Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go (11 page)

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slight shoulders drooping and his head tipped down. Max’s stomach burned with guilt that he tried to hide. He didn’t want Annabelle to know what a heartless ass he was.

“No, not yet,” Max mumbled as he pulled his gaze away from Bo’s slender form. He pivoted on his heels, his legs feeling strangely boneless. “I’ll finish them now.” Maybe shovelling more shit would keep him from thinking of the things he wanted to do to Bo.

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“Bo sure took off in a hurry for an injured man.”

Max grunted as he lifted the shovel full of nasty mess. It’d figure Annabelle would show up right after he’d had his brain melted. The best Max could hope for was that he hadn’t lost the cells that controlled his power to speak—or not.

“Guess he’ll be leaving soon since he’s getting around so well.”

Well, god damn it, how’d he manage to miss the fucking wheelbarrow? And why was

Annabelle still chattering on, forcing him to think about things he didn’t want to? Max glared at her from the corner of his eye as he started trying to scrape the mess up and toss it where it belonged. Annabelle wore
that
smirk, the one that told Max she knew something he didn’t and thought it was hilarious. He gave up on glaring at her and concentrated on what he was doing, sort of. In truth, he was just trying to wait her out. She had to leave sometime.

“Smells a little funky in here.” Annabelle made an exaggerated sniffing sound, her teasing voice stoking Max’s irritation. It wouldn’t do him any good to let her know that.

“Well, seeing as how I’m shovelling shit out of this here stall, I imagine it does smell

‘funky’.” Surely she couldn’t smell anything else. The barn smelt like a manure-filled oven, thanks to the barn heater. Max sniffed cautiously—quietly—and didn’t detect anything other than the usual.

Annabelle hummed and stepped in front of him, her expression far from teasing.

“What’d you do to Bo?”

“Shit!” Shit, shovel, hay, it all hit the ground. “Annabelle, you need to let this be. I didn’t do anything to that man.” Adding on ‘except lose my mind when he gave me my first blowjob, then I fucked his pretty mouth like some animal, rutting and shoving my dick down his throat’ wasn’t really an option.

Once he’d come, Max had been well past appalled with his behaviour. Bo had done

something for him no one else ever had. Max had repaid Bo by violently thrusting into his warm, wet mouth over and over, battering away with no thought to whether or not he was hurting Bo. Added to that damning realisation was Max’s pa’s voice, dredged up from childhood beatings—not always his own—during which his old man screamed

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condemnation and threatened God’s retribution for finding pleasure in the flesh. Max didn’t believe the same hateful shit his parents had preached, but he still couldn’t shake that voice or the judgmental words.

Annabelle stooped to pick up the shovel then began cleaning up the second mess.

“Whether you know it or not, you did something, because Bo looked… Well, besides looking like he’d come in his jeans, he looked pretty damn unhappy.”

As much as Max wanted to curl up and die from embarrassment, there were five words that seared into his brain:
he’d come in his jeans
. Max ignored the heat, from the heater and from the blood he knew had rushed to his cheeks. If Bo had come in his jeans, then that meant, what? That he’d actually enjoyed Max’s brutal behaviour? Surely that wasn’t the case.

Maybe he’d… Max couldn’t think of another scenario that would have left Bo with a wet spot right where it would have been in such a case.

“Think maybe I’ll go talk to him after I finish this stall for you since you’re all thumbs and dumbass today.” Annabelle tossed a load into the wheelbarrow with more grace than Max had ever managed. “Unless you want to talk to him, being a guy and all that. Might freak him out a bit if I ask him about the barn smelling like spunk and horse shit, or the wet spot. Guys can be weird about that stuff if it’s a woman asking.”

Max knew he was being manipulated, and normally, it would have made him dig in his heels. Not this time. Annabelle was trying to shove him in the direction he wanted to go, and he really wanted to know about that whole jeans thing. And he knew he had some

explaining to do. Max had been furious when Bo had been hurt, then he’d turned around and hurt the sweet little guy all over again.

Max heaved his best put-upon sigh. “Fine, I’ll go talk to him. Didn’t feel like mucking the stalls anyway.” He walked out as quickly as he thought he could without arousing any more suspicion.

