Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“I think I’m dead.” I grimace.
“You’re breathing. You’re alive.” Farrow rests a hand on the curve between my shoulder and neck. “Come on.”
I have to let this car crash happen. I crack a knuckle, then I uncover the speakers. “Dr. Keene?”
“I didn’t know you and my son were together,” he says, his voice unreadable.
I rise at the same time as Farrow. My muscles are set to broil. “I thought my parents told you,” I say, my tone even-keeled despite my body frying alive from my fuck-up. I rarely make these kinds of mistakes. “And I assumed that’s why you were calling.” Stupidly. I glance at Farrow and my hard gaze carries a million-and-one apologies.
He mouths, it’s fine.
“I’m calling,” Dr. Keene says, “because you haven’t had an STD screening in months. That didn’t seem like you.” He clears a tight ball from his throat. “Now I know why.”
I’m fucking his son.
Dammit. I don’t know what to say. This is the first time I’ve dealt with a significant other’s parent. I’m not a normal human being either. I’m a celebrity from birth, American royalty, so I have no idea the correct protocol for any of this.
First thing that comes to my head, I tell Dr. Keene, “We’re safe.”
Farrow chokes on the brittle air, and he shakes his head vigorously at me and mouths, no. Like he doesn’t want his father in on his sex life. I get that now.
He’s twenty-seven. I’m sure he stopped talking to his father about that shit eons ago. That is, if he ever talked to him about it at all.
“Farrow is still your bodyguard?” Dr. Keene questions. “How?”
“Our relationship is staying secret from the public,” I tell him, and Farrow fixates on the phone in deep thought.
“Right. Be safe on the tour. Have a good rest of the day.”
After I say my goodbye, we hang up.
Farrow shakes his head a few times. “That’s not good.” He points at my phone. “That fucker has the strongest motive to leak our relationship to the public.”
I rub my sharpened jaw. “You really think he’d try to get you kicked off security?”
“To force me back onto a medical career path, yeah. I do.”
I start thinking about avenues we can take. “I’ll fix it.” I can make a call—
Farrow steals my phone.
“Farrow—”
“Wolf scout, you can’t patch bullet holes before the trigger is pulled. Take your own advice, and just drop it.”
I crack a crick in my neck. “The doing nothing thing—I’m not good at.”
“No shit.” He laughs when I glare.
I fight a smile. “Shut up.”
He leans towards me and lowers his voice to a sexy whisper, “See, every time you try to fix unfixable things, just imagine me pounding you so hard you cry when you come.”
Fuck me. My cock stirs, and I look at his mouth. Kiss me, man. “Sounds like fan fiction.”
Farrow watches me drinking him in, and his smile widens. “Trust me, it can easily be reality.” We somehow drift closer. Nearer. Hands on each other’s shoulders, slipping to the back of his neck, my neck—and my body thumps for more contact.
Mouths inches away, I breathe, “Bite me.”
He kisses me hard and then nips my lip, fuck yes—
“Separate!”
We do, and Farrow fits his earpiece in with the shake of his head. “If he does this the entire trip, I’m going to strangle him.”
9
FARROW KEENE
Five hours and twenty-three minutes into the drive—the tour bus rolling along the interstate towards the first convention stop—and someone is already bleeding.
Instantly, I stand and guide my boyfriend into the small bathroom, his hands cupped under his nose. The luxury tour bus is split into four sections, from the front to back:
Driver seat and passenger seat.
First lounge: two gray couches, chair and booth, television, granite counter with a coffee pot, sink and microwave; ice chest and fridge, and then a door leads to the bathroom/shower.
Sleeping bunks: on either side of a narrow hallway includes two rows of bunks, stacked three high. Twelve total.
Second lounge: a U-shaped couch, tabletop, and a television and game console.
Almost all of us were playing poker in the second lounge, and really, when you put that many people in a confined space, this shit is bound to happen. But out of eleven people, the one person I’d choose not to be bleeding is gushing blood right now.
“Pinch your nose,” I instruct and chew my gum.
“Fuck,” he curses, his palms crimson from the steady nosebleed. He starts to tilt his head backwards on instinct. Come on, wolf scout.
“Maximoff.” My hand rises from his shoulder to neck. “Stay bent forward. Turn to me.” I need to see if the bone is fractured.
Before he does either, a voice distracts him.
“What…in the ever-loving-fuck,” Sulli curses in the doorway, jaw unhinging. “I’m so fucking sorry. I just get so competitive and…fuck.” She won the last hand of poker, and she sprung up in excitement and accidentally elbowed Maximoff in the face.