Farrow zips up his leather jacket, a piece of his bleach-white hair brushing his dark eyelashes. His casual confidence is fucking hot, but this can’t be a fantasy. Because he’s not even looking at me.
He only acknowledges Connor. “Alpha asked me to check the street view from your office. Price said he sent you a text.”
Connor has his phone cupped in his hand. “I saw. Do what you need to.” Wait.
He’s staying? My mouth falls fraction by fraction.
“Thanks,” Farrow says, his eyes flitting to me for a brief second. I barely catch his lips lifting before he faces the windows and surveys the street below.
One-hundred-million-percent in earshot.
My dad pops open a Lightning Bolt! energy drink and lightly elbows my side. “Why do you want to know which lube is better?” No.
No
No.
Fuck.
17
MAXIMOFF HALE
I’M AN UPRIGHT STATUE. Solidified.
I hoped my earlier question would be forgotten or die. No one ever censors themselves in front of security. I usually wouldn’t care either, but this is the very, very beginning of whatever is going on between us.
I don’t need Farrow to know that I just asked my dad and two uncles about lube. A conversation that I had with Farrow—and I can’t backtrack without appearing suspicious.
I have to barrel forward.
“A friend told me that silicone-based is better. I was curious what you guys thought.” I stomp down the urge to glance at Farrow. I’m not about to let my dad or uncles see that I correlate lube with my bodyguard.
But I imagine his stretched smile and hearing him say, so pure.
My neck scorches. A first-time customer to Mortified-R-Us.
My dad’s brows pinch. “What friend?”
I have friends that are employees and then I have family. I don’t trust anyone else, and my dad is aware. I say the only possibility. “Janie.”
Connor stares straight through me, his fingers to his jaw. “I’m certain my daughter knows that silicone degrades silicone.” He means silicone lube destroys sex toys.
“She has an Asshole With Benefits,” I remind them. “Nate.”
“We know,” they all say, not the biggest fans of Nate either. But they’ve never met him.
I’m the only one who meets the AWBs.
Tabloids post photos of Jane out at nightclubs with the same person. Nate is the fourth and current AWB. They also have photos of those same guys with other girls. Media and fans hesitate to call them “boyfriends” because they’re not.
AWB #1 & #2 wanted his fifteen minutes of fame.
AWB #3 wanted to jump-start his acting career.
And now Nate AWB #4 wants the thousand-dollar bottles of champagne.
Janie always says their intentions don’t matter because she only wants sex and they respect her in bed. Which she struggles to find. A lot more than me. It’s why she can’t just hookup so casually like I can. She has to hang onto the same guy for a while.
But I want Jane to be with someone who wants all of her. Not just her fame. Not just her wealth. She’s one of the best people in this damn world. Beautiful inside and out. And if the guys she’s sleeping with see less than that—then they’re not fucking good enough for her.
Case closed.
My dad makes a scrunched face. “I’d never predict in a thousand millenniums that I’d know my niece’s lube preference.”
“You asked,” I say.
“Regrets.” He puts a hand to his heart.
“Water-based lube is fucking better,” Ryke says. “Doesn’t stain the sheets and feels way more natural.”
Connor arches his brow and tells me, “That’s if you want to listen to the one who hasn’t had anal sex in two decades and counting.”
I risk a glance at Farrow, and he still faces the windows. But I spot the beginning of his out-of-control smile. I tear my gaze off him quickly and look at my dad. He’s not the most perceptive person in the room, and his attention is on his brother and best friend.
Ryke groans. “Fuck you, Cobalt.”
Connor grins. “That’s become your ineloquent way of saying Connor Cobalt is always right.”
Ryke gives him two middle fingers.
Connor focuses on me. “My preference depends on what I’m doing. Word of advice, silicone is preferred for anal, especially if you plan to bottom.” He was with men and women before he married Rose Calloway. Whereas my dad and Ryke are straight.
I weirdly and strangely know that my mom’s favorite position is anal because of asshole teenagers in prep school. They found the info online, and they just loved to remind me.
