by Joey W. Hill
"If I didn't, you'd think I was coddling you." Geoff slid his other hand around Chris's neck and pulled him in to plant a hard kiss on his forehead. "I love you, man. Seriously. Whatever it takes." He drew back, met him eye to eye. "So do you want to keep working on this thing for Sam, or take a break from all of it? We could go jump into a scrimmage game at Reedy Creek and do about twenty dollars' worth of Jack in the Box after. That'd be enough to cover lunch and dinner."
"Yeah, sounds good. Maybe we work on the bench later this afternoon. You think she'll really like it, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do. And I think the more you see how she embraces that surrender feeling and loves giving us that gift, the better a lot of it will feel to you." Geoff cocked a brow. "You already like topping her, don't you? You didn't expect that."
Chris nodded. "Yeah. She gets . . . wow. It's pretty hot."
Geoff grinned. "It's hellfire hot. Makes me want to spank her all day long. That's how it goes. Whatever the Powers That Be are, they're pretty smart about some things." Geoff punched him in the shoulder. "Let's go shut things down in the garage and get out of here."
At Reedy Creek they found a football scrimmage in process with half a dozen guys broken into two teams. To Geoff's amusement, they took one look at Chris and were more than happy to incorporate them into the game. They played hard, on opposite sides, and, though it was flag football, no one was averse to some rough play and the occasional tackle. When Geoff swiped blood off his elbow, he couldn't help but grin, remembering the scrapes, cuts and bruises they'd bragged about during their adolescence, the rites of boyhood.
But manhood had its own perks. When Chris brought him down on one play just short of the goal, Geoff couldn't help reacting to the feel of his body pressing him down, or thinking about what Chris had said he needed. What they'd be doing by day's end. As Geoff had told him, he preferred to do the pitching, but now that he'd agreed to it, he realized he was already thinking about how it would play out, Chris's naked, muscular body pushed against him, his cock deep in Geoff's ass, how that would feel.
Chris was right. With guys, the hormone part was too easy. But Chris seeing that he'd wounded Geoff in the kitchen, and caring enough to try to make it right and stick to the truth? Well, it underscored that it was worth it to take it slow. As Sam liked to say, the journey was all.
Speaking of which, at the next break, Geoff checked his phone and was pleased to find a text from her. She'd been sending them every several hours since she'd been gone, cheerful status notes, some with suggestive tones he'd enjoyed answering, sometimes with Chris's help.
In regulatory meeting. Kill me now! Sooooo boring.
He tapped a quick message back. Just think about what we could do to you on the conference room table while they all watch.
You're evil.
He grinned, and showed the exchange to Chris. Chris took the phone and typed another text, more slowly, since phones weren't fond of his bigger fingers. Chris here. We're having Jack's for lunch and dinner. Chocolate lava cakes for dessert. How's that hotel food?
You're just as evil as he is.
They exchanged a chuckle, sent her a couple more texts, and then she had to get back to work. She closed with several heart emoticons.
Take care of each other. Miss you.
That feeling was mutual. They returned to the game and played hard, until they were soaked in sweat. The guys invited them to come back anytime, because they had a standing game weekly. After hitting the drive-thru at Jack in the Box, getting a few burgers and tacos, as well as the dessert Chris had teased Sam about, they headed for home and chowed down on half of it before heading back into the garage and their project.
The physical exertion, talk and food had done the trick. They figured out the adjustments, put the bench together, and it was ready for staining. Chris put on the first coat while Geoff watched. Conversation was easy and comfortable again. When they broke for dinner, they finished up the Jack and some green bean casserole Sam had left them.
Daylight was slipping from late afternoon to evening as they sat in the living room. From the looks Chris was sliding his way when he thought Geoff wasn't looking, Geoff was pretty sure Chris was thinking about where this evening was going to end as much as he was. But this was Chris's show. No matter Geoff's natural desire to take the reins and get it started, he'd let him make the move. But as he picked up his beer and sat back on the couch, stretching his legs out on the coffee table, he had to say something, because Chris's regard was starting to get him worked up. Geoff cocked a brow at him. "Something on your mind? Or are you just admiring my masculine beauty?"
