Love in Xxchange: Rory's Last Chance (12 page)

Chance could swear he could feel the red flush crawl over his skin as he turned off the water. He’d spoken without thinking, but if a little embarrassment on his part had Rory laughing so joyously, Chance knew he’d do it again. And again, because Rory lit up with laughter was a beautiful sight unmatched by anything he could think of.

“Well, I guess I just liked the semi-alliteration.” Chance pretended to think it over, tapping his index finger against his chin before nodding. “Yeah, I just don’t think shrinking your shaft or cowering your cock has quite the same effect.”

Rory laughed again and reached for Chance’s hands. He laced their fingers together and tugged until only a few inches separated them. A serious light sparked in his blue eyes, all traces of laughter now gone.

“Chance.”

His name came out as a breathless whisper. Chance felt his heart thump frantically against his ribs. Everything in Rory’s demeanour warned him of what the man wanted to say. He shook his head at Rory, just a slight movement so as not to break away from Rory’s gaze. Chance saw a flare of pain in that gaze and shook his head again.

“I’m not dismissing what you want to say. I wouldn’t do that. I just…”
Am scared as hell
to believe it
. “I just want you to think about it, be sure that you aren’t just being influenced by how goddamned perfect the sex—”

Rory jerked his hands free and stepped back, pain etched into white lines bracketing his mouth, his full lips pressed into a narrow slash of anger.

“Rory—” Chance stepped towards him, hand extended, guilt driving him to try to soothe away the hurt he’d caused.

“No.” Rory backed further away, denying Chance absolution. “You think I’m too damn stupid to know what I think, what I feel?” Rory’s eyes were almost black, the deep blue irises nearly swallowed by the dilated pupils. “You think I’m some fucking flighty kid?”

Chance almost dropped his hand, almost gave up in the face of Rory’s anger.
Wouldn’t
that make me the flighty one, to give up so fucking easily?
No, he had done this with his own thoughtlessness, and he would damn well fix it. Chance moved forward, matching his steps RORY’S LAST CHANCE

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to Rory’s retreating ones. When Rory’s back hit the bathroom door, Chance grabbed the man’s wrist, holding it firm when Rory tried to shake free.

“Fucking let go, Chance!” Rory’s eyes blazed with anger, and Chance had a moment’s worry that the younger man might knock the hell out of him.

He gave a mental shrug, deciding that if Rory did swing at him it was only what he deserved. When Rory did nothing more than vibrate with hurt and fury, Chance stepped closer. He’d given Rory an opportunity to lash out—now he would make such a move difficult.

“Listen to me.” The use of his best boss voice had the desired effect, snapping Rory’s mouth shut. Chance brought his other hand up and reached for Rory’s cheek, pushing aside his own hurt when the man flinched as if to evade the touch. He stroked Rory from cheek to chest, stilling his hand over Rory’s pounding heart.

“I didn’t mean any of those things—you aren’t stupid or flighty.” Chance saw confusion replace some of the anger in Rory’s eyes.

“Then what the—”

Chance shook Rory’s wrist to shut the man up, took a deep breath to clear his own thoughts.

“I fucked up, Rory, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Chance looked away for a moment, shaken by the depth of pain he saw in Rory’s expression.

“Then what did you mean to do, Chance? Because I don’t know.” Rory reached up and grasped Chance’s chin, pulling his head back around to meet Rory’s confused blue eyes.

“What do you want from me, Chance? You don’t want a casual fuck, but you don’t want emotional involvement?” Rory shook his head. “Do you even know what you want?”

Rory frowned at him as Chance considered the man’s questions. No way did he want to screw up all over again.

“Yeah.” Chance tipped his chin out of Rory’s hold. “I do know what I want. But first, what I meant was, make sure you’re sure. No.” He pressed a finger against Rory’s lips. “No.

This time, you listen to what I’m saying before you get all pissed off.”

Chance held Rory’s stare until he nodded in agreement, then he stepped back, not wanting to influence Rory with the strength of their physical attraction.

