Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“We need to go,” I say the obvious.
It really dawns on me that the we in this scenario is me and Farrow. Not me and Akara. Not me and a guy I recently met.
It’s just me and him.
And not in a way I fantasized. Farrow is now obligated to protect me, maintain a professional relationship with me, and always keep me safe.
Picturing a polar bear eating Fritos on the moon is easier than imagining Farrow as my bodyguard. I think it’s a sign.
That this is about to get fucking strange.
3
MAXIMOFF HALE
Leaving Superheroes & Scones in my red Audi, I merge onto the freeway. The air is noticeably strained between us since I gave him my eight-page list. While he silently reads in the passenger seat, I concentrate on the road and speed past paparazzi vehicles that attempt to hug me like we’re friends.
Farrow glances up and scrutinizes the various SUVs and sedans racing after us. “I really should be the one driving in this relationship.”
I stiffen at the word relationship. I mentally add in platonic, but my sixteen-year-old self with his sophomoric crush would be hard as a rock right now.
Twenty-two-year-old me is still pissed that I put Farrow in my spank bank.
“Number twelve.” I nod to the list.
He eyes me for a long moment before focusing on the paper. “It says that you’re not used to letting other people behind the wheel.” It actually says I always drive.
I glance at him once, then back to the road. “I didn’t realize that you can’t read.” I switch lanes.
I can almost feel his smile stretch. “Always a precious smartass.” I hear him flip a page. “You have a typo on number thirty-two.”
He called me precious. What the fuck does that even mean? Precious. I have to let it go, but the word scrolls across my gaze like a tickertape banner. “What typo?”
“You forgot a comma.”
I let out an irritated groan. “This isn’t a term paper. Don’t critique my grammar.”
Farrow kicks up one of his shoes on the seat. Balancing his forearm on his knee. Then he bites the staple off and spits it out. I tense and try to watch him and the road simultaneously.
He has a very particular way he moves his hands. They shift with meticulousness and care. A sort of accuracy that belongs to surgeons and someone equipped to disassemble and reassemble a gun blindfolded.
I’ve imagined those hands on me too many times to count. Don’t fucking restart now. I’m trying not to, but having him this close, the NC-17 fantasies vie to breach the surface. Heat blankets my skin and tries to grip my cock.
Thumbing through the papers, Farrow tells me, “You’re about to miss our exit.”
“Shit.”
He smiles a self-satisfied, entertained smile, but I skillfully veer over three lanes of traffic and dodge more paparazzi. Making the exit ramp safely.
Farrow folds nearly all of the pages and only keeps two sheets.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He waves the folded stack. “How about you ditch eighty-five percent of your rules and be less of a wolf scout, wolf scout?”
“No.” I shake my head a few times. Those rules reflect my current way of living. “This is my fucking life, Farrow.”
“And you have to make room for me,” he says seriously. “We’ll find a groove together, but not when you put me in a headlock before the match even starts.”
I honestly think he just hates being confined by strict rules that aren’t his own. “Declan followed them.”
“To your detriment,” he says bluntly. “You have a speeding habit. I should be driving.”
We’re on that again.
“I drive,” I tell him. “Your options are endless. Watch me drive. Watch the other cars. Watch the horizon. Count road signs. Play with the music—”
“Inaccurate.” He licks his thumb and flips quickly through the pages before landing on one. “Number ninety-two. I prefer no music in the car until noon.” He tilts his head at me. “Because…?”
“I usually have to make business calls. For charity,” I emphasize. He knows that I work nonprofit. Every day will be Take Farrow To Work Day. It’s weird. What’s weirder is that he’s currently working right now. He’s not just in my car to chat. He’s on-the-job.
“Are you planning to make a business call now?” he questions.
“No.”
“Then really this should say ‘I prefer no music in the car until noon when I have business calls.’” He pops open the middle console and finds a pen. He rewrites the rule. “You also have another typo—”
“Shut up about the fucking typos,” I say and adjust the air conditioner, my body hot as his smile stretches wider and wider.
To fill the quiet, I switch on the radio and play an EDM station. Heavy bass pumps through the speakers.
“Music before noon,” Farrow says. “I’ve already started loosening his straight-laces.”
One hand on the wheel, I use the other to flip him off. “I love how you give yourself credit for the stupid things in life. It’s so generous of you.”