Chris rolled his eyes, but then he twisted his beer in his hand. "You know earlier, the belt thing?"
"Yeah?" Geoff said it as casually as possible.
"I don't see you as a dad. Definitely not as my dad."
"Thank God." After Chris's dad had left them, he'd moved around and eventually fallen off the map to escape child support payments. Chris's mom frequently wished him dead after prolonged torture in a serial killer's basement, but his absence had never stopped her from doing what was needed to raise her boy.
Chris's lips twisted. "I mean, do you think the belt, my reaction to it, is about a father-son thing?"
Geoff tilted his head left and right, an ambivalent answer. "Yes and no. Some Dom/sub relationships are the Daddy-little girl or Daddy-little boy thing. But I think what you felt was just an expression of feelings we all have. Things we have or crave from our parents as kids don't go away. They translate into more adult cravings. Safety and structure for the sub can come from punishment, as well as the desire to cuddle or control on the Dom side. Somehow it wraps up into the sex thing and gives it an extra charge." He pursed his lips. "You know how you feel when you're holding a bird in your hand?"
The absorption in Chris's face as he cradled injured wildlife, as the creature quieted under his touch, was something Geoff never tired of watching. "Yeah," Chris said. "It's a good feeling."
"What I feel when Sam surrenders to me, or when you give yourself to me like you did yesterday and today . . . It's that feeling. Like, despite how crazy and brutal the world can be, you realize for just that moment you can trust me completely. To protect you, to give you pleasure, to take both of us where we want to go. You weren't off base about what we were tapping," Geoff added quietly. "The feelings your dad left you to handle, because you were abandoned by the person who's supposed to love you enough to stand behind you your whole life . . . My feelings about my mom and dad . . . When we come together, you and me, Sam, we're reclaiming those lost connections, reestablishing them. It's scary as hell, because it feels just the way we know it should. In some ways, it's better and even more intense than an orgasm. So when an orgasm comes with it, it's pretty much paradise."
Geoff shifted so he could briefly press his foot against Chris's. Chris stared at their overlapped shoes. He gripped Geoff's thigh, a quick, rough squeeze. "Yeah. Okay." His voice sounded thick. "Um . . . I think I'm going to take a shower."
Geoff rose, gathering up their dishes and the taco wrappers. "I'll do it after you. I reek."
"I would have mentioned it, but I wasn't sure if the stench was you or me."
"Pretty sure it's both. Sam would throw us out back and make us hose off like dogs."
"Girls. They're so clean and pretty. It's nice." Chris grinned, restoring them to a nice equilibrium. A gentle one, with room to let the tender ground they'd exposed settle in and get used to the touch of light and air. As Geoff made himself move toward the kitchen, Chris rose and headed for the hallway, pulling off his shirt as he went. Geoff stopped to watch the play of muscle across his back, the tight ass beneath the camos he'd worn to the park. Geoff adjusted himself as his cock pushed up at the wrong angle inside his jeans. While he was tempted to invite Chris to take a shower with him, he was still trying to do the courtesy wait thing--no matter how his Dom side was starting to chafe over it--and Chris hadn't put out the vibe that h
e was looking for company.
Geoff didn't take it as a rejection. Neither shower was large. Two guys their size wouldn't have a lot of maneuvering room. He and Sam had enjoyed the space, but with someone Chris's size, they would end up being in each other's way more than anything.
Since it was never a good idea to start up both showers at the same time, because someone inevitably would lose out on the hot water, he had a few minutes to kill. Sam being up in the Asheville area made him think of Merry Childers, a college friend of his and Chris's. She ran a couple of rental properties up in Bat Cave, a tiny community just outside Chimney Rock.
One of Merry's cottages was new, with all the amenities. It stayed pretty heavily booked. The other was more rustic, a long rectangle built in the seventies, easily recognized as such since the interior had laminate cabinets and appliances all in the Harvest Gold color popular during that decade. The eclectic decorating was a deer and bear motif mixed with cherubs and lace, a tribute to the older couple who'd owned it before moving to an assisted living facility.
