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

Bo had to bet on what the rest of that sentence would have been, he’d have gone with

‘knock the shit out of you’. Even though it went unsaid, he still couldn’t keep from cringing.

Chance cursed and dropped down beside Bo on the bench. “Shit, Bo, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Sure, okay,” Bo agreed, but he wasn’t able to keep from flinching when Chance

reached out to touch his shoulder. Chance went an unattractive shade of white, his expression guilt-laden. He couldn’t feel any worse than Bo did about this whole clusterfuck.

“I have nightmares about it.” The words burst from Bo before he could stop them.

Chance made a rumbling sound beside him, but Bo couldn’t look at the man, couldn’t bear to see pity in his eyes. He kept his gaze focussed on his hands folded in his lap. “I asked him if we could sleep in his bed because the twin bed is too small, and pushing them together didn’t work so well. I haven’t done anything.” Now Bo did look up at Chance, because if the man was going to get mad, this would be what did it—and it’d probably distract Chance from the whole nightmare confession. “But I really, really want to.”

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

56

Being good was driving him nuts, but Max was skittish as a virgin and those were something Bo hadn’t any experience with. He could barely even remember losing his own virginity. Didn’t want to, really, because he’d been too young and too scared.

Chance groaned and slumped down further on the bench, his broad shoulders scraping against the rough exterior of the bunkhouse. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as if warding off a headache. “Bo, I don’t even think Max is gay, okay?

Maybe you should come stay at the big house with me and Rory.”

Bo barely kept from stomping his foot and throwing a tantrum. It’d hurt way too much, and Chance would probably move him out of the bunkhouse in five minutes flat. He glanced around to make sure no one had managed to sneak up on them. Relatively sure it was safe, Bo turned to Chance. “He kind of rubbed off on me several days ago. Does that make him gay enough for you?”

“Oh god,” Chance muttered and reached to rub at his temples instead. “What… How—

no, no I don’t want to know that one!”

Chance looked near to breaking, rubbing his temples so hard Bo expected to see smoke slipping between his fingertips. “So you’re telling me that Max is gay, and that he, you know.

On you.”

The giggle slipped out without warning. Here sat a man who’d had his cock up Bo’s ass and down his throat on more than one occasion, even if it had been years ago, and he couldn’t even say ‘rubbed off’?

Chance dropped his hands down to the bench and glared daggers at Bo. “It’s not

fucking funny, Bo.”

“Yeah, it is,” Bo teased. A flummoxed Chance was always sexy, and while Bo wouldn’t poach—Rory would finish the job the man from the club had started if Bo even so much as tried to seduce Chance—he could still enjoy the view. “If it helps, he did it in his sleep. I dumped a bottle of water on him to wash away the evidence so he didn’t die of

embarrassment.” He so could be thoughtful and considerate when he wanted to.

Chance’s eyes couldn’t possibly get any bigger. His laugh, when it came, was every bit as sexy as his confusion. “Oh damn, I’d have liked to see that!”

And just like that, Bo felt lower than dirt for sharing something that would absolutely mortify Max. “Don’t laugh, he’d be really upset if he knew what he’d done.”

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

57

“Yeah,” Chance rasped out as he swiped at his eyes. “It isn’t funny, I guess.” He took a couple of shaky breaths then shook his head. “But that doesn’t really count, if he was asleep.

Doesn’t make him gay, just a typical man rubbing his dick against something that feels good.

Had to be your ass, right?”

“Like you even have to ask,” Bo muttered, pouting just a bit. If it looked ridiculous on a man his age, oh friggin’ well.

“I really think you ought to come stay with us before something happens and one or both of you gets hurt.” Chance was using his reasonable, we’re-all-grownups-here voice that always made Bo want to roll his eyes. But he could do mature.

“I want to stay here.” So what if his mature sounded more like petulant? He was hurt, and now with Chance trying to force him away from Max, that hurt wasn’t purely physical.

Bo’s heart actually pinched a little, and that was flat out scary.

Chance sighed, sounding extremely put out. “Bo, if he hasn’t made a move on you, and you two have been sharing a bed…”

Bo had that one covered. “I’m injured, and Max is too much of a sweetheart to try anything when he knows it might hurt me.”

“Yeah, maybe, but he’d tell you.”

And that one as well. “No, he’s really shy. You know that. I’d have to start it.”

“He’s probably cranky because he doesn’t know how to tell you he wants his bed

back.”

Okay, that one hurt. Bo went back to staring at his lap when he countered it. This needed to end before Chance ripped his heart out along with his pride. “He wraps around me like a warm blanket every night— before he falls asleep. He pops wood every time we’re in a room together. I’ve seen him looking at me, watching me from the corner of his eye as I strip for a bath. He’s never had a problem with scrubbing my back. And what straight man would be secure enough to sleep with an obviously gay man, to hold him close and whisper to him when the nightmares come, to try to comfort and soothe—”

“All right, you win!” Chance snapped “He’s queer as a three-dollar bill! I’m just not sure