The Satin Sash

  “Suck me,” he whispered. “Take me in your mouth and eat me like there’s no tomorrow.”

  She drew his dick up from his stomach and her mouth enveloped him fully at the tip, her lips sliding down. He stretched his arms on the couch back, bracing himself with his hands.

  “God.” He bucked up, and a shuddering breath tore out of him. He pumped up again, and she moved her head down, her tongue flat under him. Delicious.

  They established a rhythm that gradually increased in speed. He groaned through a strained throat, blind, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. His every cell thrilled, his penis an oversized stick gliding in her silky, wet mouth.

  “Ride me.”

  The sound she made was muffled by the engorged width of his flesh. She let it slip out of her mouth and rubbed her face against him, nuzzling his balls, his penis. Her words quivered against him. “I love you.”

  He let his eyes drift shut, tightly shut. Maybe he hadn’t really heard it before. Or maybe he hadn’t heard it in a while. Maybe he just needed to hear it more than he needed air. Maybe that’s why his chest throbbed. Why it cramped and released at just hearing it. Maybe that’s why he needed to hear it again.

  Almost violently, he grabbed her hair and lifted her face up, his words exploding out of him and into her moist mouth. “I adore you. Adore you. I love you passionately. Completely. With all my heart and my soul.”

  Trails of wet tears met his palms on her jaw, and as though to hide them, she buried her face in his neck as she took his penis inside her. She clutched at his shoulders and he wrapped his arms around her, groaning when they were one. Why was she crying? Why was she crying?

  For Heath. He knew it was Heath. He nudged her face to the side and rubbed his lips over the tears, salty on his tongue. “I’m sorry I don’t say it.” He wiped the drops with his hands, his mouth. “You make me weak, and I fear that you can hurt me. But you like hearing it, don’t you?” She choked on a little sound. Oh yes, she did love it, she wanted it. “I love you—god, you know I do.”

  She clutched his face, kissing him passionately, the taste of tears on her lips. “You won’t stop loving me?”

  “Never.”

  “Ever?”

  “Toni.” He shifted her, still inside her as he lay her down the length of the couch and made love to her so, so softly. Dying a little. Dying a little more. Tracing her collarbone with his nose. Tracing her cheek. Inhaling her. “You’re like my skin—how could I feel without it? Like my blood—what would my heart pump without my blood?”

  And she cried more. And Grey didn’t know what to do but move. Fold her legs around him and move. And move and move and forget.And tell her how good she was. How sweet. How warm he felt inside her. How she was his home, his heart, his everything living. Until she whimpered. And she forgot Heath, too. And she came. And Grey came. And there was no one else coming but them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mr. Carstairs wanted his money back. He did not like Toni’s design.

  “He’s right—it sucks.” Toni grimaced, dropping the proposal atop the rest of her clutter. Dinner had been awful. She had never been so unprepared and unfocused. She braced her hands on the edge of her desk and tried to calm down, gather her thoughts.

  From his position lounging on the couch, Grey scrutinized her in silence. She sensed him waiting for her to offer more, and she rubbed the tense muscles at the back of her neck and sighed.

  “I just can’t understand why I can’t come up with anything original. It’s like my muse completely dried up. Now I have no pending clients, and of the appointments I rescheduled, two of them canceled. I’m going nowhere with the Viscevis logo, either! If I hadn’t been gallivanting around Mexico so irresponsibly . . .” She went quiet, flipped open her proposal, and fingered the design.

  “So how is Heath?” The casualness she tried to inject in her tone was not evident when the words came out a little high-pitched.

  A long, dreadful silence followed before Grey answered. “He’s fine.”

  Fine. Of course. He was fine.Why wouldn’t he be? He was big and dark and determined....

  She needed to stop thinking of Grey and Heath and Mexico. She needed to reclaim her life, her work, to land more business.

  The Viscevis logo. It would be such a coup. She shuffled a pile of papers until she came across the two logos. One a sleek cylinder inside a vine forming a circle, the other a solid gray ball in motion. How to integrate the two . . . ?

  She sighed within minutes. “I’ll never do this.”

