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

Just his hand on me… But what would happen after that?

“B-Bo,” he pleaded, not sure what he was asking for even as he spoke. He tried to determine if Bo was mocking him; it was so hard to tell with the bruising and swelling, but it was too late. Bo was cupping him through the thin, damp cotton, and now Max’s humiliation was complete.

Or so he thought, but he’d never been a particularly bright person in the morning. The bedroom door flew open without any warning and Annabelle stuck her head in the room.

“Is everything all…” Annabelle’s eyes widened so much, Max wondered how they kept from shooting out of the sockets. “Oh. Oh! I’ll just…leave now.” She started to do just that, her head nearly disappearing before she poked it back through. This time she didn’t look so shocked, only confused and concerned. “Do you really think Bo’s up to that just yet? He might be loopy from the pain meds. I’m just saying.” Annabelle shot Max a narrow-eyed look before vanishing and shutting the door firmly as she did so.

“Ah, god.” Max closed his eyes as his erection melted faster than a stick of butter in the hot Texas sun. His skin was burning with the intensity of his embarrassment, and all he wanted to do was crawl under the bed and hide for a decade or two. Spontaneous

combustion would work, too. As if he hadn’t been utterly confused before, he now had to figure out how to convince Annabelle he wasn’t some dirty horny dog who couldn’t control himself. She thought he’d started this? Had he? After all, he was the one who’d popped wood. Bo had just been trying to help…

“Max, don’t worry about it,” Bo whispered in his sandpaper-rough voice. “You weren’t awake, and I was grabbing at you.” Bo sighed heavily as if the words had cost him a great effort. Max knew they must have what with the damage done to the poor man’s throat.

Before he could think of a suitable reply, the alarm clock blared. Max was used to the obnoxiously loud racket, but Bo, not so much. He squeaked and jumped and teetered at the MILES TO GO

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edge of the bed. Max’s hand shot out before he could think about it, grabbing on to the man’s pale, lean biceps.

“I gotcha,” Max soothed when Bo yelped again. “I ain’t gonna let you fall.” Keeping his grip on Bo, Max sat up so he could use both hands to steady Bo. Once he was sure the man wouldn’t topple off the bed, Max gathered his dignity—there wasn’t much of it left at this point—and scooted off the foot of the mattress. Water trickled down the insides of his thighs when he stood, which just felt a little dirty. It did not feel erotic or make him fantasise, not even for a minute, about something else running down over his skin.

“Damn it,” Max muttered. At this rate he was going to be a walking erection. “Let’s get you moved to the other bed, and then it’s time for more pain pills for you.” Maybe, if he had any sort of luck at all, those pills would wash the memories of this morning’s events right out of Bo’s mind.

Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been the best plan ever, but Bo hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. He was blaming the crappy plan on the pain meds. Dumping his bottled water on Max had been a true act of desperation, and possibly just cruel, but it had been effective. Hopefully.

Bo lay on the dry bed and waited for the medicine to kick in. He was hurting all over, and Max had managed to knock the shit out of him, catching him in his sore ribs. It was worth it, though. Bo didn’t know if it was the drugs, the pain or what that had kept him from noticing Max’s sexy little body last night. He must have been close to dead, that was all he could figure, because there was no other way he could have ignored such a hot guy.

Max wasn’t tall at all, but he still had an inch or two on Bo’s own five feet seven inches.

When Bo had noticed the man before—sizing him up the first time they’d met, because that’s just what Bo did to men—he’d thought Max had an attractive, compact yet slender form.

He’d kind of been wrong.

While Max did indeed look thin but toned, the truth was the guy was unbelievably cut.

He wasn’t bulky at all, just exquisitely detailed. Max’s chest was covered with a thick dark pelt of hair, which turned Bo on in nine different directions. His pecs were still discernible, looking taut and tempting and topped with peachy-pink nipples. The groove running MILES TO GO

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between his abs was deep enough that Bo knew he could drink from it—and he’d do his best to give that a shot, just as soon as he was feeling human again. And he really wanted to feel those hairy, muscled thighs wrapped around his waist—or his neck, hell, Bo wasn’t picky. If he had been, chances were that fucker wouldn’t have got the chance to stomp the shit out of him. But, no, Bo had been so lonely, and yes, horny, so he’d gone to a gay club in San Antonio, looking for something. The fact that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Max had been part of it. Bo had been interested in the man since they’d first met. He had been careful during that first time they’d hung out, flirting a little and testing the water. Max had seemed totally oblivious to Bo’s attempts to flirt, and that had been okay after a while because Bo had really just enjoyed the guy’s company. A lot. Enough