"Really?" Chris met her surprised gaze, then looked back at him. "What possibilities?"
Geoff shrugged. "When I got out of school, Patricia Levine told me they could use me in the DA's office. I've been thinking about it. The hours would be less, fifty or sixty a week as the norm versus eighty to a hundred, and it would be more along the lines of what I want to do with my degree. There'd be a certain amount of bullshit, but there is in anything. I probably wouldn't get rich unless I hit politics and decided to try for the DA job. Or I could become a public defender."
"You don't care about getting rich. Plus, just watching the news makes you want to shoot people. I'm thinking politics isn't your field." Chris stopped on a station playing a Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson song. He shot his friend a grin. "You don't want a job, you want a life."
"Yeah, Bruno and Mark don't seem to realize one is pretty much dependent on the other," Geoff said dryly.
"I think you should do it," Sam said. "I think you'd be happier. You're getting sick of helping businesses fight one another over minutiae that doesn't mean a thing."
Geoff pursed his lips. "You'd probably end up being the top breadwinner in the house. Especially when they promote you to manager, which they will. Of course, Chris spends so little beyond bills, he's probably already a millionaire."
"I'm planning on getting a diamond-encrusted bulldog hood ornament for my truck any day now." Chris glanced at Sam. "Though my financial manager is insisting I contribute that amount to the Roth IRA she set up for me instead."
"Long term financial planning is important," Sam said primly.
They pulled into the parking space in front of Naughty Bits a few minutes later. Though Chris was joking with Geoff and tossing her comments, when his gaze met hers, it was as if all that died away. She saw his lips moving, Geoff's lips moving, knew the world was turning around her how it always did, but she was still caught up in Chris's embrace, back at the traffic light. While it had been casually executed, there was nothing else casual about it.
Meeting Geoff's gaze in the mirror, she also saw his full awareness of just how much it had stirred her up. It planted a pleasant anxiety in her, because she suspected he was considering ways to stir her up further. Apparently her arousal could set off a chain reaction between both men. Since she wanted to do all sorts of things for them as well, she wasn't at all immune to the same effect. She could foresee it becoming a circular thing, like a spiral of sexual anticipation that could be reset again and again.
As they left the car and headed for the entrance to Naughty Bits, Chris held the door for her, Geoff and him filing in behind her as Madison greeted them. Today she was wearing an open tunic printed with cherry blossoms over a formfitting black body suit. A belt made up of links that looked like handcuffs rode low on her hips. She had her long brown hair twisted up on her head.
"It's great to see the three of you again." She covered the mouth of her store phone. "I'm handling a problem with a shipping company, my apologies, but go ahead and wander around. Get yourself a cup of coffee and a scone from the Dungeon Room. I'll be off in just a few minutes."
The first time they'd come here together, the two men had stuck close to Sam, demonstrating typical male wariness of a lingerie store, but Madison had helped alleviate that. She'd drawn Geoff over to the Dungeon Room selections and left Sam and Chris to examine role-playing choices and lingerie. Sam wasn't sure how they'd behave this time, but she received an answer quickly enough. Geoff moved straight toward the Dungeon Room and Chris to the wall of lingerie and open display jewelry offerings, as if both men had specific ideas in mind.
Wow. Well, then.
For perhaps the first time, she let herself believe how thrilling it might be to wait and see where their minds were taking them. She could let them control their direction.
She knew what she wanted to look at, but she drifted in that direction instead of making a beeline there, though she was unsure why she was self-conscious about it. Functional collars, black straps in varying thicknesses and embedded with D-rings for attachments, were hung on the wall. More expensive ones were under glass. She saw choker-style necklaces in pewter or with rhinestones, heavy iron bands with pin locking mechanisms, and delicate braids of silver and gold. She studied one that looked like a buckled collar. Instead of leather or fabric, it was stainless steel, a silver circlet.
"That one would look beautiful on you. And I'm betting it's the right size, though it can be custom ordered." Madison had finished her call. Moving to the opposite side of the display, she unlocked the back of the cabinet and put her hand on the piece. Sam shook her head.
