Fuck…?

Farrow’s ex is right in front of me. Something that I thought could only happen in an alternate universe. One that I honestly didn’t want to visit.

The pain in my collarbone makes way for a foreign feeling. A kind of strange discomfort that wants to twist my face.

“Dr. Rowin Hart,” Rowin emphasizes to me.

I’m staring at him in a whole new light. He has a hoop cartilage piercing, and as he nears the heart monitor, I spot a tattoo of a star below his earlobe.

This guy just looks cool. Cooler than me. Someone that Farrow could and probably would get along with—Christ, I don’t even know how long they dated. Do I want to?

My jaw clenches.

Why am I doing this to myself? I’m more than confident and secure in my relationship with Farrow. My mind just won’t stop overanalyzing meaningless fucking things that don’t matter, that shouldn’t matter.

Like how win is literally in the name Rowin.

I know, I know—it’s disconcerting. You don’t have to tell me twice.

While Rowin reads the machines and Farrow reads the chart, I sit up a lot more, using my good hand to pull my body up against the inclined bed.

Rowin steals the chart back. “I’m genuinely shocked that you didn’t tell your celebrity boyfriend about me.” The truth is that I asked Farrow not to give me details. I didn’t want them.

Maybe that was a mistake.

I don’t know. How can anyone know?

Farrow twirls the marker between his fingers. “I’m not doing this with you, Rowin. You don’t get to fish for info about my relationship.”

Rowin’s dark blue eyes stab Farrow. “You’re the one who broke up with me. After a two-year relationship, after I proposed to you.” What. “I can wonder and question why you wouldn’t tell your current boyfriend any of that.”

Because I asked him not to, I think again, not fast enough to say it out loud. Farrow is already speaking.

“Go ahead and question, wonder,” Farrow says, glaring at his ex. “But you’re being masochistic as fuck by resurfacing shit from four years ago.”

Rowin looks goddamn murderous at this point. “You know it’s my thirtieth birthday today?”

Farrow almost rolls his eyes. “Fucking hell—”

“You’re the same asshole who can’t even fucking regret or apologize—”

“I’m sorry,” Farrow says as he stands; this argument is giving me whiplash. “I’ve told you I’m sorry seventeen times for hurting you, but you never want to hear it. I will never understand why you want me to rehash that night over and over again and keep rubbing salt in your wounds. To remind me that I’m an asshole? Man, I easily admit I’m one. And I don’t regret rejecting your proposal when I would’ve regretted marrying a guy I didn’t love. It’s that fucking simple.”

Heavy silence blankets the hospital room while Rowin stares fixatedly at the chart in his hands. Trying to squash the emotion that tenses his face.

Farrow slowly sits back down on my bed, grinding his teeth.

I’m suddenly glad that I’ve never had to deal with an ex. But I can’t cheer about being the winner here for never experiencing this massive migraine. Not when someone looks raw and cut open in front of me, like Rowin currently does.

Rowin clicks his pen to jot down stats or something on the chart.

“Happy Birthday, man,” I tell Rowin sincerely.

He freezes.

Farrow has his hand over his mouth. I’m not really able to distinguish his expression. It puts me on edge.

I just made things really fucking awkward.

Awesome.

I recover with more confidence and ask, “You two met in med school?”

“Yeah,” Farrow answers, his hand dropping to my knee. “But we were put in different residency programs.”

Rowin glances briefly at Farrow’s hand on me, then he scribbles on the chart. His eyes land on me for a short second. “You’re too sweet to be with someone like Farrow.”

Farrow rubs my leg. “You’d be surprised how much of a dick Maximoff is.”

I laugh, which hurts like hell, pain flaring in my chest. I cough, and both guys hawk-eye the machines that beep a bit louder.

A few more seconds pass.

“You’re not doing the surgery,” Farrow states plainly to his ex.

“I never planned to. I’m not in a surgical residency anymore.” Rowin tucks the chart under his arm.

Farrow frowns. “Your coat says Orthopedic Surgery.” He motions to the embroidered name and department on the coat pocket.

“I’m getting a new one made.” To me, he says, “Dr. Rhee will be in soon to explain the surgery, but in short, he’ll attach a metal plate and screws to hold the bones together.”

Farrow combs both his hands through his hair. “Wait,” he says, “if you’re not here for the surgery, then why the hell did you stop by?”