As I think for a second, I find a way to gain the upper-hand and maybe throw Farrow off-kilter. “I top most of the time.”
Farrow pops a bubble with his gum. Drawing my gaze towards him automatically. He slightly turns his head, but he stops himself and fully faces the window.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Connor asks me.
“What?” My head swerves to my uncle. “No.”
My dad tries to shelter his worry, but creases line his forehead, brows cinched. He hates that I’m into one-night stands and NSA sex. In a snap second, he glances at my bodyguard. “Farrow.”
No.
Farrow turns to us, chewing gum. “Yeah?”
“You know I’m trusting you to keep my son safe.” My dad’s glare could slaughter livestock and flocks of geese. “Whenever he brings a stranger into his room alone, he’s putting himself in danger, and you’re the only goddamn one who can help him—”
“Pretty sure I can help myself,” I interject.
Farrow bites down on his chewing gum, smiling wide. “Listen to your dad, wolf scout. You need me.”
I shake my head, trying so damn hard not to smile, too. “I need less of you.”
He tilts his head. “Said no one ever.”
“Glad I could be your first,” I say dryly. The banter is pretty common between us. No one should be suspicious.
My dad relaxes back and looks between Ryke and Connor. “Not that I care if it happens, but…do you realize that all of our eldest children have never been in real relationships?”
“Is it a pattern or a coincidence?” Connor muses out loud, but I bet he already knows the answer.
Jane, Sulli, and me—the oldest three of each family—have the most pressure concerning who we date. It’s not the only reason we all haven’t been in relationships, but it’s definitely added to it.
“Since you’re already talking like I’ve evaporated,” I say lightheartedly as I stand, “I need to head out. I have a meeting in a half hour.” I say goodbye to everyone but Farrow.
He has to follow me.
The minute we exit and walk slowly down the hallway, he starts laughing hard. Freeing a sound I bet he’s been caging. Almost infectious.
I feel myself smiling. “Welcome to my life. Apparently you have a front row seat.”
“It’s entertaining as hell, but when are you going to let me behind the wheel?”
“The day I die.”
He rolls his eyes at the word die. And then he gives me a blatant once-over. Head to toe. “You asked your dad and uncles for advice about lube. That’s cute.”
The way he says cute—it sounds sincere. But I still feel the need to defend myself. “I’m close to my family.”
A warm smile appears. “I know. It’s one of my favorite things about you.” We exchange a heady look, my blood heating. He scans the empty hall and then whispers with his growing smile, “You top ‘most of the time’.” He uses air-quotes.
“Is that going to be a problem for you?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes again, like that’s not where he meant for me to travel. Our shoulders brush, bodies drawing closer. We shut up as an influx of Cobalt Inc. employees meander down the hall.
We wait for the elevator in silence. Thankfully when it arrives, it’s empty. We enter, and I pre
ss the lobby button. As soon as we start descending, Farrow tells me, “I’m vers.” He likes being a top and bottom.
I look at him.
He raises his brows at me. “I want your cock in my ass.”
I almost harden, but I catch him glancing at the elevator’s security camera. He’s aware of our surroundings. It’s why we don’t collide together.
Though, I risk nearing him. Only a couple feet away.
“What does most of the time mean for you?” he asks bluntly. “I once was with someone who didn’t like any kind of penetration.”
“That’s definitely not me.” I lick my lips, and his gaze falls to my mouth. “I like pretty much everything, but I’ve only bottomed twice.”
His brown eyes flit up to mine, and he chews his gum slowly in thought. “You didn’t like it?”
“Not with them. It’s a trust thing,” I say, just as the elevator dings and slides to a halt.
I don’t mention how I have fantasized about Farrow behind me—his weight bearing against me, but seven out of ten times in the fantasy, I flip him around and top him.
The three other times…his erection is in me.
18
FARROW KEENE
A RINGING CELLPHONE wakes me from a half-sleep. I roll onto my side and prop my body on my arm. If this is Alpha ordering me around via cellphone now, we’re going to need to have a real chat.
