The Satin Sash (17 page)

Her rocking motions, the slick coat of sweat on her body, her rosette clutching his thumb. Grey was dripping. His shaft jutted out of him, seeking her.

His hands skated around her waist to engulf her breasts, full and round and heavy, the nipples balled up tight and ready for his palms. He tweaked them between two fingers, felt them bead to hard little pearls.

She lowered herself to her elbows, the line of her back angled downward so that her delectable rear was in the air for Grey. Her widespread knees caused dents in the comforter.

Her head bobbed shakily up and down as she worked Heath’s erection, which glistened as it slipped in and out of her mouth. The man was smiling down at her, his eyes sparkling with lust. “I love your little tongue on me,” he said hoarsely, and his hand was motionless on the back of her head as he swiveled his hips to enjoy that tongue.

She trembled when Grey grabbed himself and caressed her body with the tip of his penis. Up the back of her thighs, around her pretty cheeks, lightly across the small of her back. He envisioned coating her with his seed, smearing it across her skin, flavoring her with him. He envisioned Heath with blood pouring down his nose, predicted the exact sound his knuckles would make crashing into the man’s jawbone. He envisioned those other thousand times he’d taken Toni, when every cry and moan and murmur had been just his.

Pushing the thoughts aside, he hunched down and began to masturbate her pussy, doing things to her clit that she liked. Pinch it a bit. Push it.Tweak and pull. Circle. Her scent permeated his lungs, invigorating as an aphrodisiac. He went into her slit with one finger and closed his eyes at what he found, her moistness trickling down his fingers. The tight clench of her pussy made his erection jerk against his abdomen.Then she whimpered, taking in two fingers, so damned wet and swollen he was sure she could take three.

“Like that?” he said, stabbing those two fingers deep enough to tear a sob from her. “Like cock?”

She humped his fingers as he screwed them in with leisurely but powerful strokes, her head held up high for Heath. Past her shoulders and her moving head, he could see as she bit at Heath’s balls, heard Heath curse as he grabbed his dick and stuck it into her mouth again, “Goddamn, you’re gorgeous like this. I feel your teeth behind your lips. I’m in love with that little tongue.”

Love . . . love . . .

It was Grey who should say this to her; it was
his
mind that screamed the thoughts of love, and
his
body that hurt containing it. . . .

Inwardly cursing, he lowered his head between her parted legs, pushed in a third finger with effort and sucked her wet nub into his mouth. She screamed, bucked, convulsed as she came with powerful contractions. He stoked her orgasm with his fingers and mouth, her tangy taste making him growl.

He came up panting.“Do it again for me.” He nudged her with his cock, one hand on the flat of her back, keeping her still for his entry as she continued to convulse.

He parted her with the head, stroked his cock along her inner walls, still wet from her orgasm—and from the way she whimpered at each in stroke, maybe a little too sensitive. “Make us come,” he rasped.

He watched himself slide into her, feasting on the sight of her turgid lips wrapped snugly around his width. Her pussy walls contracted around him and he screwed in deeper with a groan. When he’d been swallowed down to the root, her body clenching him, she took Heath’s cock just as far inside her mouth, almost choking.

“Easy,” Grey rasped. He dropped his hand on one plump bottom cheek and gave it a hard squeeze as he fucked her more deeply. She was so tight, her muscles malleable in his hands. He dragged his cock out, then used his grip to haul her closer to him and stabbed in deeper, loving the slapping sound of their bodies.

His every forceful push was met with the slap of their flesh, with her hips thrusting back, with a whimper. His prized control vanished when her teeth sank into Heath’s cock and the man roared and began to pump.

Grey gripped her waist for leverage and pistoned into her rippling grip with unbridled, almost clumsy jabs, demanding, “Let go. Let go now.”

She was delirious, meeting Heath’s ramming stabs with an upward move of her mouth and making all kinds of noises that flew straight to Grey’s head. Her words were muffled but still discernable.
“Grey.”

He stopped plunging, closed his eyes, and let that single word pour through him, and she began to come. Her pussy closed around his cock, sucking him in, jerking at his cock. He resumed his rhythm by pushing into her with several rough grunting sounds, his body contracting as her vagina walls squeezed around all nine inches of rigid male flesh.

