He tilted his head. His serious eyes could make Sam lose her train of thought when they focused on her the way they did now. The starburst of brown around the pupil interlaced with gold, those two colors melting into a forest mix of green.
"If you're making some more for yourself."
"No." She paused. "I want to make some for you. May I?"
He stilled under her touch. She almost drew back, but instead she let gravity take her fingertips beneath the ribbed collar of his T-shirt to savor the rough friction of his chest hair, the smooth bump of his collarbone beneath her thumb. He reached up, closed his hand on her wrist. He was studying her, weighing her actions.
Figure it out, she thought. Don't make me be more blatant about it, or I might chicken out.
"You must be lonely for Chris," he decided. "The two of you usually keep each other company when I'm having to do this crap." His look was calculated. "Done your exercises yet?"
She almost groaned and pulled her hand away. Yes, she was lonely for Chris, but that wasn't why she was seeking Geoff out now. He couldn't really be thinking of things to occupy her, like she was some kind of bored child. But then a thought crossed her mind and, rather than snarling, she shrugged. "I hate doing them."
"I know you do. But you hate that needle even more."
Because of the hours she spent at the computer as an assistant bank manager, she occasionally suffered a frozen shoulder that had to be loosened up with a steroid shot and a few weeks of agonizing rehab. After it happened the third time, she did resistance band exercises regularly to maintain range of motion.
"Okay." She slipped her hands off him reluctantly, but before she went to get the PT aid, she put another K-cup in the coffeemaker and made his coffee, adding the dollop of skim milk he liked. Geoff preferred sugar cubes to sweetener or spooned sugar. Lifting the small lid off the glass jar full of neat, glittering squares, she plucked out four to add to his coffee.
While waiting for his breakfast sandwich to heat in the microwave, Chris would sometimes pull out a handful and make faces or small pyramids out of them. Geoff would grumble, but Sam noticed he'd always snag his requisite four out of the formation Chris had left. They had so many daily rituals like that, evidence of the intimate friendship that existed between the three of them.
Bringing the fresh cup to Geoff, she set it down by his elbow and took the opportunity to touch him again, letting her hand drift over his biceps, his forearm. Chris was brawny, the kind of build that suggested football player or human tank. Geoff had a runner's physique, but he added bulk with strength training. As a result, the body under her hand was leaner than Chris's but just as tough. Chris simply had more mass.
She smiled at the thought. If Geoff was the lightning, Chris was the mountain. A mountain that smelled of forest and earth, with rock-hard muscles, steady brown eyes, tanned skin and callused hands. Whose laughter was like sunlight reflecting in a moving creek.
She left the kitchen to retrieve the resistance band, came back and hooked it over the kitchen doorknob. She did the warm-up reps, conscious of the riffle of papers as Geoff looked for something, the tapping of his pen as he read through what he'd found. As her heart tripped a little faster, anticipating what she was about to do, she comforted herself with the thought that, if she was about to make a fool of herself, he might not even notice. She reminded herself of the things Flo had told her to fortify her for this moment.
"You already feel his Dominant side, Sam, and you respond to it. I think you're right, that he hasn't actively embraced it yet, which isn't unusual, even if he didn't have his insane workload. A man, vanilla or kinky, has to get through those fumbling high school and college years to develop a baseline sexual confidence. If he manages that, one with Dom cravings then has to get past a load of politically correct bullshit that tells him he's an abuser if he wants to dominate a partner. When he finally emerges from that quagmire, he has to find an environment in which he can explore his Dom side. Or the right sub to inspire him to it." Flo had winked at her. "It's just exhausting. Must be why the best Doms are in their forties or older. My opinion, of course."
Well, if Geoff had never deeply explored that side of himself, Sam was standing at the front of the line, volunteering. But getting the ball rolling was making her stomach quake.
In the middle of that discussion, Flo had gripped Sam's hand. The woman was spare with physical affection, so it emphasized the importance of her point. "Having to take the lead to convince him of what you want is pretty much the antithesis of a submissive's makeup," she'd said seriously. "But any Dom will tell you,
the submissive is usually the braver of the two of them. To surrender control, to truly trust another person to that level, takes a special kind of courage."
Okay. Sis boom bah, Sam. Go, team, go. Turning her back to the kitchen door, Sam clasped the two ends of the band she had hooked around the knob. She stepped forward until her arms started to straighten behind her, her shoulders drawing down and back. She knew when Geoff started noticing, because the tapping of the pen stopped, and in the corner of her eye she saw his head lift.
"Can you count it off for me when I'm fully extended?" she asked casually. "Twenty seconds. I always rush to get it over with, and I know you won't. You're such a sadist."
She added that with an absent smile. Then she dared to glance his way.
She nearly choked on a ball of air when she saw how fully she'd captured his attention. His gaze was practically etching out the effect of her arms being drawn back, and marking how the resistance band wrapped over her wrists. She was still wearing the baby tee she'd worn to bed and her pajama bottoms. No bra, so her nipples were straining against the jersey fabric, and the T-shirt was short enough she felt the flow of air over her abdomen, the tingle against her navel piercing. His attention slid down over that, the heat of it like the trail of a fingertip over her exposed hipbone. She swallowed. "Geoff? Are you counting?"
"Yes. Do you want me to count aloud?" Normally he would smile when he teased her like that, asking the obvious, but instead his eyes met hers with a simmering intensity.
"It's harder for me when you don't count aloud," she managed. "I have to wait for you to tell me when you've reached twenty."
"Yes. That's true." And still he just looked at her.
She bit her lip, realizing the exercise was more difficult when she was breathless. She was a total nature girl when it came to keeping herself in shape, preferring hiking, biking or swimming to a gym or calisthenics. She considered exercises like this pure torture. But at least the element of sensual torment kept it from being tedious. When he rose from the chair, her heart pounded faster, enough that she worried she'd underestimated the strength of her reaction. If she passed out, it would likely ruin any progress she might be making with him.
He came around the table and stood in front of her. Reaching out, he toyed with a strand of her hair, following it down. Her hair was hanging loose, away from her body, but close enough that she could feel the layer of air compress between his hand and her tingling nipple.
"You can hold out another ten seconds."
She shook her head. "I don't think so."
"No?" He tugged on the strand of her hair and feathered his knuckles over her nipple. "Even if I do that?"