To fuck with Farrow, probably.

Maybe to fuck with me, Farrow’s boyfriend, too. But it seems kind of callous. Especially after a car accident.

Rowin faces me, not Farrow, and he tells me, “Dr. Edward Keene has requested that I be your physician after post-op. I wanted to introduce myself before you went into surgery. Any medical or rehab needs, you’ll defer to me—”

“What?” My mouth parts, and I almost go to stand up but cords tug. Dammit.

I always thought Dr. Keene would eventually refer me to a new physician since he refused to be mine. But Farrow’s ex? It’s underhanded and fucking wrong.

Farrow shakes his head repeatedly, his nose flaring. “My father put you up to this?” he asks Rowin.

“This isn’t some sort of conspiracy,” Rowin says. “I’m in training to join the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts’ med team.”

“Med team?” Farrow repeats. “It’s never been called that.”

“It’s what your father called it. Maybe because he’s looking to hire beyond the Keene dynasty. He told me that his brother Trip has been on sabbatical for over a year, and Trip’s wife, who I believe is a family doctor, wants to take leave to have another child.”

I remember Trip’s two sons are under seven, and Farrow told me that his uncle is already grooming them for medical school.

Rowin continues, “Your grandfather is retired, so that just leaves your father. And he’s understaffed as the famous families grow older. He needs more concierge doctors.”

A long pause strains the room.

Farrow rises to his feet. “I hope you know that my father chose you as retaliation against me. You’re not his special physician that he picked out of the pack.”

“I really don’t care why he offered me the job,” Rowin says. “The pay is unbelievably high and the hours are better than surgery. Hell, all of the Med-Peds residents and three-quarters of Surgical would’ve died for this position. It’s too rare to pass.”

“No,” I suddenly say aloud, wincing as I crunch upward. Both guys tell me to stop moving. I glower at Rowin. “No.” My voice is firm. “You can’t be my concierge doctor. You can be anyone else’s in my family, but not mine.”

Farrow’s ex is not prying into my medical history.

And if he already has, I don’t want to know.

“That’s fine,” Rowin agrees. “I’m not sure who you want to replace me, but hopefully you’ll find someone because you need PT after surgery.” He inches backwards, barely glances at Farrow, and he tells me, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on your cousins.”

Rowin leaves.

The door clicks shut, and Farrow remains standing but turns to face me. His eyes carry more apologies than usual.

I bend my knees so he can sit down. “I can remove Rowin from whatever med team there is if you want.”

“Don’t worry about that. I don’t care enough about Rowin to get him fired.” Farrow doesn’t take a seat yet, but he rests a knee on the firm mattress. His gaze never drifts off mine. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about him—”

“I asked you not to, Farrow.” I gesture to his chest with my good hand. “It’s not a big fucking deal.”

“Okay, but if I had known you’d ever meet Rowin, I would’ve told you about him and how he proposed. I didn’t want to blindside you, ever.”

I inhale, trying not to smile. “Maybe I can try to accept your apology.”

“Maybe,” he repeats like I’m full of shit and I’ve already scribbled hearts around M + F in my diary. Just so you know, I don’t have a diary. And if I did…Farrow would be all over it.

He places the chocolate tin on the tray table, and I watch him pick my philosophy paperback off the bed.

I try to open and close the hand that sticks out of my sling, and my brain must short-circuit because I say without thinking, “Your ship name with Rowin is literally FarRow.”

Farrow goes still, the paperback rolled in his hand. His brows slowly rise at me. “Wolf scout, there is no ‘ship name’ between me and Dr. Fart.”

I laugh once, a pain stabbing my ribs. I shut my eyes, and when I open them, Farrow is closer, checking an IV tube.

He glances down at me. “How long have you been obsessing?”

I hate that I’m confined to this bed and I can’t stand at eye level with him. “Since you uttered the word ex,” I say, not denying the truth. “He has a tattoo—”

“Stop.”

“And a cartilage piercing—”

“Maximoff.”

“He’s not unattractive—”

“Trust me, wolf scout. You’re much much hotter.”

“Thank you, I know,” I say confidently.

The corner of his lip pulls upward. “I love when Cocky Maximoff comes out for me.”

I’m about to say it’s not for him, but another annoying thought hits me. “He’s a doctor.”

