Mind (Naughty Wishes #3)

by Joey W. Hill

  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 looked 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.

  “Jesus.” Chris didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. He didn’t claim any particular religion as his own, but he did have a healthy respect for all forms of divinity, so Geoff had always suspected that any name or word that represented those powers was included in that respect. It was one of Chris’s many eccentricities that he appreciated in ways he didn’t even think about. They were an essential part of wh
o Chris was.

  “Sitting down.”

  Geoff let Chris sink to his ass on the tile. He stepped out of the shower, keeping the door wide-open so the maximum amount of oxygen filled the small space. Sitting down on the tile outside the stall, Geoff kept a proprietary hand on his knee, both in reassurance and because he wanted to keep touching him. Chris propped his wrists on his spread knees, his forearm against Geoff’s hand, and turned his head toward Geoff, though he kept his temple braced against the tile wall.

  “I could feel it,” Chris said slowly. “You were on your knees, sucking my dick, but somehow, you were still in charge. How do you do that?”

  “It wasn’t tactical. Just instinct. When we had to take down the dead tree in the backyard, you were the leader then.” Geoff trailed a hand down his arm, over his thigh. “When it comes to this, I am. Did that feel good?”

  “No, it sucked.” Chris shot him a lopsided grin, but his dark eyes were studying Geoff seriously. Reaching out, he touched Geoff’s face, moving down to the collar of his T-shirt. He screwed his fingers in it, tightly enough that Geoff felt the pull over his shoulders.

  “It’s going to take a few minutes to get things going in the right direction,” Chris said, “but I want to go to your room. I want to be in your bed tonight. And I want to be inside you . . . like we talked about.”

  There was a question in it, an implicit request for permission, underscoring the point Geoff had just made. Whether or not Chris recognized it, he appeared easier with the idea, though the tension in his fingers said he had other reasons for being keyed up. Since Geoff hadn’t had a release, and he was finding out how uncomfortable it could be to have a hard-on in wet jeans, he was ready anytime Chris was.

  “Okay,” Geoff said. “Sounds like a plan. I want to run through my shower real quick so we can both be squeaky clean. Why don’t you come with me to my room? For one thing, you could probably use a few minutes of horizontal.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But don’t look so smug about it.”

  Geoff grinned wolfishly, but he helped Chris up and handed him a towel. Stripping off his wet shirt, he left it hanging on the shower bar. “Want something to drink? Ice water?”

  “Yeah. And a couple of those peanut butter cookies we picked up at the park, if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t mind a bit. Head for my room and I’ll meet you there.”

  He waited, making sure Chris was steady enough to manage the hallway, and he was. Fortunately he didn’t look back to see Geoff mother-henning him, since he was sure his friend would have teased him, but it didn’t stop Geoff from watching out for him.

  When Geoff returned, Chris was in Geoff’s room, though he wasn’t yet lying down. He was studying the expanse of Geoff’s mattress and his back was to Geoff. Geoff paused, savoring the sight of the powerful body naked from head to toe, dark hair tousled and damp, a few stray drops gathered in the small of his back. Geoff touched the ice-cold side of the glass against it and snickered as Chris jumped. His friend gave him a narrow look and took the glass, but he was too thirsty to retaliate, gulping down about half of it before he set it aside. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, his gaze slid down Geoff’s chest. “Wet jeans can’t be comfortable.”

  “They’re not. You want them off, right here and now?”

  In Chris’s eyes, Geoff saw careful calculation of Geoff’s intent, the weighing of the delicate balance between them. “Yeah,” Chris said. “If you don’t mind. But I’d like to do it myself.”

  In answer, Geoff dipped his head. Chris didn’t need to be asked twice. Despite the short break between shower and snacks, Geoff’s cock was still pretty firm and noticeable against the soaked fly. Chris slipped the button and worked the zipper down carefully, but after that, he ran into a logistical issue.

  As Chris tugged at the wet jeans, Geoff couldn’t help it, he chuckled. Glancing at him through the fall of hair over his concentrated brow, Chris shook his head, lips tugging into a rueful smile. “Okay, wet jeans look sexy as hell, but they’re superglued to your thighs. A little help here?”

  Geoff obliged. When he finally managed to skin them off and tossed them to the side, he found Chris’s attention on the soaked cling of his dark brief shorts. Geoff drew in a breath as Chris passed his knuckles over the pale skin of his upper thighs, then across, a featherlight brush over his cock, which made it twitch under the damp covering. Chris hooked the sides of the underwear and took them down Geoff’s legs to his ankles. Geoff stepped out of them, kicking them away, and Chris was on his heels, looking up at him, both of them naked and damp.

  “First time I saw you without any clothes was when we were thirteen,” Chris said. “We went swimming in that pond where that copperhead was. Remember?”

