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Geoff's gaze fired up at that. "You think it's all an act?"
"No, I don't. I just know how it's supposed to be. You think I haven't watched and listened, when we went to those parties and clubs together? You can feed me a line that the deprivation is part of the Dom thing, but that kind of deprivation is what we just did with Sam, getting her hotter, making her the focus, making her eager to be with us. What you did in my room? That was just an excuse to keep your feelings locked away, to not risk yourself. I deserve better than that. And I didn't think you were that kind of coward."
Geoff whitened. Chris pivoted before he could let the recoil hit him in the chest and make him apologize, soothe. He was right--he knew he was. But it didn't make him feel any less like shit. He knew the guy's most vulnerable spots, and he'd just taken a deliberate shot at one.
He returned to his room and flopped into the hammock, rubbing his face with both hands. Shit, shit, shit. How long had they known each other? Why would Geoff think they needed to play mind games like this, when they knew each other in and out?
Because they didn't know this area. Geoff was right. Hell, the sex alone was plenty to wrap his mind around. The potential had been there for some time, waiting, but it had been unexplored up until now. Maybe that was the deal. When Geoff was deep inside of his body, Chris had held on to that shore, refusing to be cut loose, because his reaction to the Dom thing had hit him out of left field.
Before it started he'd have said it wasn't his thing. Yet it had been so easy to work side by side with Geoff just now, embracing that Dom stuff toward Sam. It had startled yet pleased him, how much he'd suddenly enjoyed playing that game with her and Geoff. And yeah, that caveman reaction he had, and how he'd picked up the reins so fast to top her, had been this side of What the fuck? But what had rocked him on his foundation, what had turned that little disagreement of a few moments ago into something uglier, was how he'd responded to Geoff's orders himself.
Yet he couldn't say everything wasn't quid pro quo. A couple of hours away, Sam was wet, hot and willing for the both of them. Geoff had fucked Chris into near oblivion, and in return he'd compelled Geoff to spill his release in Chris's mouth. During that short, blissful time, Geoff had given himself over into Chris's hands fully. Suddenly, it made him feel more like a dick for taking a shot at Geoff.
When Chris's dad had walked out on his mom when Chris was nine, it had left Chris with two things. One, a determination that he'd never let anyone he loved down that way, would never abandon them. It had also left him a virulent nest of anger way down deep in his gut, which conveniently filled the hole his dad had left. That trigger could be tripped by the strangest shit, like someone wanting him to lay it all out there, make himself completely vulnerable. Like Geoff's question had.
Tell me you've always wanted me to fuck you. In the dark, in the light, even when we were fucking other girls . . . The question was far more than what had been on the surface. Geoff had been asking for everything. Or had he?
Chris scowled. The problem was, he had so much feedback coming from so many directions he wasn't sure how to process it all. He didn't do much of anything fast. That wasn't his style. He liked to take his time, get his head wrapped around things. This was like having to stuff a whole meal in his mouth in one bite. Whereas Geoff had a rapier-fast mind that could evaluate and act in a blink.
Or was he just throwing up a smoke screen of bullshit, avoiding the real reasons he hadn't reacted to Geoff the way Geoff had hoped he would?
"It's like playing one of those damn game shows."
Chris looked over to see Geoff silhouetted in his door again. That was how this had started, less than a couple of hours ago. Now, just like with Sam's actions of a few days ago, things had changed again. Irrevocably.
"That one where you have to risk the winnings you've already got to answer the million-dollar question," Geoff continued. "If you get it wrong, you lose it all; if you get it right, well, you win everything. If you choose not to answer, you get to keep what you already have, no risk." Geoff shrugged uncomfortably. "I get it, because what we have, that's already so much to me. But then . . . what you said, I thought you meant you didn't feel the same way."
"No, Geoff. Shit no." Chris realized then Geoff hadn't separated it out in his mind as he had. "It's not that at all, man. I love you, plain and simple. I don't want anyone but Sam or me to be with you, ever. It's the other stuff I can't figure out and, because they seem like a package deal with you, it felt like if I said yes to one thing, I was agreeing to all of it."
As Geoff digested that, his eyes became a little less hooded. "No line item veto."
"Yeah." Chris shrugged. "We started as friends, and I never questioned how you and I seemed even closer than a lot of guys were. How I preferred going out on dates together. And, fuck, that night when we were having sex with those two cheerleaders in the same room . . . It felt so close to what I really wanted, but
I couldn't quite get it straight in my mind, so I left it there . . ."
He swallowed as Geoff's eyes took on a different expression and he stepped closer. "Then there was the night I brought Rhonda Hammond back to our place . . ."
Geoff grinned. "You took her to the movies, but you came back to the house right after to drink beer. She French-kissed both of us. Rhonda was an adventurous girl, God bless her."
"Yeah." Chris met his gaze and the smile faded from Geoff's face. "When we were on the couch, both up against her, for a blink, I let myself think about what it would be like if she wasn't there."
"Chris."
Chris shook his head. He had to get it out, work through it the way he did. Geoff understood. He fell silent, waiting him out, but Chris couldn't miss the laser focus of his gaze, the taut muscles of his face.
"She was nice, but she didn't matter. Not like that sounds. I mean, in terms of my being in love with her, or wanting to fall in love with her. It has to matter. Really matter. That's why it was always hard for me to make it work unless you were in the room. Then Sam came along, and it was like this whole new level . . . I felt, yeah, this is the way it was meant to be all along." He shook his head. "I'm making no fucking sense."
"No. Everything you're saying makes perfect sense. You're the type of guy who sees something way before any of the rest of us. But you don't act on it until we catch up. Until someone who matters takes the lead." Geoff's gaze burned into him. "Keep going."
Chris set his jaw. "You came home one night, before we met Sam, and I knew you'd been with another guy. Just a hookup, because you never mentioned him, but that was when I knew. It hit me in the chest like a battering ram. As long as you were with girls, you were still . . . we were still the two of us. And that was okay, though something about it felt off. Until Sam. She put a balance into it I haven't exactly figured out, but she did."
Chris took a breath. "You've been standing inside me for so long, Geoff, I forget sometimes you're a separate person. I expected you to understand what I meant, when I couldn't say what you wanted me to."
He saw the moment it clicked. Geoff's spine straightened, and the energy that came off of him was the same kind he'd had when he'd stood in Chris's door the first time. It made things do a nice somersault in Chris's belly. But Geoff gave a self-deprecating chuckle and shook his head. "Christ, I'm an idiot. A fucked-up idiot."
"No, you're not," Chris said, sobering. "You're a guy who was fucked over by his blood family. And I'm a guy who doesn't believe in promising you more than I can give, so I got wrapped up in that other stuff you might want from me and didn't think of how it would sound to you."
"I shouldn't have been that sensitive."