"I can't afford it. Not even close."
"That's why it's fun to put it on. Just promise me you won't make a dash for the door." Madison winked and held out a foot encased in a strappy heel. "I didn't wear my chase-down-shoplifter shoes today."
Sam chuckled, but before she could tell Madison not to do so, she'd moved back around the case with the silver band. Madison took her hand in her friendly shopkeeper way and drew her over to the mirror. "Here we go. I'll just slide your hair over this way so I don't snag it. You have such beautiful hair."
"It's too fine and straight."
"Perfect for Southern humidity. Yours looks lovely and silky all the time, whereas us thick-haired folk look like we stuck our fingers in a light socket and made it worse by dragging ourselves backward through a hedge." Madison fitted the collar around her throat, keeping her fingers beneath the hinge so it couldn't pinch Sam's skin as she hooked the decorative buckle in the front. "You fit the peg into the buckle to hold it. This one is actually a very good fit on you. You have a swan's neck."
A finger's width could still get beneath, but it was snug enough that things quieted inside Sam, the effect of its hold. She imagined Geoff or Chris putting it on her when they wanted her to go into full submissive mode, so they could explore their desires for her, together or separately. She was fine with both scenarios, as long as it wasn't an either or proposition. Each man had proven capable of immersing her in pleasure, but when the three of them had been on her bed, her in between them, she knew she would never be content with separate only.
Chris's reaction to Geoff's touch made it a grim possibility, yet she also remembered Chris was the one who'd invited Geoff to come taste her with him.
"So how is it going?" Madison asked in a low voice. The just-between-us-girls tone told her what she meant. Sam had opened up to Madison first about her secret desires for both her roommates, and Madison was giving her the opening if she needed more help and guidance.
"A work in process. But progress has been made."
"Looks like it." Madison glanced over her shoulder. "They didn't even go for the food and coffee first."
"I'm sure you'll be light a few scones before we leave." Sam chuckled. She looked at herself in the mirror, putting her hand up to touch the collar, slide her fingers along it. She thought about either man touching it, tugging so she felt its hold even more keenly. She knew she'd love that, just from how she'd reacted to Geoff or Chris gripping her throat.
As Geoff appeared behind her, Madison stepped discreetly out of range.
"What do you think?" Sam asked, a little nervous. The man had too good of a poker face, giving nothing away. Chris had been looking over a selection of electronic toys, but now he joined them, standing at her other side, the two of them studying the collar and her.
"Madison had me try it on," she said, realizing Chris might think Geoff had put it there, and finding herself worried that might bother him. "Geoff?"
"I'm thinking about it." His gaze stayed on the circlet. She had a little trouble breathing when he was studying her with that weird detachment that wasn't detached at all. Like being surrounded by a ring of fire while a sex demon stood just on the outside, considering his plans for her. "Chris found something for you," he added absently.
She saw a sparkle before Chris closed his fingers over the bauble. "No. It's nothing."
"What do you have?"
He shook his head, but she turned toward him, her shoulder pressing into Geoff's chest so she could lean there. Between them like this, she could feel their merged heat on her skin and was glad neither moved back. Capturing Chris's hand, she pried open his fingers. If he'd really not wanted her to see it he could have simply held it over her head or retreated, but he let her see. Her heart tilted. "It's lovely."
It was a ring, the design a little cat whose twirling whiskers and tail made up the silver wire band. The eyes winked with rhinestones like her pewter bear navel jewelry.
"You're always talking about getting a cat," Chris said.
"Hmm." Geoff's eyes twinkled as he drew their attention to the designer tag. "My Sweet Pussy Designs."
Sam giggled. "Well, it's appropriate." She stuck out her hand. "Will you put it on me, Chris?"
Chris slipped it on her ring finger. It was too big for that, so he switched it to her middle finger and she flexed her hand in the grip of his, letting the sparkling eyes catch the light. "I love it. And this I can probably afford."
