Naughty Wishes Part II (12 page)

*   *   *

She bought her gloves. When Chris and Geoff came to make their purchase, they were empty-handed, but Chris took her arm, guiding her out the front door into the late-morning sunshine hitting the front sidewalk. Geoff was taking out his wallet and waiting for Logan to ring up whatever he’d been writing out on a piece of notepaper.

“So what are you buying?” she demanded.

“Something.” Chris slid an arm around her waist, hooking his fingers in the waistband of her jeans.

“You’re not going to tell me what it is.”

“Nope.” His eyes twinkled at her, though his mouth remained serious, as if part of his mind was still mulling over whatever he’d been thinking when he’d been staring at her so intently in the store. Pinching her lightly, he withdrew his hand and ambled along the sidewalk displays. He studied a flat of yard plants, but something in his face told her he wasn’t even seeing them.

“Chris . . .”

He lifted his head, his brow arched. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to say it straight out. If any of this is making you uncomfortable, I don’t want you to feel like you have to . . . like we can’t go back . . .”

“Yeah, a lot of it’s making me uncomfortable.” He slid his hands in his back pockets like he had when studying the violet wands, only now he was studying the selection of wheelbarrows Logan had lined up on display out front. He stood that way a long moment. Anyone else she’d have prompted with more questions, but she knew Chris’s cadence. He’d think it through before he spoke, and you had to give him a few extra seconds to do it. Not because he was slow, but because he believed in being honest and thorough. As a result, often his response would have weight and impact far beyond what was expected. This time was no exception.

“You know how many times I’ve thought about coming into your room at night, Sam?” he said at last. He kept his eyes on the wheelbarrows. “Getting into your bed and putting my hands on you. Wrapping my hands in your hair, tasting every inch of your skin. Burying my face between your legs until you came with
those little bird cries, your body trembling . . .”

It was a good thing no one else was out sidewalk shopping, but she wasn’t sure she would have noticed them if they were. She was frozen, staring at him.

“At first, it was every once in a while, harmless fantasy. Then you went on the first date you’ve had since Anthony. That sign that you were ready to start being with someone again flipped a switch. Ever since, the more time I’ve spent around you, the more I think about it.”

He turned his brown eyes to her then, darker than usual in the shade of the striped store awning. “Now I think about it every night. Usually right before I tap out ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ on your wall. So no, I don’t feel like I
have
to do anything. I don’t want to go back.”

“What stopped you from acting on it? When that switch flipped, I mean.” Her skin felt stretched tight over her bones, the sunshine making her aware of every inch of it. From here forward, when he tapped that good-night ritual on her wall, she’d be thinking of the words he’d just spoken.

“Same reason it took you a while, and Geoff. Three isn’t the usual thing, is it? We didn’t say it to each other, though we were both thinking it. But for that to happen, you had to be on board before either of us. I didn’t know that had happened, until you took us to Naughty Bits. Then, you know, it takes me a while to move forward, even with the green light. I think it through from all angles. But coming home and finding you and Geoff pretty much expedited that, big-time.”

As he turned to contemplate the wheelbarrows again, she had to bite back another apology. Chris had something specific on his mind. She waited.

“Geoff has a dinner meeting with clients tonight,” he said slowly. “We’re going to do the picnic in the park. After that, we’ll go home and he’ll get his shower, head out for that. Then he wants me to take you to bed again. Which is good, because that’s what I planned to do.”

“Oh.” Her mouth was dry. “You worked this out, the both of you?”

“Yep. But there are a couple of things you need to realize, too.” He turned to face her. “Geoff said to make sure I was looking at you when I say this, so you understand we both mean it. He didn’t need to tell me that, but he’s a control freak, like you. On different sides of the fence.”

A wry twist of his lips. She had to bite her own to keep from saying anything, which would only prove his point. Her heart thudded at his steady look.

“Rule number one. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You got it? You don’t want to do something, that’s not going to change a thing for either of us. But you do something you don’t want to do just so you feel like we’re happy, that won’t make us happy. Geoff will be ticked, and I’ll just be plain pissed. We’re not mind readers, Sam. Don’t let us hurt you, because neither of us can imagine anything worse in the whole world than living with the guilt of that. Got it?”