Chris had helped Merry landscape a couple of her real estate flips, and Geoff had updated her rental agreements, all in the past year. Geoff figured he could get a cheap rate for a weekend in trade, particularly since it wasn't quite high season yet. Sam had gone with Chris on his landscaping trip and he'd told Geoff she'd been enchanted with the seventies house, particularly the huge back porch that hung precariously over the scenic creek. There was a spacious private hot tub out there.
He thought of Sam and Chris in the hot tub. Sam would wear some tiny little bikini that clung to her curves. At least until they got it off of her. Private hot tub, after all, screened from the rental office next door by a nice big slab of lattice threaded with silk flowers.
Beads of water would roll over Chris's massive shoulders, slicking down the gleaming hair on his chest. Geoff would thread his fingers through it and tip his head back to set his teeth to his corded throat. Sam would twine her legs around him, her breasts pressing into his chest . . .
He typed out a text to Merry, asking if she had a couple of days' availability sooner than later, and what she'd charge. They were winding up one of Geoff's ongoing projects at work. If Merry's dates meshed with Chris and Sam's schedule, it would be a nice getaway for all of them.
So they could keep working on their own ongoing project.
He left his half-finished beer and wandered down the hall. The shower was running in Chris and Sam's bathroom, and the door was half-open. When Sam wasn't home, Chris would leave it like that so steam wouldn't collect. Now that they were all seeing one another naked, he might leave it like that all the time, a nice change to contemplate.
Geoff told himself to keep walking, but you didn't need an invitation from the store owner to window-shop, right? No harm in just looking. Leaning in the doorway, he pushed it inward even farther so he could get a better view.
The shower door was patterned with running water, coated with steam in places, but the view was enough to keep him there. Chris's tall, broad form was outlined, his arms raised and bent to wash his hair, hands scrubbing his scalp. Geoff could visualize the twitch of his bare ass as he shifted from one foot to another, his cock and testicles cradled between his big thighs. Did the belt marks still show on those muscular flanks?
Chris rinsed his hair, picked up the soap and started lathering up. Geoff told himself to go start on his own shower, but as Chris's hands descended, soaping his chest and abdomen, he didn't move. Chris reached his genitals, his feet spread and his shoulders rounded as he took himself in hand to rub and clean. It was as if Geoff could feel those strong fingers around his own cock, tugging, stroking . . .
Chris had stilled. His head was down, but his chin was cocked, tilted toward the door, marking his awareness of Geoff watching him. The water obscured his expression, but if he continued his shower without pause or threw out a casual comment, it would tell Geoff where this moment needed to go. But if he started doing what he was doing now--slowly moving his hand down over himself, back up and down again, all while saying nothing--that was a different kind of scenario.
Geoff moved into the room, pausing outside the shower door. If it had been Sam on the other side, he would have put up his hand without thought, let her press hers to it, a romantic gesture so easy to do with women. But an act of romance and the need to establish intimacy could sometimes be the same thing. He put his palm on the glass. After another pause, Chris put his on it. Geoff took his hand away and emptied his pockets, took off his watch and stepped out of his shoes. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he opened the shower door. As he'd thought, there wasn't a lot of room for both of them, so he left the door open and dropped to one knee on the tile outside, bracing his other foot inside the shower.
The water sliding over Chris now pattered against him, the side of his face, his hair and the shoulders of his T-shirt, wetting them down. The heated spray, the slickness on his skin, reminded him how slick the male in front of him would be.
Putting his hands on Chris's upper thighs, he wrapped his fingers over them, thumbs spread and braced below Chris's balls. When Chris reached up and angled the spray toward the back wall, so it wasn't hitting him in the face, Geoff looked up at the bemused brown eyes.
"I want to put my mouth on you, Chris," he said. "I want to suck you off here in the shower. You okay with that?"
Chris's gaze slid over him. Geoff kneeling in front of him was unexpected, Geoff could tell. But being a Dom, a Master, wasn't about body position, and Chris had told him what he needed, what would make passing over certain thresholds easier for him. A good Master listened, understood and opened up those gates by whatever means were necessary. Especially when the prize would be so damn worth it, and the means to the end were so enjoyable.
