Naughty Wishes Part I (11 page)

She put the car in drive, but her door opened before she could press the accelerator. Geoff reached over her, put the car back in park. Switching off the ignition, he pulled out the key and pocketed it. Then he eyed her with a set jaw and resolute
expression. “You’re not going on a damn date,” he said.

She crossed her arms over her breasts and shot him a mutinous look. “Sorry, it’s what we insensitive sluts do.”

His firm lips pressed together. Squatting next to the car, he put his hand on her knee, fingers incidentally sliding beneath the gauzy pleats. The warm strength was too welcome. She told herself to jerk away, tell him to let go and give her the damn keys.

“Come in the house, Samantha Beth,” he said quietly.

“You’ll say you’re sorry first. That was a really, really horrible thing to say.”

“Yes, it was.” He sighed, surprising her by kissing her shoulder before he pressed his forehead against it and the side of her breast. “Forgive me. Sometimes I need to have my tongue cut out.”

“It’d be really hard for you to be a trial lawyer that way,” she said. She wanted to touch his head, run her fingers through his hair in comfort, but she steeled herself to stay motionless. She refused to go backward again, and a simple apology with no indication that anything would be different wasn’t something she was going to accept this time.

He lifted his head, his eyes thoughtful. “Someone told me earlier in the week that submissives are braver than Doms,” he said. “Maybe because a sub’s mentality is all about reaching a point of vulnerability where you can surrender and let go. Doms don’t have that, Sam.” He grimaced. “We’re all about control, beginning to end. He told me to think of you as a partner in this, and I’m trying, but there’s this pounding drum in my head that says I’m in charge of all of it, that if it crashes and burns, it’s me who will make that happen. I think I could forgive anything you or Chris did to me. But I couldn’t forgive myself if I pushed us away from one another. And look, Christ, isn’t that what I just did, in there? I said things that made you bolt.”

Something else entered his gaze, something vulnerable that she wasn’t sure he meant her to see. “You’re my family,” he said. He stopped, cleared the break from his voice, but kept his eyes fastened on hers. “Do you understand that, Sam? I need you to understand it, to help me . . . get us where we both want to go.”

She could feel the tension strumming through his body, as if he was willing her to understand things that were too hard for him to say. She realized then why what he’d said had hurt so much. Hadn’t she harbored that exact worry, that she was so trapped in her own desires she might mess something up, which was what someone who didn’t value their relationship as much might do? She
did
value it, just as she’d said.

Because Geoff was so good at being in control, it was easy to forget really important details about him. He wasn’t being sentimental. She and Chris
were
Geoff’s only family. His dad had screwed around on his mother and Geoff had ended his
relationship with his father. That could have turned out okay, except his mother had returned to his father, even though it was widely known he was still philandering. Geoff’s mother had told Geoff she could overlook his father’s infidelities as long as he took care of her, and his other siblings had supported her wish. Geoff couldn’t, so he’d walked away from them and the family money, which had been considerable.

That was what so many people didn’t get about Geoff, but she and Chris did. A lot of people became attorneys for the money or the prestige that came with saying,
I’m an attorney
. Or just to have a career path. Even if the legal system dealt with a lot of shades of gray, Geoff believed in clear lines of right and wrong. Though he worked for a corporate firm to pay for his student loans, she knew what he really wanted was to be on the front lines, trying to see those lines honored. He’d told Sam once that even if that happened only once out of every hundred cases, there was value in being one of the guys who helped make that one time happen, and who at least tried get the other ninety-nine as close to that state as possible.

She put her hand down on his. “I do get it,” she said gently. “But you really hurt my feelings. Why would you strike out at me like that?”

“Exactly why you said.” A muscle in his cheek flexed. “Because I’m an asshole when I’m cornered. If Chris had been here, he’d be sitting on me in the living room right now, turning my face into mashed potatoes and breaking my ribs like matchsticks.”

She couldn’t help a small smile at that. “I was just thinking I wish Chris were here. I wasn’t wishing for him to do that. Though, now that you mention it, that would have been nice.”