“Got it. I felt that way . . . when you walked in on me and Geoff. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt.”

Her voice came out as a whisper, which tightened his jaw, made him step closer. She had to tilt her head to look up into his face. He wasn’t touching her, but she was starting to tremble as if he was. He was saying these intimate, important things out in bright sunshine, on a public sidewalk, but none of that mattered. It was just them in the whole world.

“Okay,” he said. “Rule number two. You do what we tell you to do. Unless rule one applies.”

She’d have expected Geoff to say such a thing. The jolt of hearing it from Chris, seeing him say it because he felt it, meant it, was a shock to the system.

Chris handled what needed to be handled, not by issuing orders and commanding men, but by taking care of it himself, one-on-one, whether it was a force of nature or one of Esteban’s customers. He was like Hercules or Atlas, whereas Geoff was Caesar or Captain America. The unique way each took control weakened her knees. It was a new revelation, a good one.

“Final point,” he continued. “Being uncomfortable isn’t a bad thing. We like it when you’re this kind of uncomfortable. Where your heart gets to racing, and you breathe funny, and your eyes get a look in them like you can’t really focus on anything but what we’re telling you.”

A woman had come out of the store and was browsing the bedding plants. Chris leaned in, spoke quietly. “It’s making you wet, me talking to you like this, isn’t it?”

When she gave him a look of helpless agreement, he put his lips on her cheek, his arm sliding around her waist to bend her like a reed against him as his voice became a husky whisper. “When you get aroused, your brain gets all scattered, but you don’t fight it. I like that, because it says you trust us.”

She swiped a tongue over her lips and made a little noise as he followed the movement with his own mouth, taking his fill of her lips before he lifted his head and drew back, tucking his hands in his back pockets again. He didn’t move back, though, and she was tempted to spread her fingers out like wings on his chest, feel
the man beneath the cloth.

Instead, she kept her hands still, not trusting herself. “So . . . you said Geoff suggested you tell me this?”

“Yeah. He said you weren’t going to relax until you had half an idea of my mind on it. Else you’d think I was being tugged along like a dog going into the vet’s office.”

She blinked. “I never . . . I just . . .”

“I know what you were worried about, because you worry about us, always. Me specifically, in ways you don’t worry about Geoff.” He slid his arm around her again. His gaze on her face, he spread out his fingers, taking a firm grip on her ass in front of the whole world. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder at the other shoppers. There were three women browsing the sidewalk displays now, because she could hear their muted comfortable chatter.

“Chris.”

He gave her an immovable look. “I appreciate you caring about me, but when it comes to this, you’re going to stop worrying. And you’re going to tell me you understand and agree, right now, or I’ll turn this public display of affection into something even more blatant.”

When she struggled with what she could say to that, his hand shifted as if he intended to slide all the way under her ass to cup her between her legs. She put her hands on his chest and pushed, her glare mixed with a half-exasperated smile.

“Okay, I get it. I get it.” She repeated it more softly, then shook her head. “Big jerk.”

This was a side of Chris she wasn’t used to handling. Correction—he’d just made it clear he wasn’t going to be handled.

“So do you think we can use a new wheelbarrow?” Letting her go with a light squeeze, he turned to look at a few models out on display. “Our old one is about rusted out.”

He stirred her up like a cake mix and left her to bake, her arousal rising and steaming off her skin. Those scones had made her think of too many cooking metaphors. Before she could untie her tongue to reply, Geoff emerged from the store, pushing his wallet into his back jeans pocket. “Let’s go get Jersey Mike’s. I’m ready for a picnic.”

“I guess you’re not going to tell me what the two of you bought, either,” she said. Geoff took her elbow in firm fingers.

“Absolutely not. You don’t get to ask. Patience is a virtue.”

“A saying made up by smirking people who already know the answers the impatient person wants to know.”

“Master Po never smirked.”

“
Kung Fu
,” Chris supplied at her confused look, taking her arm on the other side. “Kwai Chang Caine’s mentor. She’s not infected with geek.”

“Seriously? She has the complete Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton
Beauty and the Beast
series on DVD.”

“That’s romance, not geek stuff.”

