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He wasn't in the habit of lying to himself. He was good at leaving things alone that really didn't need to change for things overall to be okay. Trying to make something perfect was a pointless way to drive yourself crazy. But leaving this as is wasn't going to be an option.
Even so, he wasn't like Geoff or Sam. He didn't necessarily feel a problem needed an immediate solution. Sometimes you had to wait, give things time to play out to figure out how they wanted to work. It couldn't be rushed or forced. Maybe that wisdom came from years of gardening, but what was natural and lasting should never be hurried or forced to grow in a certain direction. You could do it, sure, but it took constant vigilance to keep it going that way, unless you convinced the plant it would be happier climbing up that trellis than across the ground. If it insisted on its own way enough, you had to respect that.
Now he was rambling off-topic. On top of that, he truly was bullshitting himself. The impulse he'd just had to wrestle Geoff in the dirt hadn't been patient in the least. Rising, he went to shut off the water. He'd finish up out here, take a shower and stop being a pussy. There was no reason he and Geoff couldn't bond in mutual Sam-absence misery as they usually did. They'd grab something from the grocery store and grill out.
Geoff and Sam thought he was the most easygoing of the three of them, and he guessed he was. But maybe sometimes they overestimated his placid nature. Geoff surely did, because he came back out of the house . . . and he still hadn't changed clothes. He'd stripped the tie and opened the neck of his shirt, loosening the cuffs and rolling them up. He'd run his hands through his hair, because it was tousled. The late-afternoon sun drew Chris's gaze to the five-o'clock shadow on his jaw. He looked like a cross between a Fortune 500 magazine ad, and a guy with whom Ray Liotta would share his 1812 scotch in a heartbeat.
"Hey." Geoff strode across the grass. "That meat loaf Sam left us. Do you remember if she said to heat it in the oven, or can we chop off a couple of slices and nuke it? I was going to stick it in the oven while I changed if--"
Chris rose to his feet, pivoted to face him. Geoff had some of today's mail in his hand, flipping through it as he asked the question. Chris moved forward. "She said the oven makes it taste better."
"Yeah, that's what I figured. Just didn't know if I wanted to trade out taste for speed. I have to do some shit after dinner and . . ."
Geoff had acute intuition. He sensed danger before it happened. His head came up abruptly, his expression registering that Chris was bearing down on him with only a couple of steps to spare.
"Do not, you son of a--"
Chris hit him midbody, taking him off his feet and back several yards, tumbling them into a bank of leaves he'd piled up for mulching. Geoff's snow-white shirt was a good contrast to the gray and brown tones of the dried leaves. His shiny shoes had no traction, so he couldn't get his feet underneath him to push up. Chris usually played fair with him, but he wasn't in the mood. Geoff figured that out pretty damn fast and responded accordingly.
Chris grunted as the male managed to buck, roll and slam his elbow into Chris's mouth, splitting his lip. It jarred him enough that Geoff slithered free and jumped on his back. Chris could shake most opponents like a Rottweiler, but Geoff was like a Jack Russell terrier. A Rottweiler would chase you out of his yard. A Jack Russell would pursue you to the edge of a cliff and then jump over it with you, just to make sure you ended up dead on the bottom.
He'd intended to flip Geoff on the roll, get him under him again, but instead, Geoff got his feet on the ground, clamped his hand on Chris's wrist and twisted. It was a sure pin, the pain of the angle discouraging movement. Chris was able to throw Geoff off enough to escape it, narrowly. Pain lanced up his arm. As a result, when he threw them both over backwards, he misjudged his toss.
Instead of Geoff ending up in the leaves, his friend landed on the much more unyielding ground of the yard, with a solid thump. From football, Chris knew the look of a person who had had his wind knocked out of him. A sudden disorientation as the abdomen slammed into the solar plexus, a quick expulsion of air, followed by panic as breathing suddenly didn't work as it should.
Geoff being Geoff, he didn't look panicked as much as confused and then pissed, but either way, Chris was instantly beside him, hand on his shoulder to keep him in place.
"Jesus. Sorry about that, man. Just relax. It'll pass in a minute."
"Fucking . . . tank. Like a circus bear . . . in a china shop . . ."
"It gets better faster if you don't try to talk."
In answer to that, Geoff grabbed his shirt and yanked him down so their faces were nearly nose to nose. "Paid . . . two hun"--wheeze, wheeze--"hundred dollars for this shirt . . ."
"Well, you're a dumbass. That's too much. It's just a freaking shirt."
Geoff's breath smelled like the cinnamon Trident he liked to chew throughout the day. If Chris touched his stubbled jaw, it would be rough like his own. Well, not exactly like that. Geoff's would be more like fine-grain sandpaper, whereas Chris's was coarser.
His mind snapped away from that as Geoff's fingers tightened in the collar of his T-shirt. Geoff was moving his fingertips over Chris's collarbone and the stray chest hairs at the base of his throat.
Geoff's breath was evening out, whereas Chris's was suddenly harder to find. Geoff's hazel eyes, which Chris had noticed one night were like ginger ale behind green glass, were fixed upon him. Because of Geoff pulling him down like this, Chris had one hand braced against the earth by his shoulder, the side of his other hand pressed up against Geoff's belt and the summer wool beneath it.
When he tried to draw back and Geoff's grip only increased, the pounding in Chris's ears grew louder. The blood from Chris's split lip had gotten smeared on Geoff's shirt. Geoff was going to murder him for that, when he noticed.
"Get off of me," Geoff said quietly.
Yeah, he'd gotten his wind back. His eyes were sharp again, the mouth tight. Chris lifted a brow, wondering if he should point out that Geoff was holding him, but since Geoff's grip eased as he spoke, Chris moved back. He really didn't know what had gotten into him, didn't kno
w how to explain it, but . . .
He'd left himself unguarded, and that was his mistake. Geoff tackled him while he was resting on his heels, so Geoff had the benefit of balance. When he knocked Chris down, he had his knee planted between Chris's legs, enough weight resting on Chris's balls to keep him there, and his hand was partially wrapped around Chris's thick throat. Before Chris could think to struggle, Geoff stroked two fingers along the carotid, a firm pressure that was oddly arousing and then started to change the world, making Chris's head swim.
Geoff's gaze locked on him as he kept up those tiny movements. The light-headedness made all of this feel really weird to Chris, but okay, too. It took him a while to realize when Geoff had changed the pressure of his touch so that he was now tracing Chris's throat lightly with his knuckles, his other hand resting on his chest. When Chris tried to move, Geoff mashed his balls and cock harder beneath his knee. He let out a soft curse. Geoff tilted his head.
"Yeah, hurts some, doesn't it? If you're feeling a little dizzy, that's the carotid massage I just gave you. Learned it from a Dom in San Francisco one night. It can kill someone if it's done wrong. He said I was about as precise and focused a Dom as he'd ever met, so he knew he could trust me with it. Done right, it can give a sub a lovely sense of euphoria, float some of them right into subspace."
He could shake him. He could. But despite Chris's jaw being clenched, a reflection of the tension in the rest of his body, it was as if his mind was in stasis, waiting. Geoff leaned closer, visibly studying his reaction. His mouth was so close Chris pressed his lips together, resisting a compulsion he didn't want to face.