Farrow whistles. “Your perception is something.”

I lean my head back on the hard pillow, staring up at the ceiling, then the wall. “You two fucked in the hospital a lot, like they do on TV?” The worst mental image of Farrow and Rowin pops into my head. “In the…what do they call it?”

That room thing.

With the bed. Where all the doctors crash between shifts. I picture that. My overactive imagination puts my boyfriend’s mouth passionately up against another guy’s mouth; and maybe it’d be a turn-on for some people, but it just knots my stomach—

“Maximoff.”

I blink awake to his fingers snapping at my eyes, his hand on the pillow next to my jaw. Leaning over me, his knee on the bed.

Fuck. I rake my hair back.

Farrow stares at me strongly. “Stop torturing yourself, man.”

“The on-call room,” I mutter as the answer suddenly reaches me.

His hand encases the sharp lines of my cheekbone and jaw. Fully. Securely. His gaze dives deep and touches every damn part of who I am. “I love you, Maximoff,” he says. “And I know you overthink because that’s what you do, and this is new for you. But I love you. And I know it fucking hurts to see someone from my past because it fucking hurt when I went through your NDAs. So if you need me to tell you five-thousand times, a million, that I’m so fucking in love with you, I will.”

I don’t need it; the offer alone caresses and overflows me. I cup the base of his skull and breathe, “Just kiss—” Our mouths are already colliding.

The aggression arouses each synapses of my brain. I grip his hair in between starved fingers, and his clutch tightens on my face. I break apart his lips with my tongue. Deeper, I try to draw forward, but Farrow lowers so I won’t move my chest.

And he slows the kiss to a scorching, unhurried pace that pricks my fucking nerves with hazardous voltage. Our heavy, husky breaths meld. He bites my lip, and a deep groan inches its way up my throat.

Farrow mutters a rough fuck after I run my tongue against his tongue.

My sore muscles strain, but I only crave him closer.

Nearer.

I try to shift my dominant hand—it jerks in the sling, and I turn my head, ripping our mouths apart. Pain annihilates my whole right side. “Fuck.” I clench my teeth.

Farrow eases his knee off the bed. Backing up slightly from me.

Not what I want.

I hunger to thrust my hips upward, for his hips to thrust down on me. Until hard cock grinds on hard cock, and a rough, wild and crushing kiss leads to wrestling. Pushing and pulling. Until we’re one tangled mess of muscle and bone dying to come.

All of that feels out of reach with this injury.

I look at him. He’s already studying my body. My lips sting, and I want that force to return. Thinking he’s afraid to hurt me, I say, “That was my fault.”

“It was,” he agrees easily.

“I meant it was your fault,” I backtrack as irritation nips at me.

Farrow smiles like he’s already beat me and raced miles ahead. “See, I would’ve never touched your right hand even if you blindfolded me. And I’m a doctor. I know which parts of you are off limits. So technically, if you feel a sharp pain, it’s your fault.”

Everything he just said…stirs my cock. My blood rushes downward, and the beep beep of the heart rate monitor suddenly accelerates to beepbeep beepbeep beepbeep.

Fuuuck.

Farrow laughs hard.

“Shut up.” I growl out my frustration and rub my face with my left hand. Alright, new plan. Focus on other shit besides sex.

I remember what Rowin said about Dr. Keene offering him a concierge job.

“You want to talk about your father?” I ask him seriously.

His laughter dies, and he shakes his head and nears me again. “There’s nothing to say. He may not be an evil bastard stalking you, but he’s still nothing to me. That’s the truth.”

I wish that Dr. Keene fought for Farrow. Not because his son is a great doctor but because that’s his son. I can understand why Farrow stopped talking to him and why they have no real relationship. He only values Farrow’s talent, not who he is.

Farrow towers above me, and I follow his tattooed fingers that graze my neck before retying the loose strings of my hospital gown.

“I thought you wanted me naked,” I joke, but I can’t mask the real disappointment in my voice.

His mouth edges upward. His cool confidence overpowers the room. Intoxicating. “Do you want me to blow you?” he asks huskily.

I open my mouth to speak, but arousal swells my dick. I stiffen and an army of rules bears on me. “We’re in a hospital.”

He lets out another whistle. “Again, your perception today—”

“You’re not worried someone might walk in?” I try to gesture to his chest with my bad hand. I grimace, but thankfully, he’s not coddling me.

