Naughty Wishes Part II (3 page)

“I am hungry.”

“When are you not?” She smiled, but when he managed only a halfhearted smile in return, she pushed past his defenses and wrapped her arms around his waist, putting her cheek on his broad chest. “I love you, you know that, right? I’m in love with you. With both of you.”

His hands had tightened on her shoulders, maybe to ease her back, but at that, they stopped, got even tighter. He muttered an oath. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah, it does. It does for us.” She slipped away and moved toward the house, forcing herself not to look back. She’d done what she could . . . without fixing anything.

Once inside, she remembered what Geoff had said about what he’d written on her back.
Until after he sees it.
She hurried to the bathroom. The smudges Chris had left on her cheeks made her smile. Pulling the shirt off her arms again, she let it collar her neck so she could twist around and see the reflection in the mirror. A
smile spread across her face as she read the words backward.

She’s ours, dumbass. Kiss her, and you’ll see. I dare you.

Chris might have told her to leave him alone for now, but something in his eyes said he might not want to be left alone indefinitely. There were overlapping qualities to Chris and Geoff, things that complemented each other as well as her own needs. But they were also very different men.

When she brought him his sandwich, she forced herself to go back inside, but she watched through the window as he sat on the concrete bench by the aviary and ate. If Geoff was eating, he was multitasking; reading, watching TV or typing on his laptop. Whereas Chris gave his full attention to digestion, chewing slowly, his gaze following what the birds were doing in the aviary, or the movement of the clouds overhead. He had a tendency to stretch out right after a meal and take a fifteen-minute nap, which he did today.

Lying back on the stone bench, one work shoe braced on the ground, the other on the bench, he bent his arm over his face to shade his eyes as he closed them. She drew her feet up on the window seat, linking her arms around her knees as she watched him. His other hand curled in a relaxed position on his stomach, the breeze riffling his dark brown hair across his brow. His skin was tan even in winter, because his job had baked it into his flesh. The sun never disappeared for long in North Carolina.

He always had a scattering of cuts and scrapes, because pruning back overgrown holly bushes or pulling weeds and maintaining equipment with his bare hands would leave marks. She’d given him some vegetarian ingredient udder balm ointment, informing him it was what farmers and other laborers used to keep their
hands healthy. He’d finally started using it, so the cuts healed more quickly, though a few were deep enough the scars remained.

Simple things, simple thoughts. She should get up and do something. She had some bills to pay, a book to read, a tear in a pair of slacks that needed mending. But she usually did that kind of thing near Chris when he was home. She did that because she loved his company, not because she had to do so. She was a well-rounded person. She had her yoga and took classes and workshops to expand her mind. Since she’d been living with Chris and Geoff, those educational experiences had covered everything from stained glass creation to using essential oils for better health. She went out with Flo and other friends. She wasn’t dependent on Chris or Geoff’s presence to entertain herself.

But today she was like Chris. She only wanted to focus on one thing. Only wanted to do one thing. Suppressing a tight smile at the double entendre, she rose. She’d go get the slacks and mend them by the window.

When she returned, he’d woken from his nap and was working in the yard again. She mended the slacks, read her book and did her bills, all where she could watch him. She ventured out a couple of times to bring him more water and snacks and retrieve the sandwich plate. She’d hoped their short interlude might have eased his mind, yet he was still working at a much more grueling pace than he usually set for himself.

He’d used the dirt from the pond hole to create a berm by their small vegetable garden. At the base he’d inserted several cinder blocks so they looked like the openings to small caves. When she bent to examine them, she saw he’d sealed the back openings so the square spaces would remain dirt free.

She liked frog houses and had talked about creating a fairy garden. He’d told her about a month ago he’d build her a berm under the sheltered canopy of one of the older trees that would accommodate both. Once he had that set up, she could start designing it how she liked.

She straightened to see him watching her, but as she started to smile and say how she liked the results of his work, he put his head down and went back to it. Trying to ignore the painful twist of reaction in her chest, she made herself go back into the house. Left him to his thinking.

