Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go by Bailey Bradford (7 ebook reader txt) 📕

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.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

67

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.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

68

“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,