I grab my phone that dropped to the old floorboards and first notice the time on the screen.
2:03 a.m.
Then the caller ID: Wolf Scout
I instantly sit up, my black comforter already kicked to the edge of the mattress. On this unusually hot October night, I almost considered sleeping naked. But middle-of-the-night security emergencies basically tell me, don’t. Unless I want to be the guy who trips over himself while putting on underwear.
And that’s just not me.
I put the phone to my ear. “Maximoff.”
His long pause spikes my pulse, and just before I ask what’s wrong, his deep voice fills the line. “Come over.”
Damn. My cock strains against my black boxer-briefs, and more heat gathers in my attic bedroom. I wonder if he intended for come over to sound that blistering and erotic.
I wait to jump at his command. For one reason only. “Don’t you have a girl in your bed?” I found out fast that the nights where Jane and Maximoff are alone in the townhouse—no friends-with-benefits, no one-night stands—they somehow end up asleep in the same room. Same bed.
Platonically.
It’s a little strange. A lot strange when I really sit and think about it, but I also understand how open and uninhibited these families tend to be. And how Maximoff and Jane’s shared experiences from birth bond them together like fraternal twins. Much closer than just being cousins.
I’ve never dated a twin, and I honestly question how I’m supposed to fit into their dynamic.
Before he replies, I ask, “Have you told her about us?”
“Not yet.” He plans to let her in on the secret.
I already agreed to that stipulation. See, Jane Cobalt comes first in his life, and it’ll take a lot more than a five-minute ass-grab and lip-lock in his Audi to change that.
“She’s asleep,” Maximoff says, voice hushed. “I left her room. I’m in mine now. Alone.” His hot impatience strokes the long length of my erection.
Aroused knot in my throat, I stand, bare feet on the floor. I use my shoulder to free my hands and push my phone to my ear. Just so I can wrap my wire around my radio and collect my holstered gun. I’m about to say I’ll be over, but I want his voice in my ear.
“Is this your first booty call?” I ask.
“Is this your first time being propositioned by a celebrity?” he effortlessly flings back.
I smile. He’s such a little smartass. “I think you mean Harvard Dropout.”
“No, I mean celebrity.” He could easily add: internationally famous, overwhelming adored and revered, but he just stops at celebrity.
I joke about Maximoff dropping out of Harvard, but I know the true reason he quit. It wasn’t because he couldn’t hack it. He needed three bodyguards during his first and only semester. Students bombarded him. Snapchatting. Instagraming. Taking selfies before, during, and after the lecture. The disruption his presence caused wasn’t just pissing off his professors, he felt like he was ruining the education of his peers.
So he quit.
And he could’ve finished out his degree with online courses like Jane, but instead he threw himself into his career. It’s all public knowledge.
I pull on my black cotton pants, and with my gun and radio in one hand, I’m out of my room faster than Maximoff probably thinks. Descending the narrow flight of stairs. Quietly passing the second floor where Quinn is passed-out asleep.
I reach my living room, and I open my mouth to speak. But he fills the line first.
“Try not to come before you get here,” Maximoff says and then hangs up.
Damn.
I slip my phone in my pocket, my neck pricked hot. I subconsciously palm my dick, up and down twice. I want him.
Shit, I want him badly.
By my fireplace, I open our adjoining door.
“Walrus, you little bastard,” I whisper and snatch the scampering kitten. Gently, I kick the door shut and then release Walrus in Maximoff’s dark living room. No lights on.
The hot tea aroma is pungent tonight, the Earl Grey scent reminding me of him. I’ve seen Maximoff fill 16oz thermoses with hot tea like it’s black coffee.
I quietly ascend the stairs. Careful that they don’t squeak beneath my weight. I pass the second floor where Jane’s room, a guest bedroom, and the only bathroom lie, and I ignore the two or three cats that stalk me.
At the very top of the staircase, I reach his door. And I enter his attic room, just as sweltering as mine—I use my leg to block two furry bastards from following.