  “How can I forget?” Geoff said dryly. “We could have beaten an Olympic sprinter out of that hole.”

  “It chased us out of the water and we kept running for like another quarter mile.” Chris rose and put his palm on Geoff’s chest, fingertips learning his shape. Geoff had watched Chris plant and grow things, nurture countless things with his hands. He could feel all of that in them now. Strength, gentleness, the ability to understand what a living thing most needed. Geoff thought that touch could help him grow and be more than he could be on his own. It turned the moment into something more.

  “We never talked about it,” Chris mused, “but neither of us ran as fast as we could, because we were both trying to make sure the other stayed ahead. It’s a good thing the snake gave up.” Chris lifted his gaze to Geoff’s. “We wanted to make sure if the snake caught one of us, it would be the one lagging behind, so the other would be okay.”

  “Yeah.” Geoff lifted a shoulder. “If I’d known that the copperhead is one of the least venomous poisonous snakes, I would have sprinted a mile ahead of you.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Chris cocked his head, gaze sweeping Geoff once more. If he kept doing that, Geoff was going to put aside his honorable resolve to let this be Chris’s show and just tackle him.

  A muscle flexed in Chris’s jaw. “Go get your shower. A fast one.”

  Geoff smiled, bumped his body with his shoulder, and went into his bathroom. He saw Chris sit down on the edge of the bed to watch him as he got the water hot. When he ducked under the spray, he did make it quick, though he was thorough. As he came out, toweling off, he found Chris was still in the same spot.

  “Can you come here?”

  “I can.” Feeling an absurd tightness in his chest, Geoff set aside the towel and approached the bed.

  “Some of those guys we played football with today,” Chris said. “They’ve been friends for years, like us. They love one another, but they don’t think about doing what we’re doing right now. They won’t ever want to take it to this level.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. No matter what it is or isn’t, do you wish we were like that?”

  Chris paused, thinking. Geoff realized he was holding his breath. Chris slid a hand along Geoff’s forearm and rested his palm on his hip. “If I said I did?” he asked at last.

  “If you said you did, and you meant it, I’d do my best to respect it.” It would be like passing kidney stones. “It’s kind of a hard thing to shut off once you’ve opened the tap.”

  “Feeling this way about you makes things more complicated. Especially with Sam in the mix.”

  “Yeah.” Geoff curled his hand around Chris’s wrist. “But I’m not going to let complicated keep me from getting something I want. Look at it this way. Say we have Sam’s gorgeous naked body between us. You think we could just shut off any overlap on wanting each other? Forever?”

  Chris shook his head. “No, but . . .”

  “Are we arguing the point here, or just shooting the shit? What’s the real issue?”

  Chris grimaced. “The lawyer, wanting to get to the root of it.”

  “Actually, a lawyer figures out every way in the world to circle around the root of it until the judge is like a frustrated parent
who gives in to the kid because he’s sick of the nagging.”

  Chris smiled. Somehow he’d twisted his hand so he was linking fingers with Geoff’s, thumb on his wrist. “But you’re not that kind of lawyer. I think you should do it, you know. What you said a few days ago about joining the DA’s office after you pay off your loans. You’ll like that more.”

  “It will be no travel, a lot less pay and the dregs of humanity will get inside my head in ways the corporate world can’t imagine.”

  “But it will balance. What you do will feel like it matters way more. Money pays bills, but it doesn’t feed the soul.”

  “Deep.” Geoff shoved him. “Time to shut up, unless you’re trying to tell me you want out of this.”

  “No.” Chris’s brown eyes kindled. “No way. I’m just making sure you’re not thinking it’s open-ended.”

  “Excuse me?”

  All of a sudden Chris looked like he wished he were wearing clothes. “Tyree Fredericks. Alex Worth. And Robert Sanders.”

  Geoff blinked. Chris had rattled off the three men Geoff had been with sexually in the past few years. The kicker was he’d never told Chris he’d had sex with any of them. They’d been only vague references related to work, since that was how he’d crossed paths with all three of them, but Chris had known. His far-too-neutral yet penetrating expression said so.

  “Tyree comes over from the French office a couple of times a year,” Chris continued, as if he anticipated Geoff asking how he’d known, though Geoff would have bitten through his tongue first. “He wears a pretty distinct aftershave. Robert and Alex were one-time things, I’m pretty sure. Right?”

  The neutral expression slipped, showing a wealth of emotions behind it. Now Geoff shared Chris’s discomfort about being naked during this discussion. But Chris was waiting, those earth-toned eyes measuring. That look set Geoff back on course. Yeah, Chris deserved a straight answer, but this moment wasn’t about a friend-to-friend communication. Whether Chris realized it or not, the structure and reassurance he was seeking was a challenge to the Dom side of the equation. Which meant Geoff needed to respond accordingly. He backed up a few steps to lean against the wall and give his friend a close scrutiny before answering.