When Chris nodded, Geoff pressed his mouth against his stiff length. Chris let out a soft oath and braced a hand on the side of the shower. Yeah, he'd better hold on, because Geoff wanted to make his knees buckle. Parting his lips, he took him to the back of his throat and scored him with his teeth, reminding him he was a biter. Since he followed that up with some targeted pressure with his tongue, Chris's sucked-in breath was followed by a grab for the wall with the other hand. Closing his eyes on a surge of pure satisfaction, Geoff worked on making Chris lose his mind.
"Fuck . . ." Chris's whisper reached him even over the drumming of the water. "How in the hell do you know how to give head like this?"
Geoff grinned around his cock and set his teeth against him, a sensual threat. Reaching between Chris's legs, he fondled his testicles like he was discovering them for the first time, and slid up between his buttocks. Finding them still soapy was a blessing, because he used the slickness to play around his rim while he kept his hand around his crank and kept working it. Crank. That was what they'd called it in school, because it could wind you up, couldn't it? Like now.
Geoff tossed hair out of his eyes and looked up Chris's powerful body. Every rigid muscle was gleaming with the flow of water. He'd have been a hell of a gladiator. That gave Geoff a delectable vision of Chris chained in a cell, waiting to service whoever demanded access to all that physical might. He was rocking on the balls of his feet against Geoff's pull. Geoff kept his hand busy working him and Chris's gaze went to slits, looking down at him feverishly, mouth tight.
"Mouth or hand, Chris?" Geoff cocked his head. "I'm betting you like the idea of coming in my mouth. Don't you?"
Chris's jaw flexed, and he reached down to push the hair out of Geoff's eyes. The pressure of his thumb was a rough and erratic touch. His ass was quivering beneath the spread of Geoff's fingers. "I like your hand," he said hoarsely. "But your mouth . . . fuck, your mouth feels incredible."
"Lean back against the corner and take hold of the shower bars," Geoff ordered, moving him in that direction. The bars had come as part of the house, an installation from someone who'd had an elderly relative or was just particularly safety conscious. Either way, it worked. Chris looke
d momentarily confused, as if he wasn't sure what Geoff was trying to do, but Geoff gripped his wrist and molded his friend's hand over the steel.
"I want to keep you safe. Don't want you to fall. You start to get light-headed, you tell me right away."
"Oh." Chris swallowed. "Yeah." He rallied enough to give Geoff a half smile. "Though you could be overestimating your skill."
The taunt was tangled with an uncertain note in his voice and a haze of lust over his expression, the beads of water on his face slicked along tight cheekbones and pressed lips.
"I'm not." Shooting him a devilish look, Geoff returned to proving it. He took two firm handfuls of Chris's ass. As he sucked on him, went down on him again and again, he flexed his strong hands over his buttocks, pushing his fingertips into his rectum, taking him deeper and deeper on both ends. Somewhere along the way, pleasuring became demand, and Chris was fully in his hands, on a couple of different levels.
He was groaning, panting with Geoff's strokes, his large hands gripping those bars so hard Geoff hoped they were well-anchored. His toes were curled into the tile. Geoff was soaking wet, but steam could have been coming off his flesh, he was so inflamed by Chris's response. His Chris. His boy. His brother in all ways that mattered, but thank God, not actually his brother.
Chris swore, a long breath like birds taking flight off a lake, and he thrust harder, wilder, into Geoff's mouth. The release came, flooding Geoff's tongue and throat. Despite Chris's orgasm punching up his strength, like Dr. Banner perilously close to transforming into the Hulk, Geoff held on to him.
As Chris groaned harshly, hips still bucking, Geoff sucked him off to the last drop, getting every pulsing, throbbing contraction that spilled seed into his mouth and onto the shower floor.
When Chris finally started slowing down, the heat of the shower and the climax did what Geoff had anticipated it doing. He was ready for it, on his feet and pinning Chris to the wall with his body, holding him around the waist and shoulders, keeping him upright as he gasped for air and pressed his head back against the tile, gulping for air. Geoff shut off the water with his elbow as he held him. Chris's heart was hammering against Geoff's chest.
