In our first installment, Body, Samantha took a risk to get the two men she loves on board with pursuing a relationship together. While Chris is out of town, she goads Geoff, the alpha and Dom of their trio, into acting on his feelings for her. She is successful beyond her wildest dreams. Unfortunately, Chris returned at an unexpected moment, and she hadn't anticipated his negative reaction to their proceeding without his participation. Book Two opens just as Chris has turned and walked out of the house.
Geoff knew he couldn't miss his client meeting. Yet if he thought it would help Chris's state of mind, he'd say to hell with it and stay. The problem was, he knew it wouldn't.
Geoff latched on to Sam's arm, keeping her from following Chris when he stormed out of the kitchen and went into the backyard. Her body was vibrating with tension, the need to soothe, to fix. She was good at those things, but Geoff knew Chris in this mood better than she did. It didn't tear his heart out of his chest any less than it did hers, but Chris had to have his space when he was dealing with a surfeit of emotional shit. Finding the two of them naked and in the shower together qualified as a dump truck load.
"He needs some time to settle, Sam," Geoff told her. He put both hands on her shoulders so she had to face him square and pay attention to what he was saying. "Give him some breathing room, then we can talk it out."
She wasn't going to do that. Her gray eyes were filled with pain, her mouth taut with worry. He bit back a sigh. "You're not scheduled to work today. Why don't you come with me? The client meet is at a restaurant near Southpark Mall. You can go wander around there, and come back to my office after. Read a book on my couch, whatever. If it gets late, you can take my car home and I'll catch the bus."
She shook her head. "I won't leave him alone, even if he doesn't want to talk. One of us needs to be here."
Geoff's fingers tightened on her. "Don't push him, Sam."
"I'll just follow my intuition," she said. "Like I did with you."
"And that worked out so well, didn't it?"
Shit, had he really just said that? He grabbed her hand when she recoiled, and gathered her to him as she started to struggle. "Stop. Ow." She slapped at him and hit his jaw, which was still sore thanks to Chris's much larger fist. He caught her wrist and gave her a little shake.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. What happened between you and me wasn't wrong. It was everything I imagined, Sam. And a whole lot more than that."
She stopped struggling but glared at him out of steely gray eyes. "Why do you have to be so mean sometimes?"
"Because I open my damn mouth before I think about what's coming out of it," he said wearily.
At home, not at work. At work, doing the right thing at the right moment was second nature to him, but with her and Chris, he wasn't always as sure of his way. He could become the best orator in the history of the legal profession, and he still wouldn't know how to put together the right words to tell them exactly how much they meant to him. Case in point: he was pretty sure Chris had an altogether different impression of how much Geoff valued their friendship at the moment.
She was watching his face and seeing too much. "You meant we should have waited," she said brokenly. "I should have waited."
"No." He cupped her jaw. "Sam, this is on me. Yeah, maybe we should have, but you weren't wrong. We've been dragging our feet for months, even knowing we all felt something, and you were the one who realized something had to give."
"But you told me from the beginning, just wait until he gets back . . ."
"Yes, I did. But I didn't, either, did I?" The consequences of that speared him through the chest as much as he was sure they did her, but hell if he was going to let her shoulder them. From that parting cold look Chris had given him, his friend wasn't putting it on her, either. On that, at least, they were in agreement.
Despite the ache in his chest, he pulled his shit together. "Sam, I told you, this is new for me," he said steadily. "Not the wanting-to-be-a-Dom part, but doing that, and this, all of it, with someone as close to me as you are? You're my first."
Truth, he felt like she was the only one he wanted that way, now or forever, but he wasn't sure if this was the best time to tell her that. Some great and powerful Dom he was. He felt like a complete idiot. He needed to go to work, where he felt on far more solid ground, but that wasn't the answer, either. Fuck it. If he was late, he was late. Mike was going to be at the meeting, and Geoff could text and tell him to get it started.
Sam was still staring a hole in his chest, her body stiff. Geoff ran his hands over her thin, silky robe, feeling the slim bones of her shoulders. He moved down to her elbows and back again. "I know it hurt like hell, him pulling away. But trust me, he just has to think it through. He wouldn't have reacted that way if he weren't so crazy about you he can't walk a straight line. He walks in on that, he's not sure where he fits. And then you put your arms around him, offer yourself to him. Oh well, look, Chris is here, let's just throw him into the mix."
She parted her lips on a protest, but he shook his head. "I know it's not that way. We both do. The timing just went screwy on us. If he'd gotten home later today, we could have sat down and talked about it, fully clothed. It would have gone better." He hoped.
His fucking phone buzzed on the kitchen table--probably fucking Mike trying to see if he was on his fucking way.
/> "You have to go," Sam said.
"I know. I don't want to. Not unless you come with me so I know I'm not leaving you in the middle of this."
"No, I really feel I need to stay. Don't worry, we'll figure it out." She put on a far-too-bright smile. "It's going to be okay. Go to work. I'm going to get dressed."
"Sam, this isn't on you to fix. You get that, right?"