Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go, Bailey Bradford [the reading strategies book txt] 📗

muttered. There was no need to let Bo know he’d damn near snatched Max’s chest bald. “And it’s time for your pain pills.” Max handed the pills over then picked up the bottled water Annabelle had placed beside Bo’s bed earlier. Max opened the bottle and passed it to Bo. Bo popped the pills and sipped at the water.

Max found his gaze darting between Bo’s lips and the slow bobbing of the man’s

Adam’s apple. He didn’t get hard, but it was a near thing. Watching someone drink shouldn’t have been a turn on, should it? Max didn’t know whether it was wrong or not, but it was kind of sexy, and the only reason he didn’t embarrass himself by tenting his boxers was because Bo was so injured.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

40

“You had enough?” Max asked when Bo lowered the bottle from his lips. At Bo’s nod, Max took the bottle and recapped it. He patted Bo’s shoulder and started to turn back to his own bed only to have Bo grip his wrist. Had he forgotten something? Maybe Bo needed to go to the bathroom, or was hungry. “You need something else?”

“Stay…”

Max started to point out that he was right here, but Bo pulled him forward until Max’s knees were pressed against the side of the bed. Well, it wasn’t like he was going to sleep anyway. Max dropped to his knees beside the bed. If this was what Bo needed to feel safe, then Max would just have to camp out here for the rest of the night.

Except Bo had something else in mind. “Max, please…with me.”

“What?” Max felt too many things at once, too many kinds of fear, but the strongest one was the fear of hurting Bo. “I can’t… Bo I don’t want to hurt you, and yeah, ain’t either of us particularly big men, but that’s still a small bed, and you’re hurt and—”

Bo looked at him with those blackened eyes, and even through the swelling, Max could see the moisture building and threatening to overspill. Fuck it, he’d just have to be extra careful.

“Okay, baby, okay.” Max didn’t even try to stop the endearment from slipping free.

“Let me come up from the foot of the bed, maybe that way I won’t jostle you so much.”

Max carefully crawled into bed and pressed his back against the wall, trying to give Bo as much room as possible. But Bo didn’t seem to want room. He rolled to his side and faced Max, then scooted over the few inches that separated them and burrowed against Max. One of Bo’s hands rested on Max’s hip, and the other was pressed against Max’s chest. Max wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, but eventually he dared to let them rest atop Bo’s, a move that set Max’s heart to fluttering like a cage full of hummingbirds.

Sleep was definitely an impossibility now. Max didn’t want to miss a single moment of this, because it felt so right to have this one man snuggled up close to him. And Max wanted this, he wanted more than this, actually, which meant he had some thinking to do. He couldn’t possibly figure it all out in the few hours he had left before it was time to get to work—but it was a start.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

41

Chapter Four

It wasn’t the pain that woke Bo up, although he definitely was hurting. The nightmares that had been plaguing him since the assault weren’t the cause, either. In fact, he hadn’t had any dreams at all while he’d been snuggled up to Max. The feel of a stiff, fat dick pressing against his ass, that was what had brought Bo out of his pleasantly blank slumber. Bo considered himself a connoisseur of cock, having sampled plenty of them in his lifetime.

There was no way he could sleep through a prime slab of meat stabbing at his butt, and no way he’d want to.

But even that didn’t feel as good as Max’s arms, one of which was cushioning Bo’s head, the other draped over Bo’s waist. Max’s work-roughened hand was pressed against Bo’s belly, low enough that the side was almost— almost—brushing the tip of Bo’s cock where it was pushing past the elastic waistband of his boxers. One little shimmy, that’s all it would take to feel that warm, sandpapery skin against his aching crown.

Bo didn’t move. As much as he wanted to feel just about any part of Max touching his dick, he didn’t want to wake the man. Then there were Bo’s injuries. Moving at all was going to hurt like hell, and he certainly wasn’t up to delivering on what he’d be promising if he did anything to encourage the man. And, even more of a reason for Bo not to wake Max, was the fact that Bo didn’t know for sure whether or not Max was gay. It wasn’t as if he had ever taken Bo up on any of his previous flirtatious offers. He hadn’t slapped Bo down, either, but that could just be because Max was a nice guy.

The hard, hot cock stabbing at his ass didn’t really tell Bo anything. Max was asleep, and he could be having some fuck dream about a woman, or several women—or maybe even about Annabelle. Rory’s sister was cute enough, if one went for cute with boobs and a uterus.

That thought wedged itself solidly into Bo’s brain. His bottom lip poked out in a painful pout—the damned thing was all puffy and split from a savage backhand. Bo bit back a wince and tried to scrub the vision of Max and Annabelle from his mind, but it wouldn’t budge.

After all, why else would Annabelle be staying here in the bunkhouse rather than in the big house with her brother?

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

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But if Max and Annabelle were together, then why the hell was Max