“Fuck,
yes
,” he growled as he held her body in place and gave her a series of wild, desperate final thrusts that triggered his release. He poured himself into her, one, two, three shots of semen blasting into her so hard he hoped they’d reached her throat and heart.

And Heath came with a mute roar, his neck straining. He trembled, his eyes rolling upward as he gripped Toni’s head and continued to rub into her mouth, whispering, “Shit, baby . . . oh, shit . . .”

When the three of them collapsed on the bed, their labored breaths were the only sounds in the still room. Then Heath began to chuckle, shaking his head. “What do you do when your back aches after a wild session like this one?”

“Pray?”Toni ventured.

Grey’s lips twitched as he disappeared into the luxurious marble bathroom, washed his hands, cleaned up. He returned to tenderly wipe Toni’s red bee-stung lips with a tissue, then guided it between her legs, the flesh coated with him.

She propped herself up on her elbows, raised a hand, and slid her fingers up his stubbled jaw as he dabbed the moisture between her thighs. “Grey?” She sounded uncertain.

Halting the hand massaging his jaw, he turned it around to press his lips to the tender blue vein running up the inside of her wrist. He couldn’t seem to meet her probing green eyes.

Grey stalked back to the restroom to dispose of the tissue, and on his return, he narrowed his eyes. Heath was spooning her—on
his
bed—bending over to whisper something to her ear. Grey couldn’t remember if Heath usually did that with his women, but then he realized it wouldn’t have mattered. The sight had his gut twisting. Her hands were tucked under her cheeks as she lay on her side. Her lashes rested, crescent- shaped and long, against her cheekbones. A half smile stretched her lips, and Grey gave them a perfunctory kiss. “You all right?”

She burrowed her cheek into the back of her hand.“Fabulous,” she purred, then slid that hand out to sift her fingers through his hair. “You?”

Without answering, he met Heath’s prying gaze as he tucked Toni under the covers.“We’d better catch some sleep.”And with an edge he couldn’t quite suppress, “See you in the morning, Heath?”

“Yeah.” Heath snatched up his clothes, ignoring the tone, smiling in amusement at it, in fact. “Watch for the monster under the bed, Grey.”

“Just get out of here.”

When the door closed with a faint click behind him, a tense silence fell.Toni studied him with tight white lips and daggers in her eyes as he climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his waist.

“You didn’t have to treat him like a male prostitute, Grey.”

He wasn’t expecting anger. For a moment, he glanced disinterestedly at the blank plasma TV screen across the bed, coldly silent. Finally he reached for his cell on the nightstand, clicked it off, and calmly explained as he set it down, “We have a deal. Heath understands that.”

“You don’t have to be so heartless. You might have tried not using that dismissive tone, but I guess that’s impossible for you, isn’t it?”

He could take the entire world calling him an android and more, but from Toni . . .

He felt his face go wooden, a pressure gathering at his temples. Holding a teeth-breaking clamp of his jaw, he waited for her to come to him, create that little nest for herself in his arms like
always
. When she didn’t, he said in a flat voice, “What do you want Heath here for? We’re going to sleep.”

“I’m not saying he should sleep here, only that—”

“I’m heartless,” he finished for her.

He reached over and flicked off the lamp, a move that said firmly,
I’m not having this conversation.

At that, she rolled to her side and pulled at the sheets, and when they didn’t give, she wrenched harder. “Give me the sheet, you insufferable—”

“Jesus!” He let go.

She gathered it around her with a rustle and punched her pillow. Punched it again. After the third punch, she cried out in misery, “Poor guy!”

“Poor guy? Heath?” Disbelief warred with annoyance, and he rubbed his nose between his thumbs and sighed. “Toni, Heath is anything but a poor guy, and he doesn’t need you to defend him.”

“He’s too nice to say anything.”

“Nice.That’s the first time I’ve heard
Heath
and
nice
in the same sentence.You should see him when he’s pissed—that’ll rid you of the fantasy. I’ve seen him beat a guy to a pulp. Maybe you should, too.”

