“I promise,” he says into his phone. “Night.” He hangs up, and I slip into the bathroom. I shut and lock the door behind me.
Our eyes never detach. And our arms immediately wrap around each other. I hug him to my chest as much as he hugs me. I cup the back of his head with my hand, his palm warms my neck, and his pulse pounds against my body.
He inhales, his carriage rising. My eyes burn, but I try to breathe, deep and strong.
Two minutes must pass before we lean back. Only just slightly. I hold his sharp jaw. We kiss gently, and then we pull further back. Studying one another for a brief moment.
His eyes are bloodshot.
I wonder what it must be like to be in his head. Paranoid, I’m guessing. Thoughts moving a mile a minute. Not slowing.
For anything.
“Are you okay?” I ask him finally.
He nods once. “Are you? Because I thought something seriously fucking terrible happened to you. No one could get ahold of you, and I saw Quinn and…” He swallows hard.
“I’m okay.” My brows knot. “You know what I did tonight is just part of my job?”
He licks his lips slowly. “So you don’t want me to care about you?—”
“No.” I lower my voice. “You just need to know that I’m going to get banged up and you can’t run and save me, wolf scout. You have to let it happen.”
Maximoff daggers a glare to the ceiling, then the mirror. It finally sinks in for him too. That I’m allowed to protect him, but he can’t protect me. Not in the same exact way.
“We can’t all be heroes,” I say matter-of-factly.
His glare falls to me, but his lips inch bit by bit, our arms still hooked tight around each other. “If I’m not the hero, what am I?” Maximoff is waiting for me to call him a villain. In his comic books, that’s the dichotomy. Heroes versus villains.
He’s very far from one.
I press my lips to his jaw, his neck, and against his ear, I whisper, “You’re a prince who wants to be a knight.”
26
FARROW KEENE
Maximoff swimslike a bird cutting through air, graceful and effortless. Made to fly.
In a matter of seconds, he crosses the whole length of the indoor pool.
I lounge on the edge of the diving board, one leg hanging off, my other foot on the board. Water rolls off my chest, black swim shorts wet, and even though we’re alone, I’d still be hooked on Maximoff if the pool were jam-packed.
I have a perfect view when he switches to the butterfly stroke. Returning to my side of the pool, his grace transforms intopower. His strong arms extend and then dig deep into the water, pulling half his chest and head above the surface.
Damn.My cock stirs.
Maximoff is known for his great butterfly technique. He started swimming really young, competed at junior levels first, then older with regional and national competitions. Security gossipsoftenabout how he could’ve qualified for an Olympic trial. But he didn’t do it.
Didn’t even try.
He chose to throw himself into his career. Into charity work. Every time he swims, I’m just reminded of how big his heart is.
Maximoff reaches my end, and instead of swimming another lap, he grabs onto the side of the diving board and does a pull-up withonearm. He yanks off his goggles and his cap, brown hair sticking up every which way.
It’s cute as fuck.
“You ready for a round five?” he asks, his chest rising and falling heavily like he ran a marathon. We’ve already racedfourtimes. Yeah, I lost all four. No, my ego doesn’t bruise that easily.