  Grey was on his way to her when she pivoted around. He framed her cheeks in his hands and touched his nose to her forehead, then kissed her so gently she sighed.“It’s all in here. In this brilliant brain of yours. All you have to do is find it.”

  “It’s not that easy. . . .” she protested. Things weren’t always so simple. Not all designs could merge.

  When he captured her lips with his, she whispered his name in a reverent breath, allowing him access to every recess and nook of her mouth.

  “I didn’t say it was easy, sweetheart. But I do know my Toni can do that and more.”

  After checking in at the hotel, Heath rode out to see the land that had caught Grey’s eye. A rolling hill with a partial view of the English Bay and the imposing Art Deco-style Burrard Street Bridge. Lush and green, it was an impressive place, from any standpoint.

  Grey wanted to build a hotel here. The wider, sweeping hill next to it offered more. A view of the entire city skyline. But it wasn’t for sale, of course. The most beautiful never is. The most beautiful is taken. Always taken.

  After a leisurely walk around, smelling the dampened earth and maple, lost in his thoughts, Heath got in a cab to go to their construction site at a residential area in Cole Harbor. He’d been gazing out the window for what felt like hours when he spotted her.

  She stood with a group of women at a corner—women dressed to entice a man; women ready, it seemed, to get down to the dirty. She was dressed like a nurse. A nurse. Someone to lick his wounds. Someone that wasn’t her.

  Heath halted the car, popped his head out the open door. “Get in.”

  All heads swiveled in his direction, and she stepped away from the group and righted her little white hat, her heels tapping on the sidewalk. “Can you afford me?”

  “I said get in.”

  Raven-haired and willowy, she shouted something at the “girls” and slid into the cab. She pulled a piece of gum out of her mouth and jammed it into the ashtray, rolled out a couple of sexy words to him, finishing with the word lover. She had glossy red lips and vivid red nails to match the tiny cross on the breast of her dress.

  She would do. Anyone would do.

  He didn’t speak to her as he let her into his hotel room. She had been talking during the ride, but he hadn’t listened to a word. His eyes were blurry. They stung. His throat felt cramped and his heart numb.

  A fuck. That was all he was. A fuck. Grey held her, stroked her, supported her. He bought her earrings. He washed her hair. Heath just fucked her.

  I want to be Grey. Dear god, I want to.

  The nurse kicked her heels off and he felt her arms go around his neck. “What’s it gonna be, tough guy?”

  Her fingers were fiddling with his hair, and it bothered him. Pulling them back, he leaned on the door, swallowing back the bile as he unfastened his jeans. “Blow it, fuck it, or play with it. Just do me.”

  Helping him slide his jeans partway down, she weighed his newly bared testicles, fondled his dick. “Oooh, you’re big. Try to get a little hard for me, huh, big guy?”

  Heath clamped his eyes shut when he felt the stinging moisture there. Good god, what was this? The pills.The plane. Leaving her.

  “I’m not feeling well,” he said thickly.

  “Oh, honey. Sweetie. Let Nurse Tina help you. I’ll make you hot for me.What do you like? Let’s get these off you first.”

  Her hands got busy and he let her strip him fully of hi
s shoes, his jeans, his socks. Her hand moved to stroke at his penis, trying to work it up. He felt her lips graze the tip.

  With his head back against the wall, he tried to suck air into his lungs, feeling suffocated. He tried to picture this woman’s breasts. Her red mouth around his cock. Something to entice him, arouse him.

  His cock was a limp, heavy weight in the nurse’s hands. What have you done to me, Antonia?

  He cursed as he grabbed her cap and a handful of hair, noting that it was dry and stiff, unlike Toni’s virgin tresses. “Don’t,” he said and hauled her up.

  “Let me try a bit—”

  “Just don’t. Here. I’m sorry.” He bent to his jeans and slipped several large bills into her hand. “Go.”

  “We could try something—”

  “Go!”

  She fumbled with the door, and she was gone. A woman he could have had, even if paid for, even if only for an hour. Gone. He gritted his teeth. “Fucking fool!”

  He’d been curious? He’d wondered what it felt like to care for someone? He was an idiot. Caring was not for him. He had stopped caring years ago, years ago, and now he remembered why. Nobody wanted him to give a shit.