“Thanks.” His look was wry, but after a moment’s reflection, he removed the keys from his pocket and put them back in her hand. “It’s your choice, but I’m asking you. Don’t go on the date, Sam. I know what I said, and maybe it’s true, you should give some other guy a chance, but I don’t want you to do it. Since I’ve already been an asshole tonight, I might as well be a selfish bastard while I’m at it.”

“You know what I was thinking when I was putting on my lipstick?”

“That you were going to torture my dick as much as possible before you left?”

She colored a little bit at the crude language. Geoff was regaining his composure. With it came that direct look that could swirl things in a lovely way down through her chest, to her lower abdomen and even farther. His gaze swept her. “Like this dress. You know it’s the kind I particularly like to see you wear. Don’t you?”

She nodded and his lips tightened. “What are you wearing under it? Tell me.” His palm slid up a few more inches, his thumb on the seam between her thighs, and her legs loosened under that touch.

“Geoff . . . the neighbors—”

“Can’t see anything. It’s dark, we’re in our driveway and I’m in front of you. I won’t let anyone see you, Sam. I don’t share, in case I wasn’t clear on that topic.”

“Not with anyone?” Her lips quivered in a near smile, a tight one because her pulse was speeding up. He’d dropped to one knee so he could lean farther into the doorway, his energy pressing in around her.

“You know the answer to that. Chris is different.” His gaze softened. “I know where I want to take this tonight, Sam. As soon as you give me the answer to one question, I’m going to start down that road, and I’m not going to stop until we get where we both want to go.”

Thank God.
As she processed all the titillating possibilities, he touched her lips with his thumb, his other fingers caressing her jaw, her throat. “There are no wrong answers. No matter what you say, I’m still going down that road. You have a problem with that?”

She shook her head. “Is . . . is that the question?”

“No. This is.” A smile touched his lips, though his gaze remained serious. “Am I forgiven? Don’t lie to me.” A quick flare of heat in his expression accompanied that admonition, twirling a feather of sensation in her chest. She would have put a white lie out there, just to make things go more smoothly, but he was right. Raw honesty was what made this moment all the more potent. And real.

“No, not yet,” she said. “I . . . It hurt, and I’m still a little mad.”

He nodded, simple acceptance. “I’m still sorry.” His gaze passed over her again, taking even more time, lingering on her mouth, the quick rise and fall of her breasts. “How would you feel about Chris and me sharing you, Sam? Over and over, all night long, making you serve our needs?”

She’d tell him, as soon as her vocal cords unlocked. Fortunately, he wasn’t done. “I’m sure he’s had as many fantasies about you as I have.”

“You don’t talk about them . . . together?”

“No. Until now, until you set this in motion, I think we both figured it was better not to put it out there, in case one or the other of us had more exclusive designs on you. Which Chris still might.”

“You don’t believe that. You’ve both always been so worried that you’d be stepping on the other’s toes, but I think you’ve always realized that wasn’t how it needed to be. As long as I felt the same.” She bit her lip. “I do.”

“You still haven’t told me what you’re wearing under this dress. Don’t make me ask you again. Be detailed. Tell me what Mark was going to get to see.”

“He wasn’t.”

“No? But you wore it for someone. Someone who wasn’t me.”

He’d just acknowledged that she’d picked out an outfit to deliberately torment him, but the glint in his eye helped her figure out what he was doing. Tossing her hair back, she offered him an indifferent look, difficult as that was. “String bikini panties in lavender. Pretty see-through.” She moistened her lips. “I shaved, so I’m all smooth and pink. The bra matches the panties. It’s transparent at the top, almost to the nipples, then satin cups for the rest. It’s the push-up kind so the neckline would show off some curves.”

His fingers slid higher as she spoke, making her stammer. He leaned in the doorway, pressed his lips to her throat. As he moved to her sternum, his hair brushed her chin. She tilted her head back against the headrest. “Spread your legs, Samantha Beth.”

She did, and then whimpered as he explored the silky, translucent panties, finding the small blotches of dampness he was inciting. She quivered as he passed a knuckle over her clit, traced her labia, then made that circuit again, a slow massage. Bracing his elbow against the seat at her shoulder, he let his hand drop down over her breasts, fingertips teasing those curves, playing in the valley of her cleavage.

“So you would have let Mark touch you like this?”

