Mind (Naughty Wishes #3) by Joey W. Hill Page A

crap. People who weren’t anything more than a one-night stand. That was the problem. He couldn’t do it here.
    “Is this some kind of Dom/sub bullshit?” Chris asked. He didn’t sound angry, but he was getting close.
    Geoff bit back the nasty reply that sprang to his lips. He could say yes, because maybe a small part of it was. But lying would probably be worse than the truth. Probably.
    “This is enough for now,” Geoff said. He wasn’t punishing anyone, wasn’t trying to be a dick, though he was probably accomplishing both. “We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get started on that project we were going to build for Sam.”
    “Geoff.” Chris got up off the bed, but Geoff stepped back, raising a hand. He met Chris’s eyes, and whatever Chris saw stilled him. Anger gave way to compassion in Chris’s face as he obviously put two and two together. Damn it, there were times Chris’s intuition was a pain in the ass. Chagrin would really piss Geoff off and make him lash out. Which would be the entirely wrong tactic, since the one he despised the most at the moment wasn’t Chris. Not even close.
    “No,” he said firmly. “Don’t do that, Chris. You feel what you feel.”
Or don’t feel, rather.
“No apologies. Leave it for now.”
    Thank God, Chris’s phone began to ring, and it was Sam. Chris’s ringtone for her was “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars, which had made her smile from ear to ear when he’d played it for her. He used the Darth Vader theme for Geoff. Smartass.
    Scooping the phone off the floor where he’d knocked it when his head had hit the crate, Geoff tossed it onto Chris’s bed. “Tell her to call me after she talks to you,” he said casually. “If she wants to talk to both of us. I’m headed to my room. See you in the morning.”
    * * *
    Chris stared after him as Geoff left him standing naked and slack-jawed in the middle of the room. Damn it all to hell andback. The guy thought he was playing it all casual and relaxed, but Chris had seen more relaxed-looking telephone poles. His stiff back and set shoulders were the last Chris saw of him before he disappeared into his room.
    “See you in the morning, my ass,” he muttered. Chris snatched up his shorts. As Bruno’s song continued to play, he thought about not answering, about going after Geoff and making it right, but charging into that without thinking it through was a great way to disturb a nest of snakes.
    Dissatisfied regardless, he put the phone to his ear and tried to clear his head. The climax had been over-the-top, but still somehow lacking. He’d fucked it up, yeah. No doubt on that. All of the feelings had swamped him, threatening to cut him adrift. When Geoff demanded he admit he’d always wanted this, Chris hadn’t been ready to completely let go of the shore. Yet Geoff had pulled back when he couldn’t have everything he wanted all at once. So some of that blame had to be on him.
    “Chris? Are you there?”
    “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry about that.”
    “No, I’m sorry. I did try Geoff’s first, because I know he’s more of the night owl, but he didn’t answer. Since that meant the universe is ending or he’s dead, I thought I’d better wake you up and see which one is happening.”
    “I wasn’t asleep, promise. And you know he’d answer even if the universe were ending. But no, he’s not dead.”
    “Good.” She paused. “Okay, what’s going on?”
    Um . . . let’s see. Geoff fucked me and took off.
It wasn’t like Chris had wanted pillow talk or cuddling, right? Actually, that would have been kind of nice. At least share a postcoital beer. But that wasn’t the problem.
    “You and Geoff haven’t been fighting, have you? Were any bones broken? Blood spilled?”
    “Not much.” He assumed Geoff didn’t have a life-threatening skull fracture, though his head had hit the corner of the crate pretty hard. “He bumped his head just now and I have a busted lip from earlier