“I meant, be goddamned sure, Rory, because if you say it, I’m not letting you go.” The stunned look on Rory’s face would have been priceless had Chance been able to see past his RORY’S LAST CHANCE

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own need to ensure that his lover understood just how serious he was.

“What I want from you is exactly what you want to offer. But what I need,”—Chance’s hands fisted at his sides—“is for you to stop thinking that I don’t respect you, because I do, and as long as you don’t get that then shit like this will keep happening. I’m not saying this is your fault, but…”

God, no doubt he was screwing up all over again. Rory looked confused as hell, but Chance made himself forge on—he had to make the man understand.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain before you got pissed. You just assumed the worst. Doesn’t say much for your opinion of me, but I can see where it might take a while to undo the damage I’ve done.” This time it was Chance who stepped backwards as Rory approached.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I know you haven’t accused me of being any of the things I said. You’re not someone who plays games or uses people. I know that, I just…” Rory looked stumped for an explanation.

Chance stayed quiet, giving the man time to figure out what he wanted to say. He wasn’t going to jump in with any assumptions—that kind of thing was what had led to this whole misunderstanding.

Rory gave a start, cheeks flushing red with his sudden comprehension. He looked at Chance and was embarrassed and so cute with it that Chance found it difficult not to intervene.

“Shit. I think…I think I let insecurity take over.” Rory shuddered, actually shuddered as though the confession were distasteful. “Uh. I can see maybe how this whole talking about feelings and stuff is uncomfortable.” He offered Chance a sheepish smile.

Smiling back, Chance felt a weight lift off his shoulders. “Yeah, it is, and I think both of us will probably fuck it up plenty of times. But—and here’s the important part, Rory—”

Chance gave in to the need to touch and took Rory’s hands. “If we both try to remember that this whole relationship thing is something new—I’m thinking you haven’t done this much more than I have, right?”

Rory laughed and squeezed Chance’s hands. “I don’t think what happened with…with Art was what you’d exactly call a relationship, so no.” Ruddy slashes marked Rory’s cheeks at the admission as he looked away.

“Wait. What…” Chance ran Rory’s statement over again is his mind and still came to RORY’S LAST CHANCE

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the same conclusion, which couldn’t be right. “You don’t mean that he was the only—no.

You mean the rest were just casual. Right?”
Has to be what he means.

The colour on Rory’s cheeks darkened as he kept his gaze averted. “Told you I don’t do that casual shit.”

Defensive and softly spoken, the words had Chance’s mind reeling. Yeah, Rory had said something to that effect, but Chance had still figured the man had some experience other than Art.

Chance’s stomach clenched painfully. Shit, had he ever been even half the man Rory was? He’d been a slut at that age, not giving a damn about anything much other than the next lay or the next bull ride. But if Rory didn’t do causal, what had he been doing at the bar that first night? Chance tried to push the question aside but couldn’t.

“Not that I’m doubting you, but now you have me confused.”

Rory’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Confusing you how?”

Chance reached up and swiped at Rory’s brow, smoothing out the lines there and then shrugged. “Since you don’t do the one night thing, why were you at the bar a few weeks ago? That’s about all those places are there for.”

Rory shrugged and looked away, embarrassment evident in the way his shoulders hunched. “I didn’t know.”

Now it was Chance’s brow that wrinkled. “What do you mean you didn’t know?”

Rory sighed and shook his head, still refusing to look at Chance. “I mean, I was naïve and stupid—and curious. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found there in that bar.” Rory finally met Chance’s gaze. “I know that makes me sound like some kind of idiot, but I was a little shocked when I saw what was going on it that place. And then… “

Rory’s smile started out small and sweet, but grew as he looked Chance over. “There you were, trying to escape from two twinks. Something started burning inside me and all I could think about was how much I needed to touch you. So I did.” He shrugged, which did things to his chest and strong muscles that threatened to make Chance forget what they were talking about.

The club, and Rory thinking he was an idiot.
Chance reached up and traced Rory’s jaw line with the back of his knuckles. “It doesn’t make you stupid or an idiot not to have known what clubs like that are for. Probably a sign that you have better sense than anyone else in the place, myself included. I was there, knowing what the place was, looking for something RORY’S LAST CHANCE

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that I knew I wouldn’t find there.”

