Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go (16 page)

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“Bo,” Max whispered, trying to tug him up higher.

Bo ignored him. “He kept me for hours, made sure I knew everything that could go on between two guys. I couldn’t tell anyone, either, once he showed me his badge. No one would take my word over a cop’s, and my family would have disowned me. Couldn’t have a fag in the family, you know. They would have said it was my fault, and it was, since I’d looked at him like that and—”

“Bo!” Max thundered, snapping Bo back to the present, tearing him out of memories that still made his body tremble with remembered pain. “It wasn’t your fault, you
know
that!

You were just a kid, and he was someone who abused you and the trust his position implied.”

“I know,” Bo murmured, “but it happened more than once—not with him, never saw

him again. I just stepped right into the pattern of being a victim, setting myself up to be one.

Then one day I realised I was going to get myself killed like that, and as much as I didn’t like myself, I did like living. I started flirting and offering, and
controlling
what happened.”

“No, you were still a victim,” Max argued. “You just switched it up to where you could tell yourself you weren’t, that you were putting out willingly, but you were doing it to keep from being…being hurt again. If you gave it away, they couldn’t take it, could they? And you never thought you deserved any better because, what? You thought you were dirty, maybe?”

Bo felt scraped raw from the inside out. Max had it figured out, mostly. “Damaged,” Bo corrected. “Unlovable. Undeserving. Good for nothing but a place for some guy to—”

“Bullshit!” Max rolled them over, pinning Bo with his weight. He tilted up Bo’s chin. Bo tried not to look at Max, tried to keep from raising his eyes, but he couldn’t resist, not when he knew Max would wait with all the patience Bo’d never had. He managed to look at Max through nearly-closed lids. “All those people, none of them saw you, honey. Not a one of them bothered to look. Not when you were a little boy, aching to belong, to be loved, not when you were a confused teenager who needed support, not when you were a grown man who still had those two wounded versions of himself as a kid locked inside. Instead, you were hurt, and maybe you let yourself be used later on, because you didn’t know any other way, but that don’t mean you deserved any of it, Bo.”

Bo wanted to believe Max, but he didn’t know how. He started to shake his head only to remember that Max still cupped his chin. Max’s eyes were welling with the threat of tears, the tip of his nose red, but he looked at Bo with so much love that Bo didn’t know how to MILES TO GO

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handle it. He began to shake, as if his body wanted to turn inside out, deep, gut-wrenching shudders that caused his muscles to cramp and his lungs to squeeze out each breath in a rasping pant. He dimly realised that his face was wet, that even now tears were running from the outer edges of his eyes, down to his temples and into his hair.

Max rolled them again until Max was on his back and Bo was laying on him. Bo buried his head against Max’s neck, gritting his teeth through the racking spasms that shook him.

He slowly became aware of Max’s murmured words of love in his ear, of Max’s hands caressing him, his strong arms holding Bo.

“I love you, honey,” Max uttered over and over as Bo struggled to get himself together, yet every time Max said those words, Bo’s heart ached with his desire to believe them.

“How can you?” Bo finally asked when he could unclench his jaw. He felt shredded, utterly demolished and shattered.

“How can I not?” Max countered. “I’ve waited my whole life just for you, Bo, forty-three years, just for you. You’re the only person who’s ever made me want anything, and I will love you every minute of this lifetime and every minute after it, too.”

Some of the shards started mending themselves back together with Max’s declaration.

Slowly, the pain began to ebb, not leaving, but simmering to a bearable throb. Bo studied Max intently, seeing everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d ever needed there in Max’s dark eyes—if he could only just believe.

“You’re everything I want,” Max rasped. “More than I deserve, but I’m keeping you.

You say I’m a good man, right?”

“The best,” Bo agreed.

“Then trust me to love you,” Max urged. “Trust me to know that you deserve it, and maybe you’ll see that you really do. Please, honey, let me.”

Bo couldn’t deny Max anything, not when Bo loved the man with an intensity that

rocked him to his very soul. “I will,” he promised, feeling a little bit more of the pain slide away. “I do.”
And I love you so much, you wonderful, stubborn, sexy man.
And Bo would tell him that, just as soon as he could say it without trembling in fear. He knew in his heart Max wouldn’t reject him, now he just had to get the message through to his brain.

