Naughty Wishes 4: Soul (7 page)

“Sam, you home? Where are you, crazy girl?”

Things leaped up inside her, like swallowing a chocolate bar down whole. The surge of adrenaline was overpowering, the kind that came with doing something wrong that didn’t have immediate consequences.

Stop it. Settle down, take a breath.

Shutting down the computer, she left her room and came into the kitchen. Chris was setting his lunch tote on the counter. He looked hot, tired and sweaty, as he usually did after a full day. He had a dirty bandage wrapped around his arm—also not unusual, since he often came home with scrapes. She went right to him, winding her arms around his neck and pressing her body insistently against him as she rose on her tiptoes to bring her lips to his.

He looked a little startled, but then he figured out the same thing she had in the time it took her to get from her room to the kitchen. They could do this now, greet each other as lovers did at the end of the workday. He cradled her head in one big hand and deepened the kiss, pressing her against the counter. She curved her leg over his hip, willing him to put her up on the counter, press himself between her legs, relieve her all-over throbbing, but instead he moved her back, lips tugging in a smile.

“I’m filthy. I’ll get you all dirty.”

She so didn’t care, but she forced herself to go back to her heels. “What happened to your arm?”

Chris rolled his eyes. “New guy on the crew. Don was swiping at a bee with his clippers and took a nice chunk out of my arm. Idiot. Think he’ll work out okay, though, if he doesn’t manage to kill us all first.”

“Did you—”

“Yes, Nurse Nancy, I disinfected it and kept it clean. All’s good. I’m going to go hit the showers. Geoff’s on his way home—on time, for once. He’s going to pick up some salads and fish sandwiches from Whole Foods. Pretty cool about the Bat Cave thing, right?”

“Yeah.” She trailed him to the bathroom and watched him strip off the shirt. He hesitated when she was in the door.

“Oh, sorry.” She started to move away, but he shook his head, offering her a half smile with enough lazy promise to uncurl warmth in her stomach.

“No, you’re welcome to stay. Just getting used to it, you know. In a good way.”

He stripped off his clothes, leaned in and started the shower. Her gaze slid down his back and over his bare haunches, but when he began to unwrap the bandage, she came forward and took over. She told herself to focus on his arm, not the tempting weight of his genitals, so close she could brush her thighs against them.

She grimaced. “
Chunk
is right. This is going to leave a scar.”

“Won’t be my first.” He kissed her cheek, reached into the shower and flicked water at her, making her draw back with a mock scowl before he stepped in and closed the shower door.

His cock had started to rise at her proximity, she noted, and wondered if that was why he’d so quickly moved under the spray. Chris had agreed to Geoff’s mandate about no sexual activity for the next several days. Yet Chris was aroused by her presence, so why shouldn’t they take advantage of that? If she slipped into the shower, he wouldn’t deny her, would he? She fingered the hem of her shirt. All she had to do was strip it off, after all . . .

Chris spoke, his deep voice echoing off the tile amid the rush of water. “Geoff said to have you make up some of your famous lemonade to go with the fish. Mr. High and Mighty said you’d better have it ready when he gets home, or else.”

She did like those masterful ultimatums, though she knew when her chain was being jerked. “I can see this whole Dom thing is going to his head.”

“Yeah, I could have warned you about that. If you spit in his lemonade, I won’t blame you. Just set mine apart before you do it.”

She would have happily sat there and watched Chris run his capable hands over every inch of his powerful body, including all the tempting crevices, but she reluctantly left him to do as bidden. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going to stay outside the shower if she remained another minute. Besides, Chris was studiously not looking at her, making it clear she was a temptation he had to avoid. It irritated her a little bit.

She needed to lighten up; she knew that. As she fixed the lemonade, she turned on her iPod and did a little disco improv around the kitchen to the Bee Gees classic “Staying Alive.” Fortunately, it did lift her mood. Putting the pitcher in the fridge, she saw Geoff pull into the driveway, and those good feelings spiked further. She watched him get out and head up the walkway, handsome and serious in his suit.