Chance rubbed Rory’s lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “So you tell me, which one of us was the stupid one?”

Rory sucked the tip of Chance’s thumb into his mouth and swirled his tongue around the callused skin. It was a seductive move that had goose bumps rising all over Chance’s body by the time Rory stopped and released Chance’s thumb. “Neither. I think maybe we were just lonely.”

It took Chance a full minute to remember what the question was to Rory’s answer.

Once he did, he realised the younger man was right.

“I don’t deserve you.” The words were out before Chance could censor them. He pressed as close to Rory as he could, leaning forward so the next words were whispered into Rory’s ear. “But I am damn sure going to keep you.”

A shaky relieved laugh accompanied the movement of Rory’s arms as he hugged Chance. “I think you do, and I’m going to keep you, too, boss.”

Chance didn’t think he’d ever heard a better vow than that one. He just hoped Rory felt that way for a very long time, like another forty or fifty years.

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Chance sat at his desk, lost in thought. He had fucked up plenty of times, and he’d learned to do what he needed to in order to rectify his mistakes. Forgiving himself had never been easy, but he’d thought he had managed, for the most part.

Now he was faced with the realisation that the biggest mistake of his life had never really been addressed, and because of that, Rory had been hurt. Chance would have to live with the knowledge that, if he’d only had the balls to do something when Art had assaulted him, if he’d only spoken out or beat the man to death…

But he hadn’t done anything, other than quit the circuit. He’d accepted what Art had done to him as a just punishment for too long, never stopping to think that the psychotic asshole might do the same thing to someone else. And, with age comes wisdom—hopefully.

Chance knew now that he hadn’t deserved what happened to him. It had just been easier to slink away.

He couldn’t do that this time. Whether it was his own sense of culpability or the sheer evil act Art had perpetrated on Rory, or a mix of both, Chance couldn’t be passive any more.

He cared too deeply for his younger lover, and he ached with the need for retribution on Rory’s behalf.

Then there was also the very real threat to Rory’s sister. Art had played both ways back when Chance knew him, and he had no reason to think the man restricted his violence to one sex.

Rory would be opposed, Chance was certain. Not to protecting Annabelle, but to the confrontation Chance had in mind with Art. It would happen, though, and Chance just hoped Rory would forgive him for it afterwards.

First things first, Chance needed a reason to head up north, one that didn’t involve paying a visit to a certain son of a bitch. He also needed to see if he could find out anything about Art’s schedule, his habits, when he was away from the Mossy Glenn, because it was a sure bet that Chance wouldn’t be allowed to set foot on that property. Asking Annabelle for any help was out, as she would definitely tell her brother. Besides that, if Art found out she was involved in any way…That didn’t bear thinking about, other than as something to avoid RORY’S LAST CHANCE

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at all costs.

He needed to do some research, find out if there was any good stock for sale somewhere near the Mossy Glenn. And he needed to find out as much as he could about Art.

It was past time for a reckoning between them.

Hours later, Chance stretched and tried to pop the kinks out of his back. He’d found some stock that he really was interested in, and the price was right. The drive to Montana was going to suck, but it couldn’t be helped.

He also had a plan, albeit a loosely formed one that involved a lot of hanging around in town a few miles from the Mossy G and waiting for Art to make a visit. Unless he’d changed drastically—and obviously, he hadn’t—Art would be in town often. The man had been easily bored and allergic to hard work when Chance had known him. Two or three days at the most, and Chance would have the opportunity he wanted. He just hoped there weren’t any witnesses around.

Pounding on the front door startled him. He’d been so focussed on formulating a plan that he hadn’t heard anyone drive up. Chance hurried to the door, the nonstop banging on it sparking his temper.

He skidded to a halt upon seeing the smiling face on the other side of the screen door.

How he managed to keep from groaning was beyond him.

This was all he needed now—one of his exes showing up to make his life hell. Before Chance could even ask what the hell the other man was doing here, his unwanted visitor squealed—which Chance believed no grown man should
ever
do—and yanked the screen door open.