"I like to watch you sleep," Chris had told her one time when she'd woken that way. He'd then sat down in a chair to do just that. Though it should have made her self-conscious, it hadn't. She'd fallen asleep under his gaze. "I want you to rest," Geoff had told her another time. "Taking care of the whole universe is hard work." He'd tugged her hair and gone to the table to work, but she'd sensed his eyes on her while she dozed.
She did defer to them in subtle ways that Geoff understood and she couldn't deny. So she'd listen to him. At least for today.
It was about a thirty-minute drive to Naughty Bits. They took Sam's car, Chris in the passenger seat, Geoff's handsome face in her rearview mirror as he tied up some loose ends at the office on his tablet. Chris fiddled with the radio, she and Geoff giving their usual opinions of the different musical selections. With matching groans, the guys vetoed the Taylor Swift song she wanted to hear, but Chris left it on that channel until the finish while she sang along. When it was over, he flipped it forward and found "Take It Easy" by the Little River Band. Chris cranked it up and they both sang along. Geoff tapped his fingers, accompanying the beat, though he had a frown line between his eyes as he read his email.
Seeing it, Chris shot her a look. Sam nodded. He reached in the back and copped the tablet, fending off Geoff's attempts to get it back with a patient look as he held him at bay with one long arm. "Asshole," Geoff said. "All right, I'll shut it down. Just let me finish that one email."
Chris grinned at her and handed it back. "We're timing you," Sam said. "One minute."
"Yeah, yeah."
Chris stayed half-turned in the seat, keeping an eye on Geoff, though Geoff shot him a look. "Do that again, I'll break off a few fingers."
"Big talk." Chris yawned. He had his hand propped against the seat, but now dropped it onto Sam's thigh. When she shot a quick look his way, she found Chris studying her profile, that scrutiny increasing as he slid his hand up her thigh to the hem of her knit shirt, tunneling under it to trace her side and abdomen. He insinuated a finger into the waistband of her jeans, finding the band of her panties. He traced that, caressing her hipbone. While she could focus on her driving safely enough, his attention was undeniably diverting.
Removing his touch from her jeans, he lifted his hand to her shoulder, one knuckle following the line of her throat. "Your pulse is jumping," he noted. He played with the dip at her collarbone and teased her bra strap, finding it beneath the shirt. When he twisted a finger in the strap so the cup tightened over her breast, her hands flexed on the wheel. The stoplight ahead went to yellow, and she pressed the brake, her Honda and the cars ahead of her coming to a stop on red.
"Geoff," Chris said. "Tell us when the light changes."
It was a busy intersection where there was a full round of light changes for protected left turns and through traffic. Sam didn't hear Geoff's reply. Maybe he'd looked up, realized why Chris had made the request and given him a silent acknowledg
ment. Or maybe the thundering response in her ears had masked his answer. Chris cupped his hand under the back of her neck, pulling her toward him as much as the belt allowed so he could crush his mouth over hers. Sam let out a whimper of pure delight as he parted her lips and dove, his tongue taking hers over, his lips teasing and caressing her mouth, nipping, sucking on her lips, then rubbing them in a sensual give-and-take.
His heated palm moved up her thigh to the crease between leg and hip, so close to her core the pad of his thumb was pressing against her outer labia through denim. It sent a flash of sensation through her. His grip on the back of her head tightened, holding her steady as he kept kissing her. He bit her lip, then moved to her throat, right behind her ear. When his teeth clamped there, his lips sucking hard, she realized he was intending to leave a mark.
"It's about to change," Geoff said. He was leaning forward and to her left, for his breath stroked over her other ear, her neck.
Chris broke the kiss. Sunlight turned his brown eyes to bright copper. His mouth was wet from hers. She could feel the faint tingle of the abraded skin at her throat.
Muffled sounds penetrated her window glass, causing Chris to look past her. He grinned. Turning her head, she saw a group of college girls were in the car next to them, and they were giving thumbs-ups and clapping. One of them had scribbled "10" on a pad of paper and was holding it up.
She thought the rating was a little low. "Go," Geoff said, chuckling. "Light's green, sweetheart."
She cleared her throat and accelerated when the car in front of her did. Chris went back to tuning the radio. She stole quick glances at him, the silken fall of dark hair over his brow, the shape of his mouth, which he'd just had on her. When she looked in the rearview mirror, Geoff had stretched his arms out over the back of the seat, the tablet put away as he watched them both with his multicolored gaze. Now the forest green of his eyes had a blue tinge when the sunlight flickered across the back.
"I'll have my loans paid off by the end of the year," he said conversationally. "I thought I might keep working for Payne & Greenway for about six more months to bank up some cash and then look at some other possibilities."
"Really?" Chris met her surprised gaze, then looked back at him. "What possibilities?"
Geoff shrugged. "When I got out of school, Patricia Levine told me they could use me in the DA's office. I've been thinking about it. The hours would be less, fifty or sixty a week as the norm versus eighty to a hundred, and it would be more along the lines of what I want to do with my degree. There'd be a certain amount of bullshit, but there is in anything. I probably wouldn't get rich unless I hit politics and decided to try for the DA job. Or I could become a public defender."
"You don't care about getting rich. Plus, just watching the news makes you want to shoot people. I'm thinking politics isn't your field." Chris stopped on a station playing a Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson song. He shot his friend a grin. "You don't want a job, you want a life."
"Yeah, Bruno and Mark don't seem to realize one is pretty much dependent on the other," Geoff said dryly.
"I think you should do it," Sam said. "I think you'd be happier. You're getting sick of helping businesses fight one another over minutiae that doesn't mean a thing."
Geoff pursed his lips. "You'd probably end up being the top breadwinner in the house. Especially when they promote you to manager, which they will. Of course, Chris spends so little beyond bills, he's probably already a millionaire."
"I'm planning on getting a diamond-encrusted bulldog hood ornament for my truck any day now." Chris glanced at Sam. "Though my financial manager is insisting I contribute that amount to the Roth IRA she set up for me instead."
"Long term financial planning is important," Sam said primly.
They pulled into the parking space in front of Naughty Bits a few minutes later. Though Chris was joking with Geoff and tossing her comments, when his gaze met hers, it was as if all that died away. She saw his lips moving, Geoff's lips moving, knew the world was turning around her how it always did, but she was still caught up in Chris's embrace, back at the traffic light. While it had been casually executed, there was nothing else casual about it.
Meeting Geoff's gaze in the mirror, she also saw his full awareness of just how much it had stirred her up. It planted a pleasant anxiety in her, because she suspected he was considering ways to stir her up further. Apparently her arousal could set off a chain reaction between both men. Since she wanted to do all sorts of things for them as well, she wasn't at all immune to the same effect. She could foresee it becoming a circular thing, like a spiral of sexual anticipation that could be reset again and again.
As they left the car and headed for the entrance to Naughty Bits, Chris held the door for her, Geoff and him filing in behind her as Madison greeted them. Today she was wearing an open tunic printed with cherry blossoms over a formfitting black body suit. A belt made up of links that looked like handcuffs rode low on her hips. She had her long brown hair twisted up on her head.