Bo couldn’t figure out how to rectify the situation without waking Max. The poor guy would be mortified to be caught all out by Annabelle. He gave her a pleading look and felt his own embarrassment vanish at the emotions flickering over Annabelle’s face.
Appreciation, curiosity, and desire melded into a thoughtful expression as she finally met his eyes. The pink cheeks were something he’d never imagined to see on Annabelle—she’d always seemed unflappable. Maybe it was just seeing two men together that had turned her on. God knew it would have made Bo whimper and beg to join the party once upon a time.
Annabelle arched a brow at him and tipped her head back. Bo didn’t miss the way her gaze drifted over their naked bodies again as she waited for him to get out of bed. He mouthed at her to go wait in the other room, and she nodded once before quietly backing out, leaving the bedroom door open.
Bo gently lifted his limbs off Max in tiny increments, trying his best not to wake the man. When Max muttered and reached for him, Bo brushed his fingers through Max’s thick hair and murmured soothing words until he settled back into a deep sleep. Once he was certain Max was out good, Bo eased off the bed and grabbed the sweats lying on the floor. He seriously thought about stepping out of the room bare assed. After all, Annabelle had certainly seemed to enjoy gawking at them, but then he remembered that flittering desire in her eyes, the hint of dawning realisation in their dark depths.
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Definitely best to get dressed. Bo pulled the sweats on and grabbed Max’s denim work shirt. The scent of sweat, horses and man encompassed him and Bo’s cock sprung back to life. Bo buttoned up the shirt and breathed a relieved sigh at finding the shirttails hung to the middle of his thighs. He could still make out his erection pressing through the layers of fabric, but at least it wasn’t quite so obvious. Bo closed the door behind him, cringing at the clicking sound as he did so. He waited, listening intently for a minute. When no sound other than a soft snore came from the bedroom, Bo smiled and headed out to find Annabelle.
She was waiting in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a sweating glass of iced tea in one hand. Bo considered getting himself a glass just to stall for time but Annabelle’s gaze drifted down to his dick. After pulling out a chair, he checked the shirttail again then seated himself and scooted as close to the table as possible.
“You do know I’m gay,” Bo pointed out, seeing no need to beat around the bush.
Annabelle snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, duh. That doesn’t mean the two of you didn’t make a pretty damn fine picture.”
Bo felt a burst of pride at the declaration. What forty-something man wouldn’t? But he didn’t want to appear vain. “Max is a very attractive man.”
Annabelle chuckled as her cheeks tinted. “If by attractive you mean hung like a horse, I’d have to agree.”
“Actually, I meant the entire package, not just his…” Bo fumbled through his
indignation for a suitable word. “Not just his package, you know. I mean, inside and out, he’s perfect even if he has issues and who doesn’t? No one gets through life without some scars.” Bo bit his bottom lip to keep from babbling. If he wasn’t careful, he’d share more than he’d intended, kind of like he just had.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Annabelle said, her lips twitching. “Max is a special guy, and so are you. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
Bo frowned before he could stop himself. He hated the way it emphasised the fine lines that had begun cropping up almost overnight. “Is that why you wanted me to leave that gorgeous man in bed alone, so you could tell me how special we are?” Women were so confusing. She didn’t need to make him get up and leave Max just to tell him something he already knew.
Annabelle reached out and lightly smacked Bo’s shoulder. “No, I really just wanted to get you out of the room before my big brother gets here. He wondered where Max was since MILES TO GO
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he didn’t finish his work for the day, and I thought I’d be nice and keep the two of you from getting caught going at it like bunnies.”
Did bunnies have gay sex? Bo’s frown deepened as he tried to picture that. He’d
definitely have to Google the subject.
“Bo!” Annabelle snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“All right, all right,” Bo sniped. “What did you tell Rory about Max cutting his day short?”
“I told him Max wasn’t feeling so hot, and after whatever happened in the barn
between you two, that wasn’t exactly a lie. He was really shook up.”
Bo detected the not so subtle probing and ignored it. “Okay, well, I guess we’ll go with that. I don’t want Max to get in trouble for messing around on the job.” He hadn’t thought about that. Max loved his work here and would be shattered if he lost his job. “I’ll be more careful from now on, I just didn’t think.”
Annabelle shook her head. “Hey, no, it’s fine for Max to have time off now and then, he’s earned it. I just didn’t think you’d want Rory knowing what was going on between you two.”
“He probably already knows since Chance cornered me about this not long ago. He told me to get Max out of the funk he was in or move out. I don’t want to move out.” Not when he was fairly sure he’d finally fallen in love, at least a little, and it scared the shit out of him.
No one had ever loved him, and he’d never loved anyone, not really, not like he wanted to.
Bo knew he’d find a way to fuck it all up, but he still couldn’t walk away. More info he didn’t want to share with Annabelle.
“And why is that?” Annabelle asked as she narrowed her eyes at him.
