Love in Xxchange: Rory's Last Chance by Bailey Bradford (poetry books to read txt) 📗

the visitor was. His lips quirked when he spotted Max walking Bo up the steps to Chance’s door.

Even from this far away, Rory could see the flirtatious expression on Bo’s face, and the interest on Max’s. However, once they reached the door, Max stopped and gestured for Bo to go inside. Bo gave Max a sultry look before slipping inside the house. Max tensed, then his entire body shuddered once Bo was out of sight.

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Bailey Bradford

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Rory headed up to the house, wishing he were capable of muffling his steps, but with his size and the gravel, there wasn’t much of a chance of that happening. Still, when Max turned around, he seemed completely surprised to find Rory only a few feet away.

“Didn’t you hear me coming?” Rory bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Max’s startled look was more than answer enough.

“Guess my mind was off somewhere else,” Max answered, his entire face and neck flushing.

“Looks like maybe it was in the gutter,” Rory teased, losing the battle not to laugh when Max’s blush darkened. The man looked absolutely mortified, and Rory decided to give the smaller man a break. “What’s Bo doing here today?”

Max cleared his throat and shrugged. “Said something about helping Chance out with some problem in Montana. Dunno any more than that.”

Rory’s smile vanished, his blood running cold as his stomach did a three-sixty. He knew with an unquestionable certainty exactly why Chance wanted to go to Montana. He even thought he knew why Chance wanted Bo’s help. There was no way that Art would come anywhere near Chance, or Rory, but Bo… Even if Art knew Bo, he would never see the little guy as a threat.

The idea of Art being alone with Bo, though, had a bolt of fear ricocheting through Rory as he bolted past Max, intent on putting a stop to whatever plan Chance wanted to put into place before it ever got started. Rory didn’t believe for one minute that Art’s interests lay only in young men; anyone who he thought he could hurt would interest Art. And Rory’s fear that Art’s sadism wasn’t exclusively directed at men had him living in terror for his sister’s safety, but Annabelle insisted that Art hadn’t so much as given her the slightest hint he was interested in her.

Rory hoped he never did.

Chance’s office door was closed, and the low murmur of voices he could hear had the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. His knock wasn’t a request as he slung the door open with his other hand as soon as he smacked the cool wood. The guilty look on his lover’s face as he jerked back, putting some distance between him and Bo confirmed Rory’s suspicions. They’d been huddled together, Bo’s chair pulled up close to Chance’s, their heads tipped close to each other’s as they spoke.

Rory wasn’t worried that there was anything sexual going on between the two men, so RORY’S LAST CHANCE

Bailey Bradford

94

that wasn’t the reason his temper spiked up. It was the whole secrecy of their meeting, and the obvious exclusion of Rory that pissed him off.

He stepped inside the office and quietly shut the door, never looking away from his lover’s guilty expression. Rory leant back against the door and crossed his arms over his chest and waited. He’d be damned if he asked.

“Maybe I should go,” Bo murmured. Neither man acknowledged his words, although Rory did step away from the door long enough to let the man beat a hasty retreat. Once Bo was gone, Rory resumed his position against the door, this time crossing his ankles as well as his arms as he waited.

Chance gestured towards Bo’s vacated seat. “Why don’t you—”

“I’m good,” Rory said. He didn’t trust himself not to throttle his lover just yet. And it was good for them both to let Chance squirm a bit. He needed to realise that Rory was a man, and capable of taking care of himself. He’d done it most of his life, and certainly ever since his father had disowned him.

Chance nodded jerkily and cleared his throat. “Okay then.” He picked up a pen and began tapping it on the desk. Rory arched a brow at the nervous movement and felt a little of his temper recede. Seeing his lover in such a state of insecurity was actually kind of…sweet.

Not that Rory was going to let him off the hook or anything.

“I—” Chance snapped his mouth shut, his Adam’s Apple bobbing madly for a few seconds. He closed his eyes and groaned, dropping the pen to cover his face with his hands.

Rory melted a little more, then gave up on being angry altogether. Both of them were new to this whole relationship thing, and he realised that, just maybe, the rush and overflow of new emotions might be something that neither of them were handling too well.

“Hey,” Rory whispered as he knelt beside Chance. He reached for Chance’s hands, tugging slightly until the older man finally lowered them, grasping Rory’s hands almost painfully.

“How bad have I fucked up?” Chance asked, his gaze skittering around the room before settling at some point over Rory’s shoulder.

“Not too bad,” Rory reassured him. “If you were just concocting some crazy scheme to confront Art, and not planning a rendezvous with Bo—”

“No!” Chance’s dark eyes were drilling into Rory’s now, his nervousness gone. “I wouldn’t—that’s not ever happening, not with Bo, or anyone else.”

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Rory couldn’t keep the grin back. “I didn’t think so, which, considering that Bo told Max he was here to help you out with a ‘problem’ in Montana, made me think you might be planning something a little on the stupid side, like killing Art.” Rory tried to make it into a joke, but the brief flare of anger in Chance’s eyes told him he’d failed.

“I would, if I didn’t think it’d make things worse for you.” The quiet words were all the more threatening