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Bo was waiting for him on the porch as had become his habit the last several days.

Seeing his lover sitting there chased the tired right out of Max’s body, and his cock was well on its way to being erect before he even made it up the stairs. Usually Bo greeted him with a heart-melting smile, but this evening Bo sat stiffly in the chair, nibbling on his lower lip. His pensive expression had Max rethinking his plans to drag the man inside and show Bo just how much he’d missed him since this morning.

“Something on your mind?” Max asked as he pulled a chair close to Bo’s and sat down.

Bo blinked several times and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, I…” Bo swallowed noisily. He looked nervous, and worse,
scared.
Max didn’t like that at all. He reached for Bo’s hand and felt a bolt of panic when he realised Bo’s hand was shaking.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Max hoped Bo wasn’t giving up. He knew his lover was trying to believe Max loved him, would
always
love him, but Bo was battling a lifetime of neglect and feelings of unworthiness. Not an insurmountable task, but damned close maybe. Max cupped Bo’s cheek and kissed him, a languorous, thorough kiss that left them both breathless. The fear was gone from Bo’s eyes, replaced by the same burning need that had simmered in Max’s veins all day. But as much as he wanted to make love to Bo, it would have to wait. Too many people had been willing to plunder Bo’s body without giving a damn about his heart. Max wasn’t such a fool. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Bo looked confused for a moment then he shook his head, as if to bring his mind back to order. “You know I had another nightmare last night.”

Max was well aware. Bo had woken him with whimpers that turned into pleas then

escalated into cries for help before Max had finally managed to pull his lover from whatever hellish nightmare he’d had.

“Yeah, but you fell asleep again almost immediately.” And Max hadn’t been able to ask about the dream, although it sounded like the others, which Bo had told him were vivid nightmares about the assault several weeks ago.

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Bo nodded as if he’d read Max’s thoughts. “Yeah, it’s the same one I keep having. I thought, maybe, if you’re up to it, we could…” Bo shuddered and continued. “The three of us, you, me, and Annabelle, we could maybe go to The Xxchange tonight. Replace the bad memory of a club with a good one, you know?”

Max was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure he’d rather be shot than go out to some club like The Xxchange, but he’d do damn near anything for Bo. But he did wonder. “That the only reason you want to go? You were so worried I only wanted you because I hadn’t ever had anyone else.”

Bo blushed and glanced at his feet. “I’m trying, Max, you have to know that. But it wouldn’t hurt if you danced with a few guys, see if you felt anything—”

Max bit back a groan. “Bo, I can’t do that. I can’t just…just let some guy grope me.” The idea alone filled him with terror. Letting some stranger touch him, flirt with him, it made those walls that Bo had torn down slam right back up. Bo was the only one he ever wanted to touch him like that. Which was why, he realised, it might be a good idea after all. If Bo saw Max cringe every time a guy approached him—which probably wouldn’t happen at all. Max knew he was a worn old cowboy, nothing special to look at.

“Please, Max.” Bo’s earnest expression was definitely tipping Max towards agreeing, but Bo’s next words clinched it. “And maybe if we go to the club, even though it isn’t the same one where I was attacked, maybe going will help me with the nightmares. You know, having a good time could hopefully replace the bad memories. I’m scared to go, but I think I need to.”

Max mulled it over for less than a minute. “Yeah, okay, but here’s the rules. I don’t have to dance with anyone else. Why you’d want me to I don’t understand,”—
mostly
—“because I sure as hell don’t want to see you in some other guy’s arms.”

Bo looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded with almost no hesitation.

“And I don’t want any of this jealous stuff,” Max emphasised. “If someone’s looking at you or me, ain’t either of us going to act on it, so there’s no reason for hurt feelings. We can’t help what other people do, but we can sure be responsible for what we do.”