  Storming to the tiny closet, he jerked off his shirt and rummaged through his suitcase for his boxers.

  And saw a flash of shimmering red among his jeans.

  The sash.

  His heart leapt up to his throat. He fished it out from the bottom and touched the satin with his fingers. His body responded to its texture, its scent, his cock distending, stretching until it was jutting out of his body in a painful lance. He brought it to the bed and lay on his side as he spread it across the center of his palm, folding it around himself. He gave an upward stroke, the silk gliding, gliding around him. He tightened his fist and groaned.

  And he saw the rosy nipples he’d suckled raw. The light little hands feathering across his body. Green eyes, forest dark with passion. Toni. He tried the word out loud, a low, guttural murmur. “Toni.” His mouth made love to it, and he turned his head to the coverlet and muffled his next words. “Cat . . . oh, kitten, this is me making love to you.This is me loving you.” And he rocked his hips and pulled his heart out.

  By the time Louisa Fairchild arrived at the quaint café only blocks away from the RS Corporation building, Toni waited for her by a quiet corner table at the far end. She had been fidgeting with her napkin and utensils, and the relief she felt when she spotted her friend was immediate.

  She’d had nonstop anxiety for a week. The feeling wouldn’t leave her, not for a second. It was a heaviness. An anxiousness. Like when she had something to do but couldn’t remember what it was. Like when she and Grey fought. It was there, always. This thought of Heath. This wondering about Heath. This wish that the weekend had never happened, and another that it would have never stopped.

  Her smile spread as she watched the slim, sexy blonde slide into the seat across from hers. A friendly face. A familiar face. A female face. God, she was happy to see her.

  “Corporate life suits you, Louisa,”Toni said teasingly.

  Louisa’s blond hair tumbled lustrously behind her back, and she was dressed as sexily as if she were going out to a nightclub. Toni felt a momentary pang of jealousy at the thought of Grey seeing her every day, especially when Toni sometimes waved him off to work in her pajamas, but she quickly dismissed her concern when her friend laughed. Like they used to laugh in college.

  “I’m still such a nervous wreck, but getting better.” Louisa smoothed her napkin on her lap and, remembering to do the same, Toni followed suit.

  “How’s Grey treating you?” Toni asked her. “Not too bad, I hope.”

  Louisa lifted her gaze, startled.“Oh, no, he’s . . .” Her gaze drifted to the window as though a passerby had caught her eye. “Grey’s wonderful.”

  Dreamily,Toni propped her chin on her linked hands.“I’m glad. He’s really a softie, isn’t he?”

  The moment she spoke the words, she had an image of Grey cooing at her, touching her, and what went soft was her own body.

  “Soft?” Louisa said testily. “Not in appearance or personality. Not with me, I mean.”

  Toni smiled.Yes, of course. Soft was the last word you’d use to describe him. Greek god, more likely. Sex with Midas eyes. The only thing soft in relation to Grey Richards was the way Toni felt on the inside when he looked at her. And the way he was when he coddled her. And the way he—

  “Well! What are we having?” Louisa surveyed the offerings on the menu. Toni already knew what she would order—the Caesar salad and the chicken parmigiana—but she waited until Louisa finished her perusal and set the menu aside.

  “So,” Louisa said. “How was Cabo?”

  “Fabulous.We went to a Mexican wedding. It was so lively and interesting. I wore my first mariachi hat, too. Grey said it was wonderful, but Heath said it was ridiculous.”

  The waitress interrupted to inform them of the daily specials, and while Louisa inquired about the soup of the day, Toni warred between spilling her guts and attempting to have a normal meal.

  Once the waitress jotted down their food orders and left, Louisa fished into the bread basket the waitress had left behind. “So you mentioned Heath.You mean Heath Solis, the—”

  “Grey’s partner, yes.”When Louisa made a face,Toni was compelled to ask, “You’ve met him?”

  She munched with a thoughtful face. “Once at the office, yes. He’s rude. Gorgeous and rude.”

  “Oh, really? Why?”

  “He’s just rude. Everyone says so at the office. He gives me the creeps.”

