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lips, and Chris’ heart skipped several beats before he closed his eyes and tilted back his head, automatically parting his lips.
    Shock scudded through him like ice water when Troy’s firm lips covered his.
    It took all his willpower to keep his eyes from flying open. He didn’t want to ruin the fantasy, didn’t want to see the revulsion that might be in Troy’s eyes when the man came to his senses and realized what he did and with whom. It had happened before.
    Troy pulled away from him several moments later but not in the way Chris had expected. No. Troy dragged his lips away from Chris’
    with a long groan. He sounded like he hurt and didn’t want to stop for fear that the pain would get worse if he did.
    “Christ, you’re just a kid.”
    That was a new one. Usually he got “What kind of odd stick are you?” right before the man in question knocked him flat on his backside or worse. Even the men who wanted to bugger him didn’t want to kiss him. Heck if he understood the difference or what made one act better or worse than the other. Men could be an odd lot, and he had the bad luck of preferring them to women.
    “I’ve been on my own since I turned ten.” Not that it made any difference. He still came off as a wide-eyed greenhorn and wasn’t as tough as he could be. Cooper had told him when they’d met it was a wonder Chris remained in one piece. To Cooper’s way of thinking, innocence and inexperience like Chris’ could get a body hurt or Three Men and a Bounty
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    killed. Heck, Cooper had been as far away from a shave tail as they came and look what happened to him!
    “Ten, huh?”
    Chris nodded. It wasn’t like he’d had a choice in the matter. A cholera outbreak had taken his parents away from him eleven years ago, and Chris went to work in the factories in New York not long after and before he’d made his way out West. He wasn’t necessarily proud of the things he’d done to survive since, but fact was fact.
    “You’re all alone?” Troy pushed a stray lock of hair away from Chris’ face real gentle like, looking down into his eyes as if he wanted to protect Chris, not hurt him.
    Chris just barely puffed up his chest. He didn’t want pity. “I get by.”
    “I reckon you do.” Troy peered some more, like he tried to figure out what made Chris tick. “How old are you?”
    “Old enough.”
    Troy chuckled and shook his head. “I suspect you are.” He sighed and braced his palms on his thighs before standing up. “Well, Mr. Old Enough, think you’re ready to hold down some grub?”
    Chris looked toward the window for the first time since he’d waken up from his nightmare and saw that daybreak had arrived. The sun shone bright, spilling through the floral-print curtains to warm the four-poster bed.
    He glanced around the room and spied the bedroll on the wood floor at the foot of the bed then winced. “I took your bed.”
    “Don’t go vexing yourself about it.”
    “I didn’t mean to…Miss Josie said it was okay that…I thought it was her room what with the flowers on the curtains and the ruffles on the bed and...”
    “Josie has a habit of putting her stamp on things even when they don’t belong to her.” Troy laughed. “She said the room needed some color and style.”
    “Oh.”

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    Gigi Moore
    “So what do you think?”
    “About the room?
    Troy nodded.
    “I reckon it’s pretty.”
    Troy grinned, and the show of dimples was liked to knock the wind right out of Chris’ lungs. The man’s next murmured words, however, finished the job and took his breath away.
    “Not as pretty as you.”

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Chapter 3
    In the dark, James imagined the head bobbing up and down between his thighs belonged to another person, another sex. It was the only way he could stay hard.
    He closed his eyes tight to bring the vision of shaggy, honey-blond waves and wide blue eyes into sharper focus. The boy had one of the most beautiful faces James had seen in a long