“Okay,” Bo agreed softly. “But if you
do
see someone you want—”

“I won’t,” Max said, cutting Bo off briskly. “You sure you want Annabelle to come with us?” Did Bo think Max was going to run off with some other man and leave him alone at The Xxchange? Max was afraid to ask, because if Bo said yes, Max might just lose his temper and MILES TO GO

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say something he’d regret. He was doing his best, but Bo’s doubts cut him sometimes, deep enough that Max wondered how there weren’t any scars.

Bo shifted in his chair until he was twisted around fully facing Max. “I wanted her to come for a couple of reasons. First, she’s become one of my closest friends.” Max could see that. He thought the same of Annabelle as well. “Second, I just…I think I’d feel safer, the more of us there are, you know? That’s not an insult to you, just the whole ‘safety in numbers’ thing. I want this trip to a club to be as different from the last as possible.”

Max would see to it that it was. “Me, too. Let’s go see if Annabelle’s up for a night out.”

“You doing all right?”

Bo tried not to roll his eyes at Annabelle. He wasn’t very successful. “You and Max have asked me that at least half a dozen times, and we haven’t even walked in the door!”

Annabelle rolled her eyes back, and did it much more dramatically. Bo was going to have to get some pointers from this chick. “So what if we have? It just means we love you, and you
didn’t
answer my question.”

A warm, fuzzy feeling at Annabelle’s declaration chased off Bo’s jangling nerves. “I’m fine, really, now can we have some fun?”

“That’s the plan,” Max said, apparently willing to speak since Bo’s snark encounter with Annabelle had passed. Bo took Annabelle’s hand in his left one and wound his right arm around his lover’s hips. Max put his arm on Bo’s shoulders, his fingertips teasing over Bo’s biceps. Annabelle pulled open the door to The Xxchange, grinning as eardrum-splitting…well, Bo wouldn’t call it music, exactly. It was loud, and there was some kind of instruments involved, and someone was screeching—

“Oh!” Annabelle squealed and clapped her hands. “Soluble Mass Exodus is playing! I
love
Soluble Mass Exodus! Come on!”

Max looked as stunned by Annabelle’s behaviour as Bo felt. They entered the club behind her, and Max went from stunned to outright shocked, if Bo was reading his expression right, and he thought he was. He glanced in the direction Max was staring. Yup, it was definitely the kind of club Bo used to hang out in. There were three men not ten feet away, one man was kneeling, his head bobbing rhythmically, his right arm jerking his own MILES TO GO

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cock. The guy getting blown wasn’t good for much of anything just then, moaning and thrashing his head, his hips stuttering. The third man was doing his very best to rub off on the second man’s hip. All in all, a scene Bo had not only viewed several times, but also participated in.

Bo looked away from the free porn—he’d seen better, and he had someone more

interesting and sexy to look at now anyway. Max didn’t look turned on by the display at all.

Both his expression and his cock showed disinterest in the trio. Max shook his head and turned to Bo.

“Are you sure this is where you want to be tonight?” Max tipped his thumb at the now cummy three men. “‘Cause I got to tell you, that don’t do a thing for me. We got what, three feet in the door and I done seen more mens’ cocks than I ever have in my life, and a live sex show. I am not impressed. I told you, you’re the only person that turns me on, honey.”

Bo opened his mouth to respond only to be cut off.

“Oh, God, how could you not think that was hot?” Annabelle fanned her flushed

cheeks. “I mean, granted, that guy kneeling is kinda not all that, and the guy he was blowing has a really small dick, but—”

“Jesus, Annabelle!” Max grabbed her arm and jerked her behind his back. The look he shot Bo was filled with more than a little guilt. Bo felt bad for forgetting she was with them for a few minutes, but as for what she’d seen… Annabelle was an adult, she’d obviously enjoyed it. No reason to feel guilty for that in his book, though he knew he was going to have a hard time convincing Max to agree.

Annabelle snatched her arm back and glared at Max for a moment. Her expression

softened suddenly, her lips tipping up in a slight smile. She patted Max’s shoulder and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, which caused a pretty red tint to spread up from Max’s neck to his forehead.

“Max, you’re the one who isn’t used to this stuff. I’ve seen it before.” Annabelle patted his shoulder once more then walked right past him into the heart of the club. She stopped and turned towards them, crooking a finger.