Annabelle’s shouted, “Tell Bo I want details!” let him know he’d failed miserably, but he didn’t care. Every step he took closer to Bo may have added to Max’s confusion, but it also stoked the anticipation that was simmering in his veins.

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Bo ignored the knocking on the bedroom door. He’d heard the front door squeak as it was opened, recognised the sound of Max’s footsteps on the wood floors, so he knew who was on the other side of the bedroom door. Maybe he should feel bad about Max having to knock—it was his room, after all—but it wasn’t like Bo had locked the door, merely shut it before collapsing on the bed and curling into a ball.

Bo squeezed his eyelids tightly shut when he heard the door open. Max’s steps were lighter now, so maybe the man believed he was asleep. The footsteps stopped then the mattress dipped as Max sat on the side of bed.

“I know you ain’t asleep, can tell by your breathing.”

Bo cracked his eyes open but didn’t turn to face Max. “Annabelle sent you, didn’t she?”

“I would have come on my own, just…” Max sighed. “Bo, I don’t know what’s going on here, and I hadn’t ever…no one ever did anything like that to me before, you know?”

Bo felt his eyebrows crawling up to his hairline—which was still almost where it was twenty years ago. He flopped onto his back and studied Max intently, noting the deep red flush that tinted his neck and cheeks. The man was just too adorable, and too vague.

“You mean, no one ever gave you a blowjob before?” At the minute shake of Max’s

head, Bo pushed himself up on his elbows. This definitely bore deeper investigation. “You ever blown anyone?” Another quick, silent denial. “Been fucked?” Max jerked and a strangled sound slipped past his lips.

Oh shit
. “Maybe I should have asked some of these questions before,” Bo muttered.

Although… “But you have fucked someone before, right? I mean, even a woman?”

Max turned an even deeper shade of red and stared at the floor. Bo’s stomach took a dive to his ankles. “No one? Ever?” Bo whispered, not trying to be obtuse but totally unable to grasp the concept that Max had never done
anything
. “Did you even know…are you even gay?”

Max stood up and took two steps away from the bed before Bo could reach out to stop him.

“I’m sorry, Max, really. I just, I have trouble understanding how someone like you, handsome and so…just so
good
, could be a v—alone.” Bo was sure Max would have melted into the floor upon being called a virgin, especially heaped on top of all the other questions Bo had just tossed at him. “I’m sorry,” he offered again.

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“I always figured I was just one of those asexual people, you know?” Max spoke so quietly Bo could barely make out the words. “Figured I was so fucked up from things that happened when I was a kid, bad shit that really messed with my head. Let’s just say me and my brothers were taught, with a lot of help from a belt, that sex just wasn’t allowed. Even holding your dick to take a piss could get us lashes that made it impossible to sit or lay on our backs for days.” The bitter laugh that followed was so unlike the musical one Bo had started to treasure. This one sent icy fingers of dread skittering down Bo’s spine.

“You don’t believe that, do you, Max?” If so, Bo wasn’t sure if he could or should try to change Max’s mind.

“I don’t,” Max said and slowly turned to face Bo. “I know it ain’t right, what my parents told us, what they did. But it’s still stuck up here”—he tapped his head—“and I don’t know if I can ever get it out. If I can ever be normal.”

The look he gave Bo was so wistful that it made Bo’s heart ache for the man. “Do you want to?”

Max swallowed loudly, looking anywhere now but at Bo. “It didn’t bother me too much before. I never felt like there was anyone I wanted to…to get close to.” Max shivered once, twice, then finally locked gazes with Bo. “Then you came along, all smiling and happy, teasing me and being my friend. I started thinking about things, how screwed up my head was, how much I wanted to touch you, be touched by you…”

No one had ever said anything to him that had lit Bo up inside like those two sentences.