As he entered the kitchen, she had the lemonade in a glass and was posed provocatively with it, like she’d done for Chris. Only today, instead of being naked, she had her T-shirt tied up under her breasts, baring her midriff and highlighting her breasts. When she was squarely in his sights, she shook down her hair in a practiced move she’d perfected in high school. She hadn’t used the move since well before Anthony, the stalker ex-boyfriend Chris and Geoff had helped her banish into her past once and for all.

“Your lemonade as ordered, Master,” she purred.

Geoff wasn’t a 24/7-type Dom, any more than she intended to become their domestic servant, but he’d probably do things like this to tease or remind her of those moments when it would be about that. She was good with that, and teasing him back.

Geoff’s lips curved, but the playful note she’d intended came out as mocking challenge, and he detected it. As her mother had said, he was sharp. A trace of puzzlement filtered through his expression. She set aside the lemonade to come to him, wanting to give him the same hello kiss she’d given Chris.

True to his nature, Geoff was even more demanding about it, setting down his briefcase and wrapping his arm around her, bringing her up on her toes as he kissed her back, scoring her bottom lip sharply.

His five-o’clock shadow was less coarse than Chris’s, something she’d noticed before, but this hyperawareness of every difference, every sensation, was a delightful part of the change in their relationship. As she inhaled his aftershave, a contrast to Chris’s earthy sweat, she thought she might be one of the luckiest women in the world, having the opportunity to indulge herself in those pleasurable variances with no restraint. She should have no complaints, no issues.

“Smartass,” Geoff muttered, referencing her lemonade pose. He drew back and gave her a closer inspection. “Good day at work?”

“An even better end to it,” she said. She’d push past this. No reason they needed to deal with her weirdly vacillating moods. “You have the food? I can get it set up if you want to change. Chris is showering.”

“Sure. That’d be great.” But he gave her one last penetrating look before he went down the hall.

She threw herself into the routine they all knew. Fortunately, things did level out for the next couple of hours. Maybe just having them close was all she needed. There was a lovely, different cadence to their three-way bond now, exercised in ways large and small. Lingering touches, easy affection, intimate teasing.

Geoff was looking out for all of them, right? Emotional recuperation was important. Time to breathe and think. Plus, him and Chris making the mature decision that it wouldn’t be 24/7 sex should make her feel even better about her earlier thoughts. This was how a normal relationship worked. Quiet times, companionship, mixed with intimacy. Friendship. And the really hot sex. Right here at her fingertips, if she could force the issue.

She had that thought as Chris was loading the dishwasher and Geoff was settling down with his work. Her phrasing, the use of the word “force”, gave her a start. Why was she trying to challenge Geoff? What was the problem, damn it?

If she could have some kind of physical release, maybe she could settle down. She just needed to feel a little more in control of what was happening inside her. Though she was eagerly embracing her submission, something was warring with it, saying that she needed to assert herself. Make sure there was a balance.

Or maybe it was the inner child poking out her lip and saying,
He can’t tell me what to do
.

Shaking her head at herself, she left them to change into her pajamas. Pausing over her choices in the dresser drawer, she didn’t pull out the flannels and comfortable oversized T-shirt she would have normally worn. The T-shirt was an extralarge freebie Geoff had given her some time ago after he’d run a half marathon for the animal shelter charity drive.

He’d chastised her about wearing provocative outfits in front of them, but that was before they’d all been sexually intimate. Now they could act on it if they wanted to do so, right? It was fine for Geoff to act as Dom, but they hadn’t agreed he could impose things on her full-time. Okay, yeah, some things, sort of. But this was still a willing thing, and ultimately they were equal partners. She could change the rules if she wanted to do so.

She withdrew a baby tee and coupled it with gray jersey shorts she donned over a hot pink pair of panties with a high Brazilian cut. The light pink T-shirt was thin, showing off the shape of her nipples. When she was curled on her hip in her favorite reading chair, the shorts would ride up the curve of her ass. Just enough to make them a little bit crazy, which seemed quid pro quo, since she was all crazy at this point.

Don’t do this, Sam.

Why not?

Her mind couldn’t give her the right answer. Her gaze fell on the Naughty Bits envelope she’d pulled out of the mail, and she seized the distraction it offered. Coming back into the living room holding it, she pasted a smile on her face, trying to pretend she had on nothing out of the ordinary. Their new intimacy was simply making her comfortable wearing less around them. It wasn’t like she was doing it as a deliberate provocation.