  Heath smiling . . . No. I liked your big scared eyes when you said haunting. Heath encouraging . . . Cluck to it, beautiful. Send it a kiss. You’re the boss here. Ask it to trot for you. . . .

  Her stomach vaulted, and she dropped her face to hide the color flaming in her cheeks. Absently, she circled a pattern on the linen with the tip of one finger. “What else do they say about him?”

  “Well.” Louisa took a sip of water. “That he’s Grey’s attack dog. One of the funny guys calls him the Mastiff. They say he growls like one, too. That he sniffs out lots for Grey, does all the dirty work, that sort of thing.”

  “A dog?” Toni slumped back in her seat, flabbergasted. “That isn’t a nice thing to say about someone.”

  I’m not your Mr. Loyal Dog of the Year right over there....

  The thought of her speaking those words made her furious at herself, furious at these people.

  “Hey, I’m just passing it on. I don’t know the guy,” Louisa said defensively.

  Toni had a staggering urge to punch these people. No wonder Heath was always on the defensive. Did anyone want him close? He was obviously intimidating to men, and maybe a little too much man for some women. But if only one would take a good look up close and open her heart to him, she was sure Heath Solis was a man to love a woman forever.

  He would love so surely and determinedly, steadfastly . . .

  Why couldn’t it be her?

  Frowning at the despairing turn her thoughts had taken, she asked, “Louisa, does Grey know that’s what these people call Heath?”

  “Of course not, no!” Diving across the table, Louisa clenched Toni’s hand between hers. “You aren’t going to tell him, are you?”

  Worry shone bright in her friend’s eyes, and without hesitation Toni turned her hand and squeezed in reassurance. “I won’t. But I don’t think he’d appreciate it. Much less Heath.”

  “So how do you know him?” Not entirely concealing her curiosity, Louisa went back to the rolls, spreading butter on a piece.

  Memories threatened to surface, and Toni fought to keep them inside, to push Heath away. But it felt like he was knocking from inside her, living in her, breathing in her. “I just told you he said my hat is ridiculous,” she said, as if that explained it all. Why she couldn’t sleep.Why she and Grey did not speak of him.Why he had become their ghost.

  “But he’s never in
the city, as far as I know. Except that once when he stopped by the office a few weeks ago. Some of the workers didn’t even know what he looked like!”

  “I met him a few weeks ago, too,” Toni admitted, and gathered her breath. “He was with us the whole weekend in Cabo, actually. Remember arranging his schedule?”

  “Vaguely, yes.”

  “Well, he’s not a dog,” she defended, still smarting over it. “He’s . . . Heath is . . .” How to explain Heath to someone? To anyone. He was a mystery, a beautiful, damaged box with all kinds of novelties and goodies inside.“He’s just as wonderful as Grey is,” she admitted. “Different, but wonderful. Rough on the edges. A little bad.” And fun and rebellious and enchanting.

  Alarm skated through Louisa’s eyes. “Toni . . . don’t tell me—”

  “We had sex, all right! We had a threesome.”

  If a waitress had come by and dropped a tray fully loaded with icy beverages, she doubted Louisa would have been more paralyzed. The shock and horror on her friend’s face made Toni sigh in despair. She shouldn’t have spoken about this to her.Threesomes were not discussed with regular people, period. “I’m sorry to dump it on you like this. I needed to talk to someone.”

  “What do—exactly what did you do? What do you mean, a threesome?” Louisa’s color had risen, and her voice was an octave shy of a shriek.

  “The three of us had sex.” She said it simply, matter-of-f actly, as she figured one should deal with these situations once they were done.As if they happened every day.Yes, yes, yes. That was her problem. She should just say it, deal with it, and let it go. “There!” She impulsively slammed a hand down in mock celebration. “I’ve said it, I feel great, and I really needed to get that off my chest.”

  “And whose idea was it? I can’t imagine Grey would be so kinky. He’s so . . . he’s so . . . reserved.”

  “On the outside. And it was our idea.”Toni refused to look directly into Louisa’s stunned blue gaze as she dismally added,“Sometimes I wish we could do it again and again, forever and ever.”