Farrow smiles wide and rests his knee back on the bed. “I don’t worry as much as you about anything.”

He does worry about my safety more than me, but I don’t point that out because his amusement is full-blown. “I’m not a prude,” I retort.

“I didn’t say you were,” he says, but he’s still staring at me like I’m the “purest” twenty-two-year-old human on this planet.

My left hand rubs my exposed thigh, wanting to dip under the blue fabric and touch my shaft. “Tattooed Boyfriend Gives Maximoff Hale Hospital Blowie—you like that fucking headline?”

He tilts his head, considering for half a second. “Eh, it could use an adjective or two. Best, Greatest, Most Earth-Shattering Blow—”

“Alright,” I say, pent up and needing friction. I would pull him against me if I could, but I have to settle with my commanding, unflinching voice. “Suck my cock.”

His chest collapses in arousal, but he ends up smiling. “You want me to suck your cock?”

I start to really harden. “Not if you keep teasing me.”

Farrow rubs his bottom lip with the hoop piercing and eyes the length of my body in a hot wave. He only has three piercings in right now: his lip, a silver hoop for his nose, and an obsidian spear earring that dangles. That last one was a Christmas present from me.

“Farrow—”

“Don’t sit up,” he tells me. I started drawing upward in a crunch, and I lie back against the inclined bed.

He leaves my side and puts his knee next to my leg. In one swift movement, his other knee is on the mattress. I already lie above the sheets.

I tent my legs and spread them a bit more. Just so he can… “Come closer.”

Farrow grips my kneecap. “Okay, Bossy, here’s how this works.” He plants a blazing kiss on the outside of my knee, his mouth ascending my leg, towards my exposed thigh. “You get one free blowjob for almost dying. But after that, you need to pull your weight.”

Pull my weight. Meaning, mutual ejaculation. We always both come unless we run out of time. Then we fight to be the one to shoot a load. Usually by flipping a coin.

That won’t change.

And this…

This is why I love the fuck out of him. Why he just fits with me. He’s not giving me any slack or reprieves for being hurt—except for one blowjob. I like that push-and-pull and to work for that affection. Not just someone lying down and offering themselves to me.

I also love giving head. And he’d say he loves giving it more than me.

His mouth brushes my flesh, his eyes on my eyes. “You’re smiling.”

I feel my grin. “What can I say? Assholes turn me on. Metaphorical and literal.”

“Me too.” His broad hand slides down my other leg. “Only I love the tight-laced assholes. Metaphorical and literal.”

Fuck me.

I lean back, my muscles contracting. The sheer idea of Farrow’s mouth wrapped around me in a hospital room makes me come undone. He’s my boyfriend, and there’s no NDA needed, no pre-planning or precautions. No worry that he’ll steal my clothes or my phone.

Public sex was never anything I could indulge in, and now…

His hand drives towards the hem of the hospital gown while his mouth works up my other thigh. His lips trace the faint scar from a four-year-old wound. A cut that he stitched.

As his eyes flit to me, I see that long-ago memory in them. Where he was twenty-four.

I was nineteen. At Harvard. Struggling. And he made my life easier, better—he was a comfort that I couldn’t quite grasp until I let myself. Until he let me.

Now he’s twenty-eight and on his knees for me. I know, I know, his mouth should be around my cock by now.

“Stop teasing, man,” I say in a heavy breath.

Farrow lifts his head, his earring swaying, and he slowly, slowly—agonizingly slow—rolls up the thin blue fabric. Stopping short of my rock-hard erection.

I groan. “Farrow.” I rub my thigh, trying not to give myself a hand job when his mouth is better.

Farrow nips my thigh with his teeth. Heat blisters in my veins, and high-speed mechanical beeping pitches the air.

His eyes meet mine again.

We’re both highly aware that we were just in a car crash together. Where I broke my collarbone. And I’m in a sling and hooked up to a fucking machine.

But maybe that’s why this is happening.

Because we need the distraction. Because being with each other, right now, feels like the calm inside a storm. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel good.

And sex—it feels really damn good.

Farrow frees my dick, wrapping his tattooed hand around me, and his tongue laps up pre-cum that drips off the tip—fuck.

I buck towards him, and he pulls back, a smile playing at his lips.