Bo considered telling her the truth, but when it came down to it, if he really did love Max, then Max should be the first to know about how Bo felt, not their peeping Tomasina here. He wanted to make a smart ass comment to get her off his back, but whatever it was that was going on between him and Max wasn’t anything he could joke about. Annabelle’s sympathetic gaze made his chest ache. “I just don’t, okay?”
“Yeah, Bo, that’s okay. I think I understand.” Annabelle patted his shoulder. “Why don’t you take Max a glass of tea and maybe give him a little heads up so he can at least get some clothes on? I’m sure Rory’s going to want to see him and make sure he isn’t dying from MILES TO GO
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some raging flu virus or something.” She stood up to walk to the front door as heavy footsteps thudded up the porch steps.
Bo wished he could ask her what she understood, because maybe then she could
explain it to him, too.
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Chapter Ten
It had to have been the smell of cum that gave them away. Max burned with equal parts embarrassment and need. To be precise, he’d nearly keeled over when Rory had sat down and started grilling him about what he was doing with Bo. At first it’d just been a light round of questions, like was Max interested in Bo and was he sure that’s what he wanted when Max had stutteringly admitted that yes, he was very interested in the man. That had been bearable, barely, and Max had thought they were done—but then Rory started asking specific questions. Max sat on the edge of the bed utterly stunned as the questions got more and more personal, like what had he and Bo done together, which had made Max blush so fiercely his blood must have been boiling right up under the surface of his skin.
Then it just got worse, with Rory talking about oral and anal and Max had finally found his voice and asked Rory what the fuck kind of pervert was he? Max was only now
beginning to accept being pulled out of his asexual hidey hole. He absolutely wasn’t comfortable discussing it, and that discomfort fired his temper into overdrive.
Rory had just looked at him with an arched brow and twitching l
ips, then started on a lecture that was close to thirty years past due. Condoms, safe sex, tests for diseases, and all sorts of things guaranteed to make Max just…want to die, right then and there. He’d only barely managed to shake his head when Rory asked him if he had condoms and lube—why the hell would Max have any of that stuff? He’d never used it when he’d jerked off. Rory had looked surprised, then at a loss and mildly embarrassed as he admitted he and Chance didn’t use condoms, therefore he couldn’t give any to Max. Max wanted to snark something about Rory practicing what he preached, but for all Max knew Rory and Chance had already done all that testing stuff and Max would end up looking like an even bigger idiot.
Rory had hollered for Bo, and the instant that sexy man walked into the room Max found the heat of embarrassment shifting to a different sort of heat, this kind slithering down to Max’s cock and settling in his balls. It was a reaction Max couldn’t hide, sitting there with his legs spread and only the thin sheet covering his parts. Rory had coughed, one of those
‘disguise the laughter’ kinds of coughs, which Max had chosen to ignore. He hated to be MILES TO GO
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laughed at, but he was too mortified by what Rory had been talking about to care that the man was snickering at him now.
“You have condoms and lube, or do I need to pick some up for y’all tomorrow when I’m in town?”
Bo didn’t even blink at Rory’s question. Instead his eyelids dropped down as he shot Max a look that had him biting back a whimper. “I have some, though we’re probably going to need more. Soon.” Bo glanced from Max to Rory, then back at Max. “Has he been giving you a hard time, Maxie? You’re looking a little tight through the shoulders.”
Max ignored Rory’s snigger when Bo called him Maxie. As far as Max was concerned, Bo could call him whatever he wanted when Bo was looking at him like he wanted to eat him up one slow, sweet bite at a time. Max cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, chasing off some of the tension that had settled there during Rory’s lecture. “I’m fine. Just going through sex ed all over again.” Well, really for the first time. His parents hadn’t allowed any of their children to be taught anything about sex other than it’d send them straight to hell. That wasn’t something he was ready to share, especially with Rory sitting there with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Irritation snapped in Bo’s eyes and his voice as he looked at Rory. “I wouldn’t do anything to put him at risk. When I was in the hospital, they ran every damned blood test known to man and everything came back fine. I may have been a slut, but I was always a careful one.”
Okay, Max had sort of known Bo wasn’t exactly a prude, but a slut? Max had to think about that for all of two seconds. He didn’t want to think about any man touching Bo, but Max was realistic and couldn’t see where he had any right or reason to be jealous. He was a little concerned, though, about why Bo had ever thought of himself as a slut, or why he’d done things to make himself fit into that role. Max was absolutely determined Bo would never think so little of himself again.
Max had been so lost in his own thoughts he’d barely heard the drone of conversation between Bo and Rory. Whatever was said, the two men seemed to have got past the flare of temper from moments earlier. Rory stood and patted Max’s shoulder before exchanging goodbyes and leaving. Max forgot the humiliating conversation with Rory. Nothing could compete with the ache building inside him for one very special man.
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And that man was looking at him with a heated gaze that made it nearly impossible for Max to breathe. There was desire in that look, sure enough, but there was something softer that sent warm tendrils of effervescent hope through Max. “Lay back and kick off that sheet,”
Bo ordered.