Which she was.

Chris was stretched out on the floor, his feet up on the arm of her reading chair. Geoff was on the couch reading through something work-related while Chris channel surfed.

“Hey, look what we got in the mail.” She waved the invitation. Her cheeks were flushed, so she kept her head down as she spoke. “Madison is doing a benefit for an erotica theater she’s planning.”

She placed the brochure on the coffee table where they could both see it. “She’s calling it Carnival in the Round. It’ll be in that old theater in downtown Matthews. There’ll be performances with whip play, wax, all sorts of things. Says it’s a fetish costume thing, so we can dress up however we want. Or not at all, but I think I’d like to, even if you two don’t. There will be changing areas at the theater if needed. What do you think?”

She was talking in a rush of words, so she made herself shut up and backed into her reading chair, sinking down in it and curling her legs up beneath her. She dared to give Chris’s bare feet propped there a quick caress, then she drew a steadying breath and raised her gaze.

She realized immediately she should have looked at Chris first. She met Geoff’s cool hazel eyes, inscrutable as a sphinx’s. Her cheeks flushed anew. “Hmm,” he said. His gaze swept her, then Geoff put his feet down from the coffee table with a decided
thump
. She jumped, but he merely leaned forward to pick up the invitation. She looked toward Chris, trying a casual smile. He was trying to look anywhere but where it was obvious he wanted to look, at her scantily clad body, so he turned his attention to the invite when Geoff handed it to him. After Chris set it on the coffee table, the two men exchanged a glance.

“I think it’s time to give her the gifts we set aside for her birthday,” Geoff said. “One in particular.”

Chris’s mouth tightened as if he was undecided about that, but when he glanced her way at last, his gaze latched on to her trembling breasts and bare legs. For some reason, when her nervous gaze slid back to Geoff, she felt exposed in the wrong way.

“I think you may be right,” Chris said at last.

“My birthday isn’t for another month,” she said. “And we’re supposed to buy only small things. We agreed.”

“Well, in this case there was an exception clause to that agreement, supported by two of the three signing members.” Geoff gave her a trace of his normal smile, which made her feel easier and, oddly, a little ashamed. She crossed her arms over her breasts. Not trying to hide them. Not exactly.

“I wasn’t aware the agreement was based on popular vote,” she said.

Chris took one of her hands, pulling it away from her body. “This one time it is. You know you never have to buy me anything for my birthday, anyway. Just make one of those white layer cakes with the powdered sugar on it.”

“Suck-up,” Geoff grumbled. Rising from the couch, he took her other hand. Her fingers were tense, but she curled them over his, absorbing the strength and heat as he brought her to her feet. “Stand up straight, Samantha Beth. You wanted us to look at you. So let us look.”

She swallowed, but when she would have spoken, he touched her mouth. “Not a word. Unless you want me to take off those nonexistent panties, stick them in your mouth and keep them there with duct tape.”

She stilled. His tone was velvet over steel, as was his expression, and she wasn’t the only one brought up short by it, or by the shocking words. Chris’s fingers had dropped to caress her ankle, and now they paused, as if he’d looked up at Geoff to see if the menacing tenor was a joke. It hadn’t been, but Geoff tightened his fingers on her, caressing her pulse.

“It’s all right. Come on, sweetheart.”

He called her that when he wanted to reassure her, and it worked. She let out an unsteady breath. Chris rose with a warm look, which helped further. Geoff led her to his room and snapped on the light. “Your gift is in a box under the bed.”

When he didn’t move to get it, she moistened her lips. Chris twitched beside her, but Geoff shifted. She was pretty sure he’d motioned to Chris to let her get it. In this outfit, that would be quite a show. She started to move toward the side, so she wouldn’t be sticking her ass up in front of them, but Geoff spoke.

“You’ll reach it easier from the end of the bed.”

She met his gaze. If he’d still had that terrifyingly cool look, she honestly might have bolted, but he gave her a wink, and a genuine smile. “You know how Chris is about watching a woman bend over. Don’t deprive him of the small joys in life.”