The Satin Sash

Music blasted within the four walls of the nightclub. Lounging back on a red velvet upholstered booth, the three of them sat facing the dancing crowd, which consisted mostly of tourists—young and in the mood to party.

  Grey drank wine, Toni Baileys, Heath beer. Grey had an arm around her shoulder, his wine idle in his hand, while Toni’s left hand rested firmly on Heath’s thigh.

  Heath felt restless.

  Like when he was about to take a flight, he wanted to numb his senses, to not hear or feel or think. It was the people.The noise. It was Toni, with a drop of perspiration trickling into her cleavage, with that skintight dress the color of whipped cream, with her scent suffusing his nostrils.

  She was horny. And a little drunk. He could tell by the wanton drape of her body against Grey, the way she put her mouth up to his lips, the way she let him kiss and kiss and kiss her. Fuck, he was tonguing her so hard. Heath shifted on his seat. His lap was hurting, his balls drawn up tight enough to choke him. Every inch of his cock was pulsating. Anxiety ate at him. He had the horrible sensation of wanting to gorge on her, like a man about to move to the desert and who desperately needed to pack himself with food. He did not want to be in a club; he wanted to fuck her. No.That wasn’t entirely true.What he most wanted was to kiss her.

  She rolled her head and gazed at Heath with half-mast, hazy green eyes. That sultry gaze dropped to his lips, and he could not tear his eyes off her mouth, enlarged and wet from Grey’s kiss. An invitation to kiss her beckoned to him as she shifted her torso discreetly toward him.

  His tongue felt anxious. He wanted to lick. Go searching deep into her mouth. Fuck her mouth with his. She’d taste milky, of Baileys. He’d never been one for kissing, but it was all he could think about now.What she offered were kisses he could not take. So when he went back to his beer, his eyes on a young blonde dancing nearby, Grey reached out and grabbed her back to him and took more of those kisses.

  He made love to her tongue. Their mouths opened wide in a lazy tangle. Grey knew and Heath knew that Toni wore no panties tonight, and by god, through the smoke, booze, and vodka, Heath could smell her. Grey fucked her mouth and his nostrils, too, flared as though he wanted no breath that didn’t smell of creamy wet Toni.

  Both their drinks were forgotten on the table as Toni massaged Grey’s chest with her palms, his hands on both sides of her head, pinning her for his onslaught. Heath gazed out at the crowd, his gut twisting painfully inside him; then his eyes went back to them again.

  He saw Grey’s groin, a mountain of need against his trousers, and Heath knew he was going to come just from kissing her. His hips made the slightest, barely perceptible swivel, and his fingers moved up and down the back of her head as they slanted their heads, their mouths red and sloppy with saliva.

  He’d never find a woman, and he’d thought Grey never would, either.They were each impaired in their own way, and yet . . .

  Heath had been wrong. Grey had found Toni, and Heath would never have that kind of pure, sweet, beautiful love with her. Face it: you don’t inspire love. Across the smoky room, a group of women stared. They scanned the three of them—Heath,Toni, Grey—and their attention returned to Heath.They gauged him as the third. Grey and Toni the couple, Heath the third wheel looking for a mate.

  He did not want to be the third.

  He caught the sight of Grey coming, his fingers flexing on the back of her head, hands tensing into fists. His body shuddered, and a wetness seeped through the fabric of his slacks.

  No kissing, damn him. Heath would give anything to feel the heat of Toni’s lips. Take something sweet from her, not wicked or dirty or blatantly sexual—just a kiss.

  “Darling.” Grey chuckled as they drew apart, smiling down at her as she lifted her head to his.

  She caressed his jaw with those little magic fingers, speaking huskily to him so that Heath barely overheard. “I love it when you do that, let go with me like that.”

  To her words, Grey just said,“Hmm,” and kissed her lingeringly, and she whispered, “I love you.”

  Heath blocked their conversation, took his eyes to the dance floor and lifted his beer to his mouth. He took a long swig. Set the glass down and moved his thumbs up and down. Drummed the fingers of one hand on the table.

  Grey said something about having to go clean up, and within seconds he disappeared into the crowd.

