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Divide and conquer.
For the past several days, it had been her mantra, a rallying call to summon her courage. Today Samantha Beth Gerard was going to act on it.
A storm had hit the Gulf, so Chris and the landscaping company that employed him were in Mississippi for the next few days, picking up as much work as they could. Which left her and Geoff alone in the rental house the three of them shared.
She sat in their backyard, inside the flying aviary Chris had built to nurse and rehabilitate birds and other animals he rescued during the course of his job. Ron, Hermione and Harry, the three permanent inhabitants, flew from branch to branch, chirping. Sam drew her knees up on the edge of the wooden Adirondack chair, curling her bare toes in the wooden slats. Turning her head, she rested it on her knees and looked through the picture window of their small house.
Geoff was working at the dining room table they'd found at a secondhand store. His laptop was open and there were two file boxes on the table. Papers were arranged on the table like a neatly landscaped garden in multiple shades of white. As usual, he was working on a case. A young attorney working his way up the ladder of a corporate firm, he put in a lot of hours. She had no doubt he'd be offered a partnership within his specified timetable and then split off to form his own office. He typically ended up as the lead on any project he was assigned, even if it didn't start that way. He embraced responsibility, control.
According to her friend Flo, men like that would sometimes crave submission in the bedroom, needing the release of not being in control, but that wasn't the vibe Sam got from Geoff. Not in the least. Sam suspected Geoff was a Dom, one who was self-aware but who'd never truly embraced it.
After meeting him over a couple of dinners, Flo had concurred. "Oh yeah. That one wants to be in charge. He needs it like you need chocolate. Once he decides he's ready to explore his Dominant side, he'll be a storm that sweeps you off your feet. In a good way, if he has his shit together."
Flo was a teller at the bank where Sam worked. An attractive, delicately fox-featured woman in her fifties, she had shrewd brown eyes and short hair dyed a bird's-wing brown with golden highlights. Though there were nearly thirty years' difference in their ages, she and Flo had gravitated toward each other in the usual way that coworkers became friends. Day-to-day interactions, the occasional lunch, then slipping on their athletic shoes for lunchtime walks in the downtown Charlotte area where they worked.
As Sam started opening up about her feelings for Chris and Geoff, Florence had listened attentively. Friendship turned into confidences, and one day Flo told Sam she was a Domme, a Mistress.
"Being Dominant or submissive can be an orientation, like being gay and straight," she'd explained. "Some women might take charge in the bedroom on occasion to spice things up, purely for fun, but for me, it runs deeper than that. The men I'm with need to surrender, to submit, to help them find pleasure and release, and I need to control and dominate, feed off that exchange and surrender, to be satisfied."
Between Flo taking her to several private parties, where Sam could see what a sexual Dominant was in context, and studying Florence at the bank, Sam started to understand even more. There was a sharp directness to how Flo dealt with everyone, a firmness that made coworkers and customers alike respond to her with respect. All the tellers knew if a customer was causing a problem, Flo was the one who could step in, defuse the situation and restore balance.
Those nuances and vibes . . . they were different versions of Geoff. When she first confided that to Flo, wondering if she was crazy, her friend had given her a blunt look.
"You see it because you're his mirror, Sam. You're a sub, and that defines how you operate in a relationship. That first night you went with me to a party, I saw you watching the male Doms. You were like a kid outside a candy store, a kid who loves candy but only wants her favorite kind. The kind waiting for her at home." The woman's lips curved. "Geoff is easy to define. Chris will be your wild card. It'll be interesting to see where he falls in all of this. But to get anything started, you're going to have to get Geoff on board first."
Nothing had technically ever happened between Sam, Geoff and Chris, but over time it had become clear, at least to Sam, that something had been happening all along. Subtle things, small moments that had drawn them closer, the seeds of desire and need taking root. But she'd come to the same conclusion Flo had: Geoff was the key.
Flo made it sound like a wonderful adventure was just waiting for her, which had made waiting for the right moment even worse. Sam's initially vague fantasies were now in hi-def, digging so deeply into her they could make her heart pound and ache whenever she was around the two men.
While she valued their friendship more than anything, and was terrified she might be about to screw that up, her sex drive and emotional compulsions were overriding every caution. Her daily exposure to two hot men she loved made it at least partially their fault that she'd reached this reckless point. She wanted them both.
No time like the present to start making that clear.
Flo had compared Geoff to a storm. Sam thought of him as the forked lightning that split open the darkness of a room, revealing every corner, everything hidde
n in the shadows. As she imagined being touched by that lightning, she quivered deep inside, her fingers tightening on her coffee cup.
Courage, Samantha Beth. You can do this.
Rising from her chair, she slipped out of the aviary, secured the door and padded back into the house, letting the screen door in the kitchen close behind her with a small squeak. The sunlight made her feel warm and ambitious. Optimistic. Geoff wasn't the only one who could be goal-oriented.
She paused at the door, letting herself savor the sight of him. He had dark blond hair, the strands of lighter and darker colors tangled in an artful, rakish mix he kept longer over his brow, severe on the sides and the nape. Geoff had to be conscious of his appearance, since his law firm was one of the city's best. He honed his looks as he did any other skill, until looking urbane, professional and devastating were second nature, not an affectation. For the days he would be in court, he wore crisp white dress shirts, slim silk ties and one of his two Hugo Boss suits. Despite the suits' formidable cost when he'd bought them, he'd considered them investments. One was dark charcoal, the other the color of creek rock that picked up the golden tones of his hazel eyes. Currently those eyes were trained on what he was studying while he typed notes one-handed.
When Geoff won his first solo trial, she and Chris had put their money together and bought him silver cuff links. Since he liked the Marvel movies and they teased him about being a legal super hero, the cuff links were the Avengers emblem, an A with one leg longer than the other. Buying anything fashion-related for Geoff was a risk, but even if he only kept them in a drawer, she figured he'd enjoy the sentiment of looking at them on occasion. Instead, he wore them every time he went to court. He said they were his good-luck pieces.
Today he was in casual weekend wear, a worn Just Do It Nike T-shirt and jeans. While she loved the look of him in a suit and had all sorts of Dom/sub fantasies about that, usually with him fully dressed in the suit and her in nothing but a pair of heels and pearls, kneeling before him, she liked his casual look as well. It was a reminder that he was home, and that she was part of what he considered home.
She stopped behind his chair, inhaled. He showered and shaved every morning, a personal gift to her whether he knew it or not, because the scent of his aftershave on his warm skin kept her world balanced and pleasantly tilted at once. Like the smell of sunshine and cut grass on Chris after he took care of their small lawn.
She and Chris were so used to Geoff working, respecting his space and train of thought, he wouldn't expect her to talk to him, wouldn't think her silence rude. But she wondered how long it would take him to notice her standing behind him. Did he have a heightened awareness of her, the way she had of him? She thought about sinking to her knees next to his chair, waiting for his notice, for a command. Would he laugh at her? Ask her what she was doing down there? Or worse, would she see that sharp awareness in his eyes that told her he knew exactly, but he'd shutter that look and play dumb?
Stop overthinking this. Setting aside the coffee, she laid her hands on his shoulders, leaning over one so her long, straight hair fell over her fingers, spilling onto his chest. "Do you want me to get you another cup of coffee?" she murmured in his ear. She let her thumbs slide along his neck. A close-up inhale of his aftershave and warm flesh made her almost dizzy. Honest to God, she trembled when she touched him, because she wanted something only he could provide.