She’d had several texts from Geoff through the day, checking in with her. He must be busy, because they were short things. Raspberry-blowing emoticons, and aliens with antennae zooming across the screen. However, as if he could sense her mounting frustration—or maybe he’d finally had a lull in his work—the one she found on her phone now included words.

How’s it going, Miss Fix-It?

Narrowing her eyes, she punched in a response.
Middle East peace, lower cable bills and which came first, the chicken or the egg, all solved.
She paused.
He looked at my back and kissed me. But that’s all.

Her phone chirped again.
So which was it, chicken or egg?

She shook her head.
Chicken. Can’t have an egg without having a chicken first.

Just like you can’t get to the finish line unless
you run the course. Don’t worry. Be home soon, I hope.

She sent back a couple of
X
s and
O
s to that, and put her phone on the counter. Okay, what pointless thing could she do next so she wouldn’t lose her mind? She could have gone out for a couple of hours, but she was determined to be here when Chris came back into the house. She was certain if she left, he’d take that opportunity to duck in, take a shower and disappear into his room. She wanted to respect his alone time, but she refused to be avoided.

When the day started to ebb toward late afternoon, he at last reached a stopping point. She judged that he’d completed a couple of months’ worth of projects in a single day. Even with his level of fitness, he was going to be aching tomorrow.

After he put away his tools, he didn’t come back toward the house as she’d hoped. Instead, he headed for the trees. For Chris, the back-flanking forest had been one of the big draws of their rental house. He’d built a tree house just inside the tree line, big enough she could glimpse it from the rear of the house, since she knew where to look. Otherwise, the weathered wood blended into the canopy.

This was his home. She wasn’t going to let anything drive him from it, even her or his own thoughts. She’d given him a whole day of space. If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed was going to the mountain.

She packed up a tote with snacks, a gallon jug of cold water and a small container of ice. Leaving the house, she crossed the backyard and chirped a greeting at the aviary birds before she went through the rear gate and into the woods. Technically the property wasn’t theirs, but it was undeveloped land. Kids made bike trails through it and built dams in the creek, doing what kids had done throughout time,
transforming wild places into their own imaginary world. She’d wondered if Chris had built a tree house goaded by that same impulse. He liked to build as well as plant, and had a knack for seeing what would integrate the best with his surroundings, rather than strip it of its natural beauty. The tree house was no exception.

The wide platform had four thru-holes for the trunks of the trees that supported it. The tree house itself was a box structure with geometric cutouts for windows. A hexagon, a star, a crescent moon. It had a roof, but he’d threaded thin branches into the treehouse under it, interlacing them along the ceiling and stringing them with a thicket of lights that ran on batteries and could be switched on and off. At night, in pitch dark, they could lie on their backs on the wooden floor and turn on those lights. It was as if they were looking up at the stars.

She paused at the base of the tree house. “Do I need the secret password?” she asked.

“Probably.”

She pursed her lips. “Naked girls.”

His half chuckle heartened her. “You know, guys aren’t as easy as you think we are.”

“Does that mean I didn’t get the password right?”

“Didn’t say that.” She looked up into his face, peering down at her through the trapdoor. “Looks like you also brought provisions,” he said.

“I did. I have Little Debbie oatmeal cookies, cold Pepsi and a few other things. Can I come up?”

At his nod, she handed up the items, and came up herself. He was there with a helping hand, ensuring she made the transition safely from the bolt hole onto the platform. The late-afternoon sun gave the interior a plush yellow light, reflecting off the golden pine. She’d hung some glittering silver stars from the ceiling branches and a couple of chimes. They made music from the breeze wafting in through the geometric cutouts.

Chris rarely looked tired. He looked a step away from exhaustion now, which concerned her. After he helped her inside, he took a seat on the boards, his back pressed against the wall between the hexagon and the star. He’d put his shirt back on. His knees were bent and splayed, his forearms resting on them, hands loose. His hair appeared as if he’d raked his hands through it numerable times, leaving the thick locks spiked. The late afternoon still held warmth, so he had sweat beads on his brow and neck. His brown eyes studied her.