“Do you think that’s funny? Maybe the guy’s family thinks it’s funny, too!”

“Do you hear me laughing?”

She gave a haughty sniff.The mattress squeaked as she squirmed farther away. “Good night, Grey.”

Grey dropped back on his pillow. Heath was a tough bastard, but Toni was a woman. No doubt she thought Heath shared her sensibilities. How come she didn’t care for Grey’s?

Ahh, because he was Superman, He-Man,
Ice Man
. A freaking Achilles without the heel, and every bit what he’d been made out to be.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Moonlight spilled through the open drapes, silhouetting her body. On the other side of the bed.

He loosened his clenched jaw, turned over on his stomach, buried his face in the pillow, and closed his eyes. Restless movement continued on her side of the bed. His side was tomblike.

“Dammit, I don’t want to fight with you!” she exploded.

He took a moment to reply, without a hint of emotion and very little interest, “What is it that you want now,Toni?”

She seemed to debate whether to speak, and when she finally did, it was with a tinge of anger. “Why did you fuck me like that?”

“Like
what
?”

“Like that. You weren’t making love to me, you were . . . you were just fucking.”

“And what was Heath doing?”

She stiffened.Then her voice gained a worn, bitter quality.“But I’m not in love with Heath, now, am I? I don’t remember going around smelling his shirts like some idiot and thinking of ways to make him smile and buying lingerie I pray he’ll like on me.”

Glowering, he turned his head to her, steeling himself against the accusation in her green eyes.

It was
impossible
for him to just fuck her. It was impossible
not
to make love to her. Didn’t she know that?

She drew in a long breath when their gazes clashed. “Do you want to stop this, Grey? I don’t think I want to do this any—”

“No,”
he snapped. “I have a board of directors who won’t so much as speak until I do, and two thousand employees whose families depend on me. I have never in my life said I’d do something and not done it. I can make money out of air and I can crush my adversaries in a single fist, and with all certainty, I assure you, I can do
this
!” And he could, goddammit—what was wrong with him?

“Don’t ever fuck me like that again. I mean it.”

He groaned and scraped his hands down his face. “What else did you think we were going to do this weekend but fuck?” he gritted.

“I don’t want just sex from you!”

Grey squeezed his eyes shut, hanging on to his temper by a thread, wanting to shout,
And I don’t want
just sex
from you, either!

“I don’t want to be one of your gazillion . . . threesome . . . conquests.”

“Some meaningless chick you and your partner screwed!”

“You, putting all your moves on me. You didn’t even call me Toni. I could have been anyone.”

“Sometimes I swear to god my vibrator has more emotion than you!”

“Grey . . .”

At the end of his rope, he was about to bark
“What!”
when she added, in a tiny, quivery voice, “Why aren’t you holding me?”

A prickle of unease slithered down his spine, and he snapped his head up. He’d been deaf to the hurt in her voice, but suddenly it was all he was aware of. She was close to tears.

He’d seen her cry once, the time he took her to watch
The Pursuit of Happyness
.At those first few tiny, delicate sniffles, he’d frozen in his seat. No one had ever cried in front of Grey before. He didn’t inspire tears in people. But when he’d squeezed the delicate hand laced through his on the armrest, she’d flung herself into his arms and those sniffles had become sobs. It was crushing to listen to them, and they’d made his own throat close, too.

He rolled onto his back.“Get over here,” he muttered, dragging in a breath, “and I’ll hold you.”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Get the
fuck
over here. Now!”

When she hesitated, he cursed under his breath and immediately reached out. Grasping her waist, he tugged her over the sheet to him, his voice hoarsening. “Get in here. I need you here. In my arms.”

She turned over as their hips touched. “I don’t want to fight with you.” Her voice shook even worse than before. “And I don’t like you just having impersonal sex with me. Are you angry over something?”

“The last thing I want to do,” he said in an odd, gruff voice, “is fight with you,Toni.” Gazing down at her glistening green eyes while a wealth of love washed over him, he let two fingertips trace her face in the shadows. “I’m not angry at you. I just wanted to be with you for a while. Just us. I promise I’ll play nicer with Heath tomorrow if it makes you feel better, hmm?”