  Toni straightened in her seat, and an awkward silence settled in the booth. Her eyes landed on Heath’s hands cradling his beer. She wanted them on her. She wanted to make out with and French-kiss Heath, too.

  He knew it, felt her wanting him. His heart thundered with this knowledge, louder than the music, ramming in fast, vigorous beats against his ribs.

  “You’re so quiet tonight.” A cool hand was on his cheek, turning him. “Are you all right?” Green eyes studied him.

  “Yeah.”

  She didn’t buy it and scrutinized him for a moment more, but then she smiled. She was so sweet, so female and caring.“I thought we were going to dance?”

  Dance with her. Like they danced in the buff and in bed.Touch her without Grey there. Want her more, more than yesterday, more than before. Shit.

  When they got home . . . he was going to tear off her dress . . . he was going to unleash this beast and he was going pour all this need and jealousy into her....

  “I don’t like that song,” he bluntly stated.

  He signaled to a waiter for another beer and asked for her Baileys to be refilled.The smoke stung his eyes, tickled his nostrils.And through it all he could still smell her pussy under her dress. A pussy that was wet for Grey, wet for Heath, just plain wet for cock.

  He cupped her bare knee and tried feeling his way up that toned, creamy leg, but Toni began flirting, evading, clamping her hand on his wrist to stop him. Her teeth shone white behind her smile. “Where do you think you’re going, Señor Heathcliff?”

  “Let me touch your pussy.”

  “But that’s the game. You know I’m wet under my dress, but you don’t touch until we get home.”

  “It’s torture for me.” Tomorrow I can’t see you or feel you, and I can’t goddamned kiss you.

  He was not in the mood to be played. He tried again, inching three determined fingers under her skirt, consumed by a wildness to touch her. “I need pussy and I need it now.”

  “Heathcliff, behave!” she chastised, extracting his hand with force before she rubbed her palms up his chest and whispered,“We can kiss, Heath.” She placed those lips of hers right within an inch of his. “Kiss me and I’ll make you come like Grey, I promise.” He could smell sweetness and alcohol on her breath, and he didn’t know how he could stand not taking that mouth. He yanked his head away, assessed the crowd with a disinterested glance, and then noticed a pretty brunet coming over.

  “¿Quieres bailar?”

  Dance? Fuck. Yes. Dance with another woman, one who did not belong to someone else. Heath could kiss her, slam her against the wall, and fuck until his dick bled. This was Heath Solis underneath it all—underneath the face and the eyes and the many kinds of smiles. He was as unstable as he’d ever remembered being. He was that angry, rebellious kid who’d told the world to go screw itself.

  Except he did not want to ditch Cabo, or Toni, even when leaving was all he knew how to do.

  And yet nobody would want him to stay.

  Toni watched him wide-eyed, lips parted in surprise as though she couldn’t believe this girl had had the nerve to ask him to dance. But Toni had Grey. And her little game. And Heath needed something Toni could not give him. He wanted her, damn her. More of her, all of her. He needed her out of his freaking system!

  Maybe his ploy would not work. Maybe he would make out with this pretty olive-skinned stranger and still want Toni, still have this hard-on, this perennial ache just for her. Maybe he would come back and smash Toni on the table and kiss her right in front of Grey and to hell with his word and Grey’s fucking rules and to hell with everything. Maybe rather than finger-
fuck this brunet’s little pussy on the dance floor, he could have hot, painful hate sex with Toni. And he would tell her, in excruciating detail, how he would fuck a million pussies after hers. He would tell her how other women had meant more and how many times he’d kissed their mouths. He would tell her what a decent screw she’d been, and hasta la vista, baby. He wanted to hate her.

  So Heath wiped his hands on his jeans, set his drink down and rose. And he said—“Let’s dance.”

  Excuse me?

  Toni blinked twice.With disbelieving eyes, she watched Heath’s retreating back as he blended into the lively crowd, a big, dark, handsome thing, while the brunet with him began jumping up and down only inches away, waving her tits, dancing her heart out.The muscles of Toni’s stomach gripped.