Taking a seat across from him, she drew up her knees and clasped her arms around them, studying him right back.

She reminded herself she’d been brave enough to push Geoff, and he could be intimidating as hell. Chris wasn’t the intimidating sort, not to her. Her hesitation had to do with being rejected, but even more than that, she didn’t want to hurt him any more than she already had. After a long moment, she shifted onto her knees, closing the yard of space between them to slide between his large work shoes. She brought the container of ice closer to them.

Folding her legs beneath her, she touched his shirt, spreading her fingers over his chest. The cloth was damp from sweat. Rising on her knees, she grasped the hem, telling him with her body language she wanted to help him take it off. He didn’t immediately comply, that intriguingly hard-to-read gaze resting on her face.
Then he straightened, his hands brushing hers away, not unkindly, so he could pull the shirt over his head.

The sinuous ripple of muscle so close to the heat of her own body made her want to swallow, hard. But she took the shirt, folded it and put it to the side. After pulling open the container of ice, she withdrew a bowl from her tote, as well as a cotton washcloth. She poured some of the water from the gallon jug into the bowl, but she set that aside, instead reaching for the ice.

She was proud that her hand was steady as she put the cube against his collarbone. She slid it in a slow arc along that line, watching it make a sleek track through the dirt on his skin. He had gleaming dark hair on his chest, and she combed her fingers through the rough-soft feel of it, sliding the ice along the same path. His skin shuddered under the touch of the ice, even though his hands had returned to rest on his splayed knees as he watched her closely.

She’d used sexual triggers to motivate Geoff to action, but even with that she wasn’t the type of woman who believed a man could be led by his cock. Nor would she want to treat either man that way. With Geoff it had been the right timing, a sincere message sent, and his response hadn’t been mindless in the least. Sex could soothe, heal and open communication, if both parties were willing to let it. When they were, it wasn’t manipulative or wrong. Which was why she was taking her time, letting Chris decide what he would welcome or rebuff. As she continued to move the ice against his body, his heat and energy pulled her in, so the nervousness receded in favor of pure joy at touching him.

Taking the ice down his pectoral to the nipple, she watched it bead under the cold. His fingers flexed. In this position, the camo pants were stretched across his groin so she could see the intimate shape of the man beneath. When he reached
beneath his waistband and grasped his growing erection, adjusting it to a more comfortable position, the blatant eroticism of his doing it in front of her with no self-consciousness spiked her blood pressure, making her fingers twitch on him. He returned his hand to that dangling position on his knee, his eyes still fastened on her as she moistened her lips in involuntary response.

Geoff was sleek and polished, a dangerous Dom lover like a leopard, whereas Chris was all earthy sensuality, basic and primal. Sexual tension hummed off him like the distant thunder behind a mountain range.

The ice was melting against the heat of his skin, drops of water rolling down his chest and the sectioned muscles of his stomach. She picked up another piece, running it over his shoulders and behind his neck. To do that she had to stand on her knees, and his breath touched her breasts through her thin T-shirt. He still hadn’t moved his hands.

“Touch me,” she murmured. Could she command him? She’d sensed something between him and Geoff, a deference that had made her wonder if Chris nursed some submissive tendencies, but she’d only seen it come out around Geoff, in ways so fleeting she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. But she could test it now, couldn’t she? It wasn’t her thing, but she wasn’t necessarily averse to the idea of having a big, strong man at her command for a short interlude.

She moved the ice down his arm out to his hand, then back up under the arm, teasing the armpit. Then—

He captured her wrist with the opposite hand, holding it up between them. Dipping his own hand in the container, he came out with a handful of ice and put it in her palm, closing her hand over it. As she felt the burn of the ice, he met her
gaze. “Think you can order me around, Sam?”