Page 167 of Lovers Like Us

His hands fall to my shoulders. I’m shirtless, chest bare, and his touch heats me up. I stay still and hold his neck for asecond.

My mind reels. I let out a rough noise in my throat. “I can’t stop thinking abouther.”

“You can handle a lot, I’ll give you that to start,” Farrow says, nodding a few times. “But no one, not even me, can take on everything for everyone. Since you were, how young? Sixteen, fifteen? You’ve let thousands of people give you their emotional pain, and they want and plead for you to comfort them.” He pauses. “At what point is it going to click for you that you’re just one man.One man.That’s one to millions. You can’t.Youcan’t.”

“I cantry.”

Farrow looks straight into my core. He pauses to consider my reply, and then he says, “But promise you’ll listen to your body if it says you can’t handle it anymore. You know, step back.” His lips almost rise as he uses some of my words from a whileago.

I’m actually, really smiling. Once the FanCon ends, I’ll have less close contact with so many fans at one time. It’ll be easier thannow.

But he’sconcerned.

Forme.

“Step back,” I say, feigning confusion. “Can’t picture it, for either ofus.”

He nods. “We’re both stubbornassholes.”

“Tell me something that isn’t new,” Isay.

“I love you,” he says deeply. “And when you hurt, Ihurt.”

I inhale. We pull closer, foreheads pressed together, and I kiss him—but he’ll tell you that he kisses me. Our mouths meet, and I urge his lips. In a sweet, yearning embrace that lights my lungs onfire.

And then a knock raps the door. Our mouths break, but his gaze saysdon’t detach; let them see, wolfscout.

I can’t. Going public as my boyfriend—maybe it wouldn’t affect his job anymore because SFO is already dealing with notoriety—but it’d put Farrow through aringer.

All the public scrutiny, media harassment, and extreme loss ofprivacy.

The kind of fame he’s experiencing now is nothing compared to what he’d feel as “Maximoff Hale’s boyfriend”—and I can’t do that tohim.

So I back up, our arms dropping off each other, and he nods, understanding. Ithink.

39

FARROW KEENE

“Wait, wait,”Maximoff breathes hard against my jaw. Every time I end up in the same tight bunk with him, it’s a master class inrestraint.

A flip-down movie screen playsEverybody Wants Some!!which we’ve abandoned several times to turn into each other. Legs interlocked, chest against chest. Hands gripping and squeezing andpulling.

Damn, I wantdeeper.

But our roaming hands pause at hiswait, wait. I watch him catch his breath as he tries to suppress this carnalneed.

A smile toys at my stinging lips. See, we’re not about to fuck inches away from his cousins and myfriends.

Restraint.It’s harder than any class I took at Yale, but clearly I’m the one making bettergrades.

“Watch the movie, wolf scout.” I eye his reddenedlips.

“You watch it,” he combats in a choked groan. “Fuck,just shut up for asecond.”

My voice turns himon.

Hot arousal tries to fist my cock, both of us only in drawstring pants. Thin fabric separates us, and the outline of his dick rubs againstmine.