He’d always been the good time boy, the pretty, easy fuck, just open an orifice, no need for anything more. And he’d never expected anything more, falling into the slot he’d been assigned by almost every man he’d ever had sex with. Then he found himself over forty and utterly alone and without a clue how to change that or his ways. Now here was a man standing in front of him, damaged as surely as Bo himself, and Bo had a choice to make. He could pack up his things and get out before he fell any deeper, saving himself potential heartbreak and a relationship that, if embarked on, would be a lot of work. Max wasn’t the only one with issues. But he wanted to change, didn’t want to be the man he’d been in the past. Bo wanted to be a better man, a good man. Except now he was faced with really doing so, it was a scary prospect. If he screwed up, he’d hurt the one person in the world who seemed to accept him and—Bo’s heart fluttered in his chest—cared about him.

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Bo looked at the kind, weathered face he’d become so fond of, the large, dark eyes, the nut brown skin lined and creased in such interesting places. Hadn’t he been wanting something more than just sex? How many times had he imagined him and Max growing old together? Could he possibly have what he’d dreamed of? The only way he’d ever know is if he took a chance. After taking a deep breath, Bo held his hand out to Max.

“Would you like to touch me now, Max?” Bo held his breath, exhaling noisily when Max reached out and twined their fingers together.

“I’d like that very much.”

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It took every bit of Max’s restraint to keep from diving onto Bo. Just the feel of his warm, soft hand, his fingers linked with Max’s, brought to mind images of twined and tangled limbs. Max felt his dick swell as he sat on the edge of the bed. Bo was looking at him with so much trust in his hazel eyes, a soft expression on his handsome face.

A gentle squeeze to his hand gave Max the courage to speak. “I’m not sure what to do.”

It wasn’t nearly as embarrassing to admit to as his confession moments earlier had been.

Bo’s smile was sweet and hot at the same time. He winked at Max and shimmied where he lay. “Just do what you want. I promise you, nothing you do will be wrong. Just touch me, please.”

The quiet assurance and the soft plea moved Max like nothing else could have.

Something inside tightened, compressing his lungs, then loosened and fell away. The bands of guilt that had kept him bound vanished, and Max felt a surge of desire so strong it nearly stopped his heart. He looked at Bo, letting the other man see the need coursing through him, saw the answering need in Bo’s eyes, the pupils blown wide until only a thin band of green-flecked brow rimmed the black depths.

“Anything,” Bo whispered, gently untangling his fingers from Max’s.

Max felt a moment’s despair over the loss of the touch until he realised he could replace that warm hand with other fascinating bits of Bo. Anything, he’d offered, but Max wanted
everything.
He skimmed his gaze down Bo’s slender, sexy body, only then noticing he’d changed his clothes. The tight T-shirt clung to Bo’s torso, emphasising the hard nipples threatening to poke through the material, outlining each rib and the concave stomach. A thin strip of pale skin was exposed between the shirt and the faded sweats. Max brought a trembling finger to that tempting bit of skin, marvelling at the silky smoothness of the pale hair that ran down beneath the elastic waistband.

Bo moaned and wiggled his hips, drawing Max’s attention to the erection tenting Bo’s sweats. As he stared, a wet spot appeared and spread. Max thought of what Annabelle had said, and even though he really didn’t want to be thinking about it here at this particular MILES TO GO

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moment, he had to ask. Max dragged his fingers down, feeling the heat of Bo’s dick through the material. Bo’s cock leapt beneath the touch and the damp spot grew a little bigger.

“Did you come in your pants in the barn?” Max found it easy to ask when he wasn’t looking Bo in the eye and when he was touching that tempting cock even through a layer of clothes. Bo titled his hips, rubbing his shaft against Max’s hand.

“You mean when I was blowing you?” Another thrust of his hips, a quiet moan. “Is that what you’re asking? ‘Cause, yeah, when you shot that first load into my mouth, I creamed my jeans, you tasted so good, and the way you fucked my mouth, just let yourself go and took what I was offering, oh shit.” Bo shuddered and pumped his hips. “God, it was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced!”

Max forced his gaze away from the cock he was now cupping through the sweats,

looking instead at Bo’s face. There was nothing there other than lust, no deception or sarcasm, no anger at the way Max had ploughed into the man’s mouth over and over. Even now, Bo’s full lips were swollen, and Max was drawn to them like a hummingbird to nectar.