Chris slid his hands into his jeans pockets. Today he'd worn one of his few pairs, the fabric dark blue and snug in the right way. "I'm buying it for you, so yeah."
From the beginning, they'd agreed that everyone would pay their fair share of everything. She'd insisted, already feeling the two men were doing more than their part, giving her a safe place to live. When they'd come to Charlotte, her resolve to enforce that policy was even more emphatic, because having to find a place with private spaces for three single adults meant they had to have a three-bedroom place instead of two, a considerable jump in rent rates.
Chris had chivalrously told her he was the one who'd tipped up the rent, because he'd wanted a rental house with a yard. Geoff had suggested in that case they could have bought a big doghouse and a hammock for Chris and stayed with a two-bedroom.
Birthdays and Christmas gifts had a set budget. Over time, as her salary increased and Geoff paid off more of his loans, she knew they could splurge on bigger gifts, but she liked keeping it within a range. The ceiling on what they could spend meant creativity, not ostentation, drove the purchase decisions.
This wasn't Christmas or a birthday. It was a special occasion, for certain, but she didn't know if she wanted to view it that way, because that might mean treating it like a holiday, here then gone for another year. But as she parted her lips to speak, Chris closed his hand over hers. "I'm buying it. No arguments, Sam. This doesn't fall under the budget stuff."
It was a prime example of what she'd been trying to puzzle out in her mind earlier, how to explain what each man did and how he did it to incite this sudden stillness in her. A stillness that focused all her attention on him, on what he wanted or needed. It was as if there was a crackling energy between her and the man speaking that held her entranced, made her feel wild and reckless and docile and quiet, all at the same time.
"Okay," she said, and realized her voice had cracked. She cleared her throat, but they weren't done pushing her off balance. Geoff took her other hand.
"What did you mean, Sam? About the name of the company being appropriate?"
This was why she shouldn't say the first thing that popped in her head. She didn't usually, not around anyone else other than these two. Color rose in her cheeks. "Um . . . it didn't mean . . . I wasn't thinking. It was silly. Nothing."
"She's such an awful liar," Chris observed.
"The worst," Geoff agreed. "Spit it out. You're only going to be more embarrassed if you wait until Madison comes back and you have to say it in front of her."
"You wouldn't . . ." She trailed off at his arched brow and piercing look. He surely would. He'd enjoyed her initial discomfiture when he'd brought the vibrator into the bathroom. She'd responded enough to that that she knew certain types of erotic humiliation pushed some of her own buttons. Proof of how much she'd be willing to submit to him, given time and trust. Scary but titillating.
"Because My Sweet Pussy . . . well, I'm yours. Both of yours. Including that part of me." She was going to turn scarlet and match the lace-trimmed teddy she saw hanging on a rack behind them.
Geoff leaned in, brushed his lips across her cheek and spoke against it. "So you're telling us your cunt belongs to us both. No one else? Not John Howard, or Mark in Records?"
Chris's nostrils flared, his eyes getting a caveman glint in them that should dismay her, not thrill her like she'd been handed a lit sparkler at a July Fourth celebration. "Who the hell is Mark in Records?"
"No one. And yes," she said hastily. "To no one else."
Geoff had implied part of today's outing was going to be about pulling back, talking things out. Maybe they shouldn't have scheduled a stop at Naughty Bits first, because Sam was having a hard time imagining that she could settle down and have a rational conversation after they'd stirred her up like this.
Geoff traced his finger along the collar, then tugged on it again, harder this time, so he pulled her a step toward him, just as she'd imagined. She put her hand out for balance and Chris captured it, so they were holding her between them. Geoff's eyes became a deeper, richer green and gold. Though he did it reluctantly, he removed the collar, putting it back on the counter for Madison to replace when she returned from her current task, which appeared to be straightening one of the toy displays. He kept one hand on the juncture between Sam's shoulder and neck, though, running his thumb between her collarbone and throat, pressing against the gentle beat there.
"Chris saw some things he liked in the lingerie section," he said. "Would you like to see?"
"Yes." Her voice sounded breathy.