  “Heath’s dancing,” she whispered to no one in particular. He was dancing, and it wasn’t with her. His hands were grasping the woman’s hips, his eyes were . . . they were taking in the sight of her jiggling breasts and he was . . . smiling down at her, and damn it, it mattered. Her eyes stung.All she could think of, with an unexpected hurt and confusion, was—

  Why didn’t he want to dance with me?

  The warm spot where he had been sitting felt vacant. Like a black hole in the universe. And now his huge hands were almost on that woman’s butt. He towered above her, inches taller than the entire crowd.There was just no way Toni couldn’t look at him. She gritted her teeth as anger surged through her.

  He was not hers. Somewhere in these marvelous, decadent days, she had started to think of Heath as hers. Hers and Grey’s. Theirs. A part of them.The fact that she had no right to feel this blinding, staggering wave of jealousy did not help to diminish it at all.

  They danced one full song—the longest song in worldwide history. Toni didn’t so much as twitch in her seat; she was too angered and appalled to do anything but stare. In her mind, she pictured doing violent things she’d never dreamed of doing to both him and that . . . that twit, and then she felt childish and immature for having relished those images.

  Her frown was biting into her face by the time Heath returned. He plopped down beside her and took a long swig of his beer. For three seconds, neither spared the other a glance. He took a few breaths, and then just like that, moved his hand in her direction.

  She stiffened when he pawed her knee with one squeezing palm and brazenly made his way up her thigh.

  “Do I get pussy now?”

  She pursed her lips, grabbed his hand, and threw it back into his own lap. He grabbed her hand tightly and set it crudely on his fly, pressing it to the iron-hard bulge at his crotch.

  “Then grab that, will you?”

  Under her hand, he was a huge, tight, enormous bulge, and the thought of him aroused because he’d been dancing with that . . . that . . . bitch made her want to smash her Baileys into something. She closed her palm and squeezed into his groin hard, so hard she heard the air tear out of his lungs.“Go show it off to whoever gave it to you,” she snapped, yanking her hand back.

  He snatched her wrist and forcefully pushed her palm to his crotch again. “You. Gave it to me.”

  It was a struggle to remove her hand, but somehow she managed. “Your girlfriend might disagree,” she said tightly.

  “Girlfriend.” He engulfed her cheeks with his palms, his face a mask of pure black rage. “You’re the woman I’m fucking tonight. You’re the woman I fuck in my sleep.” He pressed her hand between his legs again, commanding, “Leave it there.”

  Through the denim, his wetness seeped into her skin.Toni was just as wet between her legs, and she was tense and angry and confused. He’d hurt her. How he had gotten to her enough to hurt her, she wasn’t sure. But he had. The turmoil raging through her was frightening. She wanted to ride him until they screamed, and by god, she wanted to smack him. Lust- filled anger had her digging the heel of her palm into the head of his cock so hard his hips rose from the seat cushion and his head fell back with a muttered curse.

  “Why didn’t you want to dance with me?” she demanded.

  He clutched her face almost violently and scraped her lips with his thumb, his expression vicious. “I’m in the mood to fuck you very hard tonight.” He showed his teeth in a wolfish snarl. “I’m in the mood to make you scream.”

  “And I’m in the mood not to fuck you at all!”

  He let go of her with a curse and stopped the first girl who passed, wrenching her down to the bulge on his lap. “You look good enough to eat,” he growled, and crushed her lips with his. He startled the woman, startled Toni as he gave the woman an angry, devouring kiss on the lips and set her on the table, turning her into a feast he gorged on. It was a kiss that must’ve hurt, in which Toni could see his tongue plunging, venturing deep. His mouth slanted, opened wide, the girl whimpering as she tunneled her fingers into his hair and seemed to wiggle against his body for more.Toni didn’t stay to see the rest.

  She wanted to throw up.

  Stumbling out of the booth, she dove across the crowd. Her vision was blurred as she shoved her way through the throng of people, her mind spinning with images, obscene images of that kiss, of Heath.

  She hated him. She hated his eyes and his smiles and all of Heath Solis. She hated that her eyes stung and tears of frustration threatened to spill. She went straight for the doors, unsteady on her blasted four-inch heels, until a hand on her arm seized her.

  “Where you going, pet?”

  “Home!”