Max swallowed and bobbed his head, unable to look away from the erection tenting Bo’s sweats. “Yeah, yeah, okay.” He flopped back on the bed, still keeping his eyes on Bo’s bulge.
Bo shuffled over to the duffle bag he’d set in the corner by the dresser. He crouched down and dug out something then stood back up. With his back to Max, Bo stripped, his hips swaying slightly as he shoved his sweats down. Max’s gaze zeroed in on Bo’s pert ass, drinking in the sight of those firm globes and the dusky crease separating them. By the time Bo stood up straight and turned around, Max’s cock was leaking pre-cum at a steady rate.
Bo started moving, a sensual swivel of hips and dick that freed the whimper Max had bitten back earlier. Max held out a hand to his lover. “C’mon over here.”
Humming, Bo stalked Max, moving slow and pinning Max with his gaze. Max
struggled to think. There was something he wanted to make clear.
“You aren’t a slut.” Not now, not ever.
Bo’s step faltered but he quickly recovered. “Used to be. There’s plenty who’d still say I am.”
Max would beat their heads in if they did. “But you’re not.” Max levelled his lover with a look that he hoped was sexy and powerful and everything he wanted to be for Bo. “I don’t care about what happened in the past. All that matters is here, now, us—and you knowing what you are.” Bo had completely stopped walking now. He looked sad and hopeful and terrified all at the same time. He started to speak, but Max waved him off with a hand slicing through the air. “There’s only one thing you need to believe is true about who and what you are right now.”
“Oh really?” Bo asked neutrally. “And what is that?”
Max shoved off the bed and was up and pressing against Bo’s chest in a split second.
He kept one arm around Bo’s hips and with the other he grabbed a handful of the silky fine hair. Max didn’t have gentle in him just then and he took Bo’s mouth in a kiss that threatened to bust both their lips. By the time Max felt he had thoroughly claimed Bo, or his mouth at MILES TO GO
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least, Max was ready to shoot his load. He leaned in and nipped a tempting patch of skin on Bo’s neck before trailing kisses up to Bo’s ear while he shuddered in Max’s arms.
“The only thing you need to know and believe”—Max nudged his dick against Bo’s—
“is that you. Are. Mine.”
Bo had every intention of putting the condoms he’d grabbed to good use, but hearing those words from Max had rocketed him right to the edge of a climax. No one had ever wanted him, claimed him like that. Condoms flying every which way, Bo tackled Max, taking them both down onto the bed. Almost before hitting the mattress, they were rubbing off on each other in a frenzied burst of heat. In mere minutes their bellies and chests were covered in cum, their hearts racing and the only sound in the room was the rasping rattle of their breaths.
Bo had fallen asleep, sticky and sated and more content than he’d ever thought
possible, and he had a plan in place for getting Max’s thick cock in his ass first thing in the morning. The thing about plans, though, at least in Bo’s experience, was that they tended to get altered by outside forces.
The first outside force was Sheba, a pretty bay mare who dropped her foal in the middle of the night. Of course it wasn’t an easy birth, but hours later when that little baby straggled to his feet, his thin legs wobbling, even Bo couldn’t be irritated about the change in plans. Bo had felt a warm fluttering in his chest when he watched the newborn take his first steps, and pushed his plans back a few hours.
Then there’d been the downed fence in the south pasture. By the time Max straggled in that night it was almost eleven, and he had looked ready to drop where he stood. Bo had shelved his own needs and taken care of Max, who’d been too exhausted even to stay awake during the shower they’d shared. He told himself it would be enough just to sleep with Max, to feel the man pressed against him and listen to his soft snores, and it had been—for the whole three hours Max got to sleep.
Another mare, another foal, and so it continued. Four days had passed without Bo and M
ax being able to do much more than kiss each other goodnight if they were lucky, and Bo had had enough. He needed Max to touch him. Even with the logical reasons for the frenetic MILES TO GO
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pace around the ranch lately, Bo illogically felt as if Max was avoiding him. Nothing he told himself could chase that feeling away, and Bo was desperate to be reassured that he was still Max’s. He didn’t want to lose what he’d always wanted, not now and not before he ever truly had it.
Bo sat on the couch, trying his best to come up with a solution that didn’t involve him jumping Max while the man slept. It wasn’t looking good—unless he could get some help.
That he could do, and he knew just who to ask.
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Chapter Eleven
“You sure you’re up to this? It’s kind of chilly out.”
Bo arched a brow at Annabelle and tried not to give a raunchy reply about how Max would be warming him up soon.
Annabelle arched a brow right back, and damned if she didn’t do it better, too. “I meant riding out to Max. You’re still moving a little stiff—don’t even say it, Bo, or I’ll insist on riding along and keeping y’all company. That might put a damper on your plans.”
“At this point, I don’t think so,” Bo muttered, ignoring the blush those words brought to Annabelle’s cheeks. “Nothing short of the apocalypse is going to stop me this time—and even that might go unnoticed if things go right. But thanks for your help.”
Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go Page 10