She shook her head.

“I expect to hear words come out of your mouth when I ask you a question.” His tone was silk over a blade’s edge, and she shivered as his hands continued to stroke, torment.

“No. No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Why not?” His eyes were close enough to lock her in place.

“Because.” She inhaled him through all her senses. “I don’t want him.”

“Good, but not good enough. That’s about you. Why wouldn’t you let him touch you? Did I mention the selfish-bastard part?”

He found his way beneath the panties, and one finger slid inside her, then another. “Geoff . . .” she said with a touch of scattered desperation.

“Answer me.”

“Because I’m . . . yours.”

“That’s correct, Samantha Beth. You’re mine. Ours.” A tight smile touched his lips. “You’re right about us worrying we’d step on each other getting to you, but I realized tonight I’ve always thought of you as ours. Mine and Chris’s, never just mine. But no one else’s.”

She shook her head in emphatic agreement as his fingers did a slow thrust and retreat. “Oh . . .”

His gaze stayed fastened on her face as she fought to breathe. “Do you forgive me, Sam?” he asked again.

With the arousal came a tangled knot of other emotions, ones that captured her throat and wouldn’t let her utter anything less than the truth. “I’d forgive you anything. Which was why it hurt so much.” She took a breath at his shuttered look, was afraid it meant he was withdrawing from her again, no matter what he’d said. “I think part of what a family is . . . what it should be, are people who can take risks with you and who will be here, no matter what. If not, we weren’t ever really family. Staying away from the stuff we think will test that isn’t a way to make it truth, right?”

His eyes darkened. He pressed his mouth to hers, and her lips trembled under his as he spoke. “If I could take the words back and never say them, I would. But I’ll try to make it up to you by not being a coward from here forward. By not being afraid anymore to show you just how much I want you. Deal?”

As restitution went, she couldn’t come up with anything better. He broke the kiss to nuzzle her nose, her cheek. When he slowly withdrew his fingers from inside her, he brought them to her mouth, painting her response over her lip gloss. “Who are you so wet for?”

“You,” she whispered.

“Good.” He rose to his feet and extended his hand. “Come back inside with me.”

She put trembling fingers in his grasp, and he helped her out of the car. As he escorted her back inside, he had his hand on her lower back, curved over her hip. Once they stepped inside, he held her in place while he closed and locked the door. She could hear her heart beating. He’d turned off the TV so the house was still except for the hum of the refrigerator.

Gently turning her away from him, he unzipped the dress, guiding it over her head. She lifted her arms to help him remove it.

“Stay like that,” he commanded, low, as he set the dress aside. He slid his hands down the length of her arms, palms molding under her armpits, the frame of her rib cage, down to her waist. Learning her body, possessing it, marking every
inch with his touch. She shivered.

“All right, lower them now.”

Taking her hand, he guided her to the center of the living room and adjusted her so she was facing the couch. “Stand there,” he said. He took a seat, stretching his arm out along the back, hooking his ankle over a knee as if he were preparing to watch something on TV. Only he was watching her instead.

Straight men liked to look at women, quick glances that focused briefly on hip or breast, legs. This was the first time in her life she’d been looked at the way a man might look at a pinup, one he could hold in his hands and peruse as intently and as long as he wished. Geoff started at her feet, working his way up. It felt as intimate as if he were learning her with hands or mouth. It made her self-conscious, but he made a quelling noise when she twitched uncertainly.

“Your Master is looking at you, Samantha Beth. Your posture should show how proud you are of that, because he finds you perfect in every way. Your long, slim legs. Your pale, soft skin. Your gorgeous breasts, nipples already so tight your bra can’t hide them. Your pussy is wet, your panties stained with that response. And then there’s that gorgeous mouth.” He gave her a lazy look. “Do you want to tell me what you were imagining when you put on your lip gloss?”

“You remembered.”

“There’s very little I forget, when it comes to you.”

She blushed, and his lips curved, but there was no humor in the gesture. Only heat, and barely leashed demand. She could feel it waiting, and she wondered if he knew how it heightened the anticipation, to make her aware of it even as he held back until he was ready to release it. Whether by instinct or premeditation, it affected her, took away any of the conflict she’d had earlier.