  “Where’s Heath?”

  “Heath can go to hell!” She stormed outside with Grey following, a cool breeze blasting her face when she hit the sidewalk.

  “What did he do?” He whirled her around, his eyebrows drawn menacingly low. “What did he do to you,Toni?”

  “Apparently, Ms. Kearny here thinks I’m only good for seconds.”

  She bristled against the sound of his voice coming up behind her, near the bouncers by the entrance.

  “I didn’t know I was for her exclusive use this weekend,” Heath went on in a sneering voice she instantly hated as much as the rest of him.

  “Exclusive use!” she scoffed.

  With his usual grace and self-possession, Grey spoke to the valet and guided her forward. Seconds later, their driver pulled up with the limo. She wrestled her arm free. “He’s crass and embarrassing. He practically violated a poor girl on our table. Before she knew what hit her, she’d been ravaged by this . . . this . . .”

  “Bastard,” Heath said wryly.

  “Heath,” Grey warned.

  She gritted her teeth as the three of them got into the car. She’d hoped this evening would be special, something the three of them would remember as fun and sexy and cherish in their memories. What a nitwit! Romanticizing her dirty little ménage weekend with a perverted, horrible jerk like Heath.

  Sitting across the limo from her and Grey, Heath gazed out the window, his jaw flexing. Toni couldn’t believe she’d once thought nice things about him. She wanted to take her shoe off and fling it at him—and then at herself because it should not even matter!

  “She’s pissed because it wasn’t her I kissed,” Heath told Grey as the car lurched forward into the streets.

  “Hah! Like I’d want your tongue in my mouth.”

  “You’re dying for it.”

  “By all means, keep deluding yourself.”

  They fell silent, and Heath’s barely leashed fury was like a tangible force around him.Toni could feel it calling to hers, daring her to fight, inciting her to a death match.The shadows in the interior of the car flickered with passing lights as Toni directed her attention at Grey, who seemed to be assessing the situation.“He almost drew blood from that girl’s mouth—he kissed her like some demented wild man,” she told him.

  “Did he?”

  “Yes! She was just some stranger. I doubt he’d even remember her face if I showed her to him. He just grabbed the first thing that came strolling by. He’s not even selective.”

  Grey had been strokin
g her hand between both of his when he paused and without inflection said, “I asked Heath not to kiss you, Toni. If that’s what’s bothering you.”

  “Of course it’s not—what do you mean?”

  Grey’s words were so unexpected that for a moment she didn’t register them. She glanced from one man to the other, humiliation spreading through her. Her voice was full of indignation when the meaning sank in.“You mean he could do all sorts of dirty things to me, and the most basic—”

  “Yes,” Grey interrupted.

  “Why?”

  He wore that cautious, assessing look he got when she was starting to get pissed and he was determining what to do with her. “To keep it under control,” he said calmly, reaching for her hand.

  She was stupefied and folded her arm protectively around her chest to avoid contact. “What else did you give him—lines to rehearse?”

  Grey groaned.

  “What did you offer him—a medal for obedience? Instructions on how to fuck me like a robot?”

  “Work yourself into a fine temper, Toni, why don’t you?”

  “Oh, I am. I definitely am, Grey. Do I have your permission to do that, or will this display of emotion be too much for you to bear?”

  “You can do anything you want.You always do, and I sure as hell have never stopped you.”

  “Of course you haven’t. I’m not Mr. Loyal Dog of theYear right over there.”

  She watched Heath’s jaw bunch, his entire body coil as if to spring, and she was not yet satisfied. She didn’t recognize this person: a woman who wanted to tear her nails into him.The twisting sensation in her stomach seemed to intensify in the closed confines of the car, because she was acutely, angrily aware of him. He’d wanted to hurt her.The realization that he had done it on purpose only intensified the blow.

  “Well, Grey? Can I kiss her?” Heath asked without a hint of emotion, turning to meet her accusing gaze.

  Grey stared rigidly out the window, tapping a finger restlessly on his knee.Whatever he was thinking of, it did not seem pleasant, but Heath seemed to take his silence as a yes. He patted his lap, his voice deceptively serene considering the bright, eerie lights in his eyes.