a good lie. It’s one that’s meant to help me first and foremost. Not my parents. Not the security team. Me.
He’s on my side.
“Steal his keys next time,” my dad says.
I glance at the phone. “How about you not order my bodyguard around? That’s my job.”
Farrow grins and mouths to me, you wish.
I almost groan. I just want to fuck him.
Before my dad talks about my mom worrying about me behind the wheel, I say, “I can’t talk long. What’s the shit news?”
“We’re gonna have to reschedule our lunch tomorrow. Your Uncle Connor and Uncle Ryke have parent-teacher meetings.”
I read the texts earlier this morning—and the pictures have been going viral since noon. My little cousins Winona Meadows and Ben Cobalt spray-painted Dalton Academy’s science lab with the words: frog killers!
Those two always send me memorandums on environmental objectives that H.M.C. Philanthropies should complete. They’re thirteen and fifteen. And they get in trouble together monthly.
“Let me know the new day for lunch; I’ll be there,” I tell him. I look forward to lunches with my dad and my uncles, but if one of us can’t make it, we just reschedule to a day later in the week. It’s shitty, but it’s not the worst.
“Drive safe, Moffy,” my dad says, his tone serious.
“I will. Night.”
“Love you, bud.” He hangs up.
I pocket my phone and stare off. Thinking. My dad’s voice lingers in my ears. Being with my bodyguard—there are consequences packed on top of consequences. If I can, I want to avoid all of them.
I train my gaze on Farrow.
He rests his knuckles to his lips, brows raised at me. “Listening to Socrates and Plato again?”
I force an irritated smile. “No.” I lift my jeans to my waist, but I don’t button or zip yet.
Farrow eyes my movements. “What’s wrong?”
I stay near him. Not adding distance or space. “What happens between us—it has to stay secret. All of it. If you want to do anything with me, you can’t treat this rule like it’s flexible or meant to be broken.”
Farrow smiles. “I agree.”
“We agree?” I say, disbelieving. What alternate universe am I in?
“I love my job.” He holds my gaze. “And if the security team or your family finds out that I crossed a line and broke their trust, I’m gone. Someone will replace me as your bodyguard. Which means that the new bodyguard will spend more time with you than I do, and that’s just…not happening.” His voice falls to a husky whisper. “You need to know that I only do exclusive. No fucking around. You want me, you only get me, and vice versa.”
Exclusive.
A relationship.
A secret relationship.
I’ve never had any of those. I wish I could be happy that he only wants me. I wish that I could accept the truth: that I only want him. But I’m concerned about the little annoying details that slip between these facts.
I look straight at him. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You can’t know.”
He never breaks eye contact. “Then tell me, Maximoff.”
I don’t falter. “I genuinely love sex,” I say the truth I’ve always hidden. “I have a really high fucking sex drive.” It sounds so simple. It’s not. “I’ve never spoken publicly about how much sex I have. Sharing those details—it’s a heavy responsibility that I carry very prudently. For one, my mom is a sex addict.” He knows.
I’m used to this fact too, but the depth that I still need to go pins my tongue down. I pause.
I turn slightly and crack my knuckles. People usually ask isn’t it so awkward that you know your mom’s sexual history? I can handle the awkward.
I can handle everything.
Even the cruelty towards her, but it’ll always boil my blood. If you’re going to attack someone, come at me.
Farrow shifts his arm that’s on the back of the seat. So his forearm lies on top of my forearm. Almost comfortingly.
I stare at the way his fingers clutch my elbow, and then I look up at him. “There’s not enough information or research to claim that sex addiction is hereditary. But if I publicly share how much sex I have, the media will start calling me an addict. Then they’ll say it’s hereditary. Then they’ll start harassing my siblings about sex more than they already do. So I stay quiet.”
The frequency someone has sex is not enough to determine a sex addiction—but it won’t matter to the media. They’ll cling like fucking koalas to the detail and never let go.
“And it’s not the only reason I stay quiet about my sex life,” I tell him. “I war with a stereotype that I know I fall into, something I feel an obligation to break.”
He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Maximoff. That’s not your cross to bear.”
