over it. "And to each one of us. Just as we belong to her, together and separate. Heart and soul, mind and cock."
Chris sent him a curious look, then his mouth eased into a smile. "Yeah, there's that. Does it seem weird to you? I mean, most guys aren't into sharing a woman."
"Does it seem weird to you?"
Chris shook his head. "I just wonder if it's supposed to seem weird for us not to be that way about her. Like you say, there's some competition, but it's not about that."
"Yeah." Geoff studied him. "We could share her, simple as that. Stay friends who happen to be in love with the same woman, and who happen to have the unique situation of not making it a competition, because she loves us both. That'd probably work out for a while, though we might have to set up a schedule so we don't wear her out. She didn't say so, but I think she was hobbling a little bit toward the end of the week. I told her it was your fault."
"Uh-huh." Chris's chuckle was humorless, though. "She has a lot of fantasies about having the two of us with her . . . at the same time. We could do more of that."
"Yeah. And I expect we'll all enjoy the hell out of it. But there's more than one way to do that. You want me to repeat what I said in the yard, in case your memory is failing you?"
Chris's brown eyes sparked. "Don't be a dick."
Geoff pulled back from that sharp edge, though it took an effort. "I'm just saying. You want me to spell out the obvious?"
Chris's gaze shifted back to the TV, an involuntary response to the elephant in the room. Chris had always known and accepted Geoff's flexible bisexual nature, so it wasn't that. And if Chris weren't wired to get a hard-on for a guy, there'd be no elephant now. The problem was, Geoff knew they responded to each other, though they'd often channeled it other ways. There were a variety of reasons for that, most never spoken, but all boiling down to one thing. Their friendship was as vital to each of them as the air they breathed, and sometimes you bypassed certain roads if you thought the oxygen might get too thin there.
Then Sam had come into their lives, and she'd let them see that sometimes the air was just fine down those roads--better, even. So now they were facing the wall they'd built in front of that line they'd never crossed, and Geoff was pretty sure they were both seeking a door.
Everything was always timing. Sam would say the timing was here and now, no more excuses, no more waiting. But Geoff liked to have a handle on a problem before he jumped in with both feet, and he couldn't quite grasp the shape of that problem for Chris.
"You remember that day when you found Sam and me together in the shower? You punched me." He tried to keep his tone casual.
"Fond memories." Chris tossed him a neutral Can we talk about anything else? look.
"Yeah. Asshole. You were pissed and hurt." Geoff's tone softened, and Chris shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "I'm sorry for that. You stepped back from me after the punch, sending out this Don't touch me vibe as big as a football field. But I've thought a lot about that since then. For just a blink, you looked at me like you were wanting just the opposite."
Geoff had chased him from the shower to the kitchen, where the punch had happened. He'd managed, barely, to hold on to the towel he'd hastily grabbed. Chris's heated look, brief as it had been, had slid over his bare shoulders, the water beaded on him, the precarious hold of the towel low on his hips. Whenever Geoff had thought about it since then, it never failed to get him hard. "I think you were torn between wanting to punch me and wanting something else. You're a fighter, Chris, but that fight isn't always about wanting to be on top."
"I'm not like Sam."
"I know that, Chris. Look at me."
He sharpened his tone just enough to walk that fine line he was talking about. Because he managed it, he earned a glance out of Chris's brooding brown eyes. "Keep looking at me when I ask you this next question. Have you thought about my mouth being on you? On your mouth, on any other part of your body? On all of it? When I told you out in the yard that I want to be inside you next time you're inside her, I could tell it wasn't the first time you've thought about me fucking you. And how it would feel."
Christ, just saying it aloud had his jeans biting into his dick. Chris's jaw firmed. He was white-knuckling his beer.
"Chris, I know you're not fighting some bullshit sexual identity crisis. So what the hell is it? Talk to me."
Chris's look could have seared paint off of metal. He drained his own beer, set it aside and got up. "Don't push it. I'm going to bed," he said. He flipped off the TV, tossed the remote aside and moved around the coffee table, headed for the hallway.
"Gonna lock your door?" Geoff asked caustically.
Chris stopped and eyed him. "Do I need to?"
Despite the turmoil in his gut, Geoff shot him an even expression. "When it's time, you'll come to me, Chris. Not the other way around."
*
He shouldn't have said that. But hell, he was frustrated. Over the years, he and Chris had reached a point they could practically communicate without words, so the brick-wall routine was pissing him off. And worrying him. His friend could be as deep as a cave that went right to the middle of the earth. When he was like that, it was usually about the things that mattered the most.
Sam had been so worried her actions were what would ruin the friendship between the two men. Since Geoff was self-admittedly the most aggressive, and yeah, he'd concede to being the one with the lion's share of arrogance, he was far more likely to derail the train. Not just derail it, but send it off a cliff and exploding with a big pyrotechnic foom at the bottom of a canyon. Wasn't that a cheerful thought?
He spent a couple of hours debating the pros and cons of how to proceed, but when push came to shove, what mattered to him was serving the best interests of the client. If he didn't have the skills or information to do that, he found them. It applied to home even more than to work, and he was pretty damn intense about work.
When Logan Scott had given Geoff his cell number, Geoff had programmed it into his phone, even though he wasn't sure he'd ever use it. But the owner of the hardware store next to Naughty Bits--the erotica store into which Sam had pulled them to get all this started--was also an experienced Dom, and Geoff wasn't going to let pride stand in the way of his doing this right.