“Easy,” he tells me coolly. Like I’m too eager.

Goddamn. I root my left hand to the back of his head, my fingers lost in his dyed hair. “You’re a giant cock tease,” I tell him.

“And you love getting your cock teased.” Yes.

“Maybe,” I say flatly.

His pleasured eyes undress me. He squeezes my balls, and my legs spasm, my body almost shuddering.

Holy fuck. My eyes tighten as arousal amasses, aching for harder pressure.

Strands of hair fall to his lashes as he lowers his mouth again. He fists the base and sucks me in an up-and-down melodic rhythm. The friction tempts my eyes to roll backwards.

I narrow my gaze, breathing hard through my nose. Jesus Christ.

He takes all of me to the back of his throat. Sucking deep and hard. Electrifying sensations build up towards a shockwave.

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

“Kiss me,” I suddenly say.

Farrow breaks his intense rhythm and stretches over my body. Careful not to touch my chest. He holds my jaw, and I kiss him roughly, our mouths crushing together. He grips my shaft with a firm hand, rubbing me with perfect force.

To deepen the kiss, I tug forward—

“Dammit,” I wince, pain nailing my ribs.

Farrow looks more concerned, but he’s still jerking me off. He’s a keeper. I mean that seriously. “Lean back, Maximoff.”

I do.

“Relax. I know you’re obsessed with me, but try not to jump my bones.”

I’m nearing a nerve-scalding edge. So all I can get out is a non-threatening, “Fuck you.” My narrowed eyes drill into the ceiling as he sucks me off again.

“Fuck,” I growl into a low groan. Fuuuck. I lose concentration between the pressure his mouth wields and his grip on my balls.

I lose thought, and my eyes roll.

My waist arches, and I release against the back of his throat. Muscles burning, I ride the peak, and he milks my climax with his tongue and hand.

My head lightens for a bit, a good kind of dizzy, and as I come down, he rolls the blue fabric back to my thighs and wipes his mouth with the sheet.

“Can you come closer?” I ask in a deep whisper. I ache to hug him. To wrap both of my arms around Farrow. For his arms to wrap around me even tighter, stronger, and none of that is possible with my fucked-up shoulder.

“Put your legs down,” Farrow breathes.

I lower them flat to the hospital bed.

Farrow nears and then rests his knees beside each of my quads. Straddling my lap without lowering his weight. He leans in, gripping the top of the hospital bed.

I live my life for most of the world to see—for you to see—but there are a lot of moments just meant for him. And this is one.

We look into each other, and the toll of tonight catches up to us. How much he had to stay calm under pressure. How he’s depended on by security, how I’m the rock of my family—and sometimes, sometimes it hurts. Emotion pours over his face, my face. His eyes reddening, mine burning, and I slide my good arm across his shoulders.

Dying to bring him against my chest. I can’t.

I can’t. I hate that I can’t.

“I want to hold you,” I breathe.

His forehead almost touches mine, our lips nearly skimming as he whispers, “You’re holding me.” His husky voice quakes, his hand clutching my jaw. “And my arms are tight around you, and your chest is against my chest.”

Tears scald our eyes, and we breathe and breathe, and I whisper, “You know, my heart is in your hand.”

His lips are agonizingly close. “I hope not. Because then you’d be dead.” He kisses me before I react. Just one tender kiss, leaving me longing for more.

My good hand rises to the back of his neck, our breaths slowing together. I murmur, “Cicero said, ‘The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time.’”

Farrow almost smiles. “That one is just okay.”

I eye him. “What’s your favorite then?” I’m sure he can recall whatever he fucking skimmed.

He leans closer, kisses me—and I kiss back stronger, my lips swelling beneath the pressure. Until he has to pull away so I won’t fuck up my shoulder.

His chest rises and falls heavily, his thumb stroking my cheekbone, and he finally tells me, “Dum spiro, spero.”

I circled that phrase in my paperback. I know he took Latin in college, but I ask anyway, “You know what that means—”

“‘While I breathe,’” he translates, “‘I hope.’”

It overwhelms me.

Hope.

Him.

Love.

Pain.

I inch closer, but a knock sounds at the door. We both rub our wet faces, and as our bloodshot eyes meet again, I know and he knows that what we share is greater and stronger than whatever the world has to throw at us.

We won’t end here.