I’m not surprised that he knows what I’m talking about. “It is, Farrow. When I came out as bisexual to the world, I knew people would look at me as a role model for something. I have a fucking duty not to reinforce harmful stereotypes: like bisexuals are over-sexual—that we all just fuck around and fuck a lot.” I rake my right hand through my hair. “You know the minute that I told the world I like guys and girls, a lot of people assumed that meant I like threesomes—that’s not fucking okay.” Quickly, I add, “To clarify, I’m not into threesomes.”
His lips tic upward. “I grasped that by your vitriol.” He tilts his head. “In short, you’re saying that you have a lot of sex, but no one can know. And I’m sure you were always safe since you’re you.”
“Thank you,” I say dryly, not mentioning that I’ve been checked out every week and that I’m clean. I also don’t add how I go to my concierge doctor for the screenings and tests.
And by doctor, I mean his dad.
Thank God for doctor-patient confidentiality.
Farrow’s know-it-all smile starts expanding inch by inch.
My eyes narrow. “What?”
“You jumped from exclusivity to announcing that you have a lot of sex.”
I don’t follow his logic. “Your smile is going to fall off your fucking face.”
He practically overflows with amusement. “You don’t think I can satisfy you?”
My brows jump. Huh.
By his sheer confidence, he clearly knows he can.
Our eyes trail over each other, and my cock throbs again. A groan scrapes my throat. “More like,” I whisper lowly, “I was warning you. In case you didn’t want sex every day, multiple times a night. I try not to assume what people are into.”
Farrow opens his mouth, but loud voices filter through his earpiece on the front seat. He stretches towards the middle console but glances back to say, “I’m into you. If I couldn’t keep up, I wouldn’t be your bodyguard.” He grabs the radio and connecting earpiece. Turning up the volume, Akara’s voice floods the car.
“…find Farrow. He needs to check in.”
His jaw muscle tics, and he hooks his radio to his waistband. Whoever was chosen to “find Farrow” can’t find me with him. Not bare-chested, hair askew, lips reddened, dicks sti
ff—no.
I toss his black shirt at his tattooed chest. I’m used to abrupt endings and constant rain checks, but this one is hard. Pun abso-fucking-lutely intended.
I pull my green shirt over my head and open the door. “Thanks for the blue balls.”
He fits his earpiece in. “You’ll thank me more when I take all of you in my mouth.”
My muscles clench, blood heating at the visual. I look back at Farrow.
His lips rise. “You’re easily hot and bothered.”
“And you’re not?” I combat.
“I conceal mine better. Comes with the territory.” He motions to his radio. “Don’t look so sad, wolf scout. You can’t be the best at everything.”
I wear zero sadness. I’m glaring. “Have fun with your hand. Dream of me.” I climb out and shut the door. In the garage. I leave with the last word but feel his amusement as I go.
Despite all the risks, the new territory, I find myself grinning.
16
MAXIMOFF HALE
OUT OF MY WHOLE FAMILY, Connor Cobalt has the best office, the best view—hands down. Whenever I’m in the sleek city high-rise of Cobalt Inc., I either lose myself gazing out the window, a breathtaking Philly skyline, or I focus on the memorabilia my uncle shelves and hangs.
Rain pelts the glass and thunder roars. I’m not fixated on the storm. I’m currently staring hard at a framed National Geographic magazine on the navy-blue wall.
The cover shows a rugged, dark-haired man in his late thirties, skin tanned from the sun. With the horizon bleeding orange and yellow, he grips a rock face from at least four-hundred feet high. Using only his right fingertips. Legs hanging off, left arm dangling.
No harness.
No rope.
The sun rises behind him.
I read the title of the magazine: From Such Great Heights: The Best Free-Solo Climber in the World. Ryke Meadows.
My uncle.
My dad’s half-brother.
He’s in his forties now, and he still climbs. He still makes the front pages of magazines, and he has about five different sponsorships and ad campaigns.
Usually I would stare at this with admiration and be proud to know Ryke. I am. But I’m stuck here. Looking harder. Staring longer.
Damaged Like Us (Like Us Series Book 1) Page 13