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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?"
Of course she didn't. She was a Type A personality and a submissive, and thought every damn thing in the world that went wrong was either her fault, or her responsibility to fix. She was a smart woman, but she was also a creature of the heart. Between heart and mind, her heart usually won. Maybe that was how he needed to approach it.
Taking her hand, he drew her over to the kitchen table and took a seat in one of the chairs, pulling her to stand between his knees. Her brow furrowed. "You need to go--"
"I'll go when I'm done here." He slipped the tie of her robe, letting it fall open so her lovely torso was visible to him, the pink-tipped breasts, the pale skin, the shaved mound and slim thighs. As he returned his attention to her face, he shifted both hands to her waist inside the robe, and gripped her firmly. He liked the way his hands looked pressed against her skin and, from the little tremor of reaction, he knew she liked how they felt.
"You can't imagine what it does to a man, to see you open yourself to him like this. He may be out in the yard fuming, but I guarantee what's branded in his brain is you standing before him naked, your mouth soft and your eyes asking for everything from him. I can't stop you from trying to talk with him while I'm gone, but I am going to tell you this: Put aside any strategies to solve this and go with your heart. Only your heart. There's nothing you need to fix. Nothing. Say it."
He pinned her with a hard look, and tried not to let the light tinge that came to her cheeks, the shift of her gaze and nervous moistening of her lips, all classic signs of submission, distract him from his purpose.
"I don't know . . ."
"You say it and mean it, or you go to work with me. I'll throw you over my shoulder to do it if I have to. I won't let you stay here and punish yourself for something that not your fault, or set yourself up that way in front of Chris. He's not at the point he'd know how to deal with that the right way."
"And how is that?" At her mutinous look, he almost smiled, because it was the reaction he wanted.
"Cut a switch and beat your ass with it until you were saying you were sorry for the right things."
"He'd have to catch me first," she said decisively, but he was watching her pulse rate increase in her lovely throat. Pain for pleasure didn't turn her off, and Christ, that was way too much of a turn-on for him.
He drew her closer and kissed a nipple, giving it the edge of his teeth and a swirl of tongue that had her shivering again. "I could catch you," he promised. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Chris punishing you while I watched."
"Stop it," she said, trying halfheartedly to pull away. "I don't want to get all . . . you know . . . while he's upset."
"I know." He softened his tone. "I have no problem with reassuring him on how you feel about him, Sam." Geoff met her gaze, making sure she was listening closely to what he was saying. How he was saying it. "But you won't accept any blame. That's going to be between him and me."
"But I . . ."
"Do you trust me?"
She fidgeted. "On most things."
He suppressed the desire to shake her. "If you want me to be your Master, you have to figure out which areas are yours and which are mine to handle."
"And how will I know that?"
"Because I'll tell you." Dropping his hand to her ass, he squeezed it hard enough to make her jump. "Anything related to vacuuming or washing dishes is totally your area. My area is to stand around, issue orders and look commanding."
He saw her move from worry to exasperation and amusement. Though it looked like an uphill battle, he thought he'd made her feel a little better. She spread her hands out in a helpless gesture. "Geoff, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. It's killing me that he's out there, mad and unhappy, and somehow thinking he's outside of this."
"I know. We'll figure it out." He pursed his lips. "Hand me a Sharpie."
They kept assorted notepads, pens and markers in a big fruit bowl on the table. She reached over to it to get a marker, the robe sliding away from her naked body in a way that had him stifling a groan. Without her saying it, he knew she hadn't made any move to cover herself because he was the one who'd opened the robe, and it was up to him to decide when he wanted her covered.
Forcing himself to focus, he turned her around. "Drop the robe off your shoulders. Don't take it all the way off."
She complied. It was unspeakably provocative, the baring of her shoulders at his command, him standing behind her, his breath stirring her hair. He slid the straight brown strands over her shoulder so they tumbled over her right breast. She stood, a bemused look to her profile as he began to write between her shoulder blades. He blew on the print, making sure it was dry before he pulled the robe back up on her shoulders. Turning her around, he overlapped the panels of her robe and tied it, wrapping the ends around his hands to hold her to him.
"You're not allowed to see what I wrote until after he sees it. If he pulls a single tear out of you, you show it to him. You hear me?"