“There is some overlap,” she admitted, and chuckled at Geoff’s smile. “And
I bet Master Po was always smirking. He just did it off camera.”

They headed to Jersey Mike’s to pick up subs and went from there to Reedy Creek Park as planned. She squelched her curiosity about their purchase while polishing off lunch at a picnic table and watching other people’s dogs play in the dog park.

Conversation gravitated toward their usual debate about when they thought they could adopt a dog, and what kind they’d adopt. When Chris suggested a St. Bernard or Newfoundland mix, Geoff pointed out they didn’t need two large, furry behemoths in the house. His vote was for a man-eating Chihuahua. Sam told them it wouldn’t matter; when the time came and they went to the shelter, the proper dog would pick them.

The three of them bantered back and forth on that for awhile, then drifted among the usual topics of politics, family and friends, work. Part of why moving in with Geoff and Chris had been an uncomplicated decision was how easily they could talk to one another about most topics, whether it was the three of them together or one-on-one. While Sam didn’t enjoy all their interests or they hers, they still had fun talking about them together, and she’d never found either Chris or Geoff an overbearing conversationalist. For one thing, Geoff often liked being able to listen more than talk after a long day of having to do the latter at work. Chris’s work, mostly being a silent communion with nature, meant he was equally comfortable chatting or remaining quiet, depending on their mood.

Reedy Creek Park had plenty of hiking trails and an open lawn overlooking a natural pond and a fishing pier. Locating a good shade tree on the lawn, they spread a blanket on the grass.

Geoff sat down, propping his back against a tree, and Chris directed her to sit there, between his spread and bent knees, her shoulder blades against Geoff’s chest. For his part, Chris stretched out on the blanket to rest his head in her lap. Geoff had wrapped his hand around her waist, his knuckles brushing the crown of Chris’s head.

“Comfortable?” Geoff murmured after they settled. She nodded. She was sleepy, the usual effect of a good lunch and a bath of sunlight, and though their proximity stirred her up in expected ways, she couldn’t think of a more favorable position for an afternoon nap.

“Nothing better than an afternoon siesta between the thighs of a beautiful woman,” Chris said, reading her mind. Turning his face to her thigh, he kissed it through the denim, chuckling when she flicked the side of his head.

“Any beautiful woman?”

“There is only one beautiful woman in the entire world, and we are with her,” Geoff intoned, the words vibrating through his chest against her back. “So said because we are smart men who live in the same house with her and she has access to cooking knives.”

She
hmphed
at that and let her gaze drift over the lawn. A small group of college kids were playing touch football. A woman was reading on her own blanket, her head pillowed on her chocolate Labrador. His head was up, eyes trained on the movement of the football. The woman reached up, rubbed his ears and spoke a calming word, the light smile on her face saying she knew he wanted to play and would probably give in to his desire soon with the can of tennis balls she’d brought.

“You’re humming.” Geoff’s arm tightened on her. “What song is that?”

She had a tendency to do that, but when Sam realized the song she’d been humming, she felt a little embarrassed. Chris opened his eyes and looked up at her. “One of those romantic chick songs,” he said. “Best not to ask.”

He’d watched
Hello, Dolly!
with her, and he had a great memory for music. “It Only Takes a Moment” was what she’d been humming. It was probably a little over-the-top, but nevertheless, it was what had come to mind. Maybe because this was a precious moment—the first time they’d acknowledged in public the attraction among the three of them.

It hadn’t gone unnoticed. There was a group of women sitting at a nearby picnic table, playing a card game and chatting as women did. The rhythm of their conversation was part of the music around her, so it caught her attention when the note changed, from casual chatter to lowered voices.

She noticed a couple of them glancing her way, probably prompted by the woman who’d just spoken to them in an undertone. It was obvious from how Geoff and Chris held her that she was intimate with them both. What was curious to her was that she was more intrigued by her own reaction than the women’s speculation. Instead of feeling worried about the latter, Sam felt satisfaction curl in her belly. She became even more aware of Geoff’s hand, spread over her hipbone, stroking her upper thigh in an intimate but not indecent way. Chris had his head still turned toward her upper thigh, his breath heating her flesh through her thin clothing.