No pussies allowed. I shut them out. Before I even look up, Maximoff says, “Lock it.”
Maybe I should change his contact name to Bossy in my phone. I do lock the door. I’m not that big of an asshole.
I turn, and my pulse pounds in my cock. Maximoff stands in drawstring pants, hung low on his cut waist, shirtless, abs chiseled like marble, but more than that—more than the outline of his erection and his beautiful cheekbones—his unshakable, staunch demeanor overpowers the small attic room.
Basically saying, I’m going to fuck you good.
My blood cranks from a simmer to a boil, and I give him a slow-burning once-over. Likewise, Maximoff. I set my holstered gun and radio on his dresser.
In my peripheral, I survey his room out of habit: closed gray curtains, a low-standing bookshelf, all deep red brick walls, a full-sized bed and burnt-orange comforter. Tiny white lights are strung around the wooden rafters, a dim glow. No other light source but that one.
Facing one another, I comb my hair back with two hands, and his gaze trails over my tattooed abs and barbell nipple piercing.
I nearly smile. “Why are your clothes still on?”
His lips ache to rise. “Come here and take them off me.”
With two lengthy steps, I bridge the distance between our strong builds—and I clutch the base of his neck, my hand running to his sharp jawline. My mouth teasingly close. Our locked gazes exhume the deepest depths, as though whispering furiously: I know you. I know you. I know you better than most ever do.
The intensity tightens my muscles, prolonging a kiss. I don’t close my eyes. I don’t look away.
Maximoff fists my hair, his other hand diving down my abs while my second palm ascends his chest. He reaches my length and massages above the cotton—he squeezes.
Good God. A rumble vibrates my throat, I throb twice as hard. Fuck, he knows what he’s doing.
As my tattooed hand reaches the hollow of his neck, his eyes flit down for the first time. Watching me, his breath falls heavy.
Discovering what turns o
n Maximoff Hale has to be my greatest turn on. I want to make him come. Hard.
I lightly—very, very lightly—wrap my fingers around his neck. Slowly, I add pressure, faintly choking him. I study his reaction and the way his chest collapses.
I breathe against his mouth, “Do you like that?”
His groan sounds like a hollowed, wolfish growl. It’s pure, raw sex.
Then his mouth meets mine, and his skillful, sensual tongue parts my lips. In such a languid, scorching wave. His aggression never disappearing—fisting my hair, tugging down my cotton pants. I step out and hold his jaw steady, deepening the kiss.
He walks me backwards, and my shoulders hit the brick. Our mouths don’t break, and I cup his firm ass, and pull him against me, yanking down his drawstring pants. No boxer-briefs, his erection frees. I break our kiss, and my lips upturn at his size.
I’m not surprised that he has the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen, thick and long. Our chests melded, our pelvises grind, and he fits his fingers in the waistband of my boxer-briefs.
His whisper warms my jaw. “That’s going to be inside of you.”
My head tilts back on the brick, fuck yes. My muscles flex, and I’m out of my boxer-briefs next. He looks down, and his reaction to my equally beautiful dick is a deep, “Fuck.”
Yeah, you’re not a winner in every arena, wolf scout. Not when I’m in contention.
With one hand, I grip the back of his neck. With the other, I stroke his shaft, my fingers tightening around him. My shoulders dig in the brick wall. He watches my hand with daggered eyes that want to roll back.
I grin as his hips buck forward, his mouth against mine again, and he takes over, aligning our erections, hot, sensitive flesh rubbing together—and he jerks both of us off with one calloused, hard hand that feels fucking…I groan, my parted lips falling to his jaw.
I hold his face and then nip his lip, his moan tearing through his mouth. You liked that. I scrape my teeth down his jaw, sucking the nape before biting lightly.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
He really likes that. I rake my fingers hard down his back, and he thrusts forward, wanting to pound into me. I see that clearly. He drops his hands, and I swiftly rotate him, his back to the brick. Me facing his chest. I’m dying to watch him come.
Damaged Like Us (Like Us Series Book 1) Page 15