As Chris drew her toward the wall, they had to pass the rounders of role playing costumes. When Geoff fingered one that looked like a harem girl outfit, Sam slanted a smile his way. "Did you have a favorite teenage fantasy?"
"Scarlett O'Hara. And pretty much any of the old movies where the heroine got spanked. There were a lot."
"His mom got him hooked on movies pre-1960s," Chris said, with a smile. "I went for the Sports Illustrated bikini issue and Victoria's Secret catalog choices. The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Never has been a better cheerleader outfit than that one. Oh, and Trinity in The Matrix. That latex she wore, her double firearm skills . . ."
"In short, you wouldn't have wanted to put a black light in his bedroom as a teenager."
"I think you could say that about any teenage boy." She gave Geoff a quizzical look. "Rhett never spanked Scarlett."
"No, but he really wanted to. I kept hoping he would. Might have solved a lot of issues for them."
As she was chuckling, Chris drew her to a wall display and showed her a bra-and-panty set of sheer black lace with tiny blue forget-me-not flowers at the joining point of the straps. The panties were low-rise and also sheer black.
Geoff shifted behind her, putting both hands on her shoulders, continuing his caresses. With the weight of his hands taking its place, the collar felt like it was still there.
"I like this, too." Chris pointed to a silver-colored bra where the cups had only a two-inch-wide satin cup above the underwiring, the garment intended to lift the breasts but not cover the nipples. The matching underwear was merely a latex waistband with lace strips dangling from the sides. The strips tied around the thighs, forming the "legs" of the panties, if they could be called that. A fringe of beads ran along the band, longer in the front and sculpted so they fell in a point that would stop above the bare sex. The tag showed a sexy blond model wearing it. The outfit would make every inch of her accessible to a lover, without having to remove a bit of the provocative outfit.
"Geoff?" Chris cocked his head.
"Can't wait to fuck her wearing that," Geoff observed, hands sliding around her waist, holding her against him. "I'll bet when she walks in it the beads tease her clit. I like that silver-gray corset and thong over there as well." He bent, kissed her throat. "Chris would like lacing you in a corset, Sam. Cinch you up tight
in it."
Sam wondered if she should remind them they were in a public place. She didn't want to, though. Geoff gripped her jaw, turning her head to press her cheek to his shoulder so he could bite her neck where Chris had left his mark. Geoff didn't do it as aggressively, but the intent was in the forceful clamp of his jaw, as well as what he whispered in her ear.
"When we're alone again, I'll put the kind of mark Chris left on your neck on your ass, Sam. I like biting you."
He pulled back, though he kept his hold on her until he was sure she was steady. She was grateful for the consideration and less self-conscious than she'd expected. While some of it could be their surroundings, an erotica shop instead of the local Walmart, she didn't want to mask how much they affected her. She had no desire to play those kinds of games. Not with them.
"I'm going to go get a few things from the Dungeon Room." Geoff's smile was pure sin. Then he was gone, leaving her in Chris's care. Chris ran a hand down her back.
"What size would you wear in these things?"
She picked them out for him, but she wasn't sure about the corset, so she turned to find Madison. The shopkeeper was sitting on her high stool at the cash register counter, waving an elegant silk fan in front of her in a butterfly-like way so her hair moved in a gentle rhythm against her amused face. Sam bit back a smile. Yeah, she guessed they had been getting a little combustible. It made her like Madison all the more that the woman hadn't done a thing to defuse the situation, but instead had stayed quiet as a mouse to encourage it.
"Um, we're not sure about the corset sizes."
Madison set the fan aside and grabbed her measuring tape. "I can help with that. Even if you know your clothing sizes, it's better to measure to be sure the style corset you're getting is the best one for your body shape."
From pleasant voyeur to efficient shopkeeper in a blink. Sam was thinking about putting her on her Christmas card list.
"Hey, Madison?" Troy, the sandy-haired twentysomething who worked next door at the hardware store and looked like he could model for swimwear ads, poked his head out of the back storeroom. "I'm doing a sandwich run. Logan asked if you want your usual."