The Satin Sash (5 page)

Her smile was sheepish. “You mean, not really as interesting as my ass?”

The rich, rumbling sound of his chuckle made her knees weak. “That’s what I meant.”

Her smile widened as she turned back to pull out a plate from the cabinet. She loved it when she caught him staring at her. She loved . . . him. Every bitty thing. Even his annoying arrogance.

Her toast popped up the second her groggy mind registered something important, and she pivoted around to stare.

Her satin sash was wantonly draped around Grey’s thick wrist, and as he calmly read the paper, his fingers were playing with the tip.

Panic seized her, and she went deathly still. How on earth did he . . . ?

He raised his head and caught sight of her rooted to the spot like someone about to be beheaded. The two little creases at the corner of his eyes deepened.

Toni could almost see the wheels in his brain spinning, twirling like the shimmering fabric coiled around his wrist.

Struggling for calm while her lungs were twisting, she quickly crossed the kitchen and slipped between the table and him, settling on his lap.

“Grey.” She was swamped with love for him. Desperate to comfort him. If she didn’t get this out in the open, there was no telling how it would tear them apart. “It was one dance. It doesn’t mean anything.”

His rich whiskey eyes slid away from hers, and he reached around her to fold the paper in half. “It does to me.”

She rubbed her hand up the muscles in his chest, pausing over the place where his heart beat steadily. “Surely it has happened to you—a beautiful woman catching your attention, even if you’re with me.”

His face was beautiful; the sensual lips, the patrician nose, the stubborn jaw. Beautiful and impassive. “It hasn’t happened to me.”

Desperate, Toni edged closer to him, gingerly kissing the corners of his lips, so plump but disappointingly unmoving under hers. “I wanted to be truthful with you.”

The red sash fluttered to the floor. One hulky arm went around her, securing her against him as he tipped her chin so she would meet his gaze. “I don’t want anything between us, much less lies.”

She gave him a weak smile.“You and I have our faults, but lying isn’t one of them.” She sought his jaw with her fingers and tenderly traced the faint shadow of stubble. “I’m sure it will go away.”

“No, it won’t go away. It will hang like a shadow over me. I’ll obsess whenever he calls and you answer, and wonder when I fuck you if you want me to be him.”

She gasped.“That would never happen! How can you say that?” She gave his jaw a firm, meaningful squeeze. “I’m crazy about
you
.”

He held her face between his hands and covered her lips with his. She had been kissed a thousand times by Grey, and a thousand times she had been caught up in the storm of his kiss. But this kiss . . .

Was a tempest.

Through the dark, rich taste of his morning coffee, his kiss carried his power, the simmering energy he kept inside him, every need he gave no vent to. His lips moved commandingly over hers, his tongue swirled, his heat seared her.

She was left quaking. And then he was squeezing her jaw, dragging his mouth roughly across her lips, pouring his words into her.

“I’ll give you everything you need, everything you want, Antonia Kearny, and when I’m done giving, you will think of no one else but Grey Richards.”

He stabbed her mouth with his tongue in a kiss that was almost painful in its intensity. She met his avid thrusts in kind and at last broke free to catch her breath, her lips achy and swollen.

“Grey—”

“Shh.” He rubbed his hands up her back, caressing her with every ridge inside his palm. “Quiet now.”

She swung a leg to his other side and straddled him. She had never known such a violent need to be close to him. She had never ached for such a wild, reckless reassurance of his love for her. Feeling his rigid sex between her legs suffused her with an odd sense of relief.

She moved anxiously on his lap, longing for a connection to him, proof that what they shared stood strong and stable. Did he love her? Did he
care
?

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she whispered. “I never meant to.”

His erection swelled under her, the distinct column pulsating like something breathing, living, reassuring her of his desire. His hunger.

Grey dropped his head to her chest, slipped his hands under her T-shirt, and kissed the valley between her breasts through the worn cotton fabric. “Suppose . . .”

He opened his mouth over one breast and gingerly licked once, twice.Wetness seeped through her shirt and into her puckered tip. Her other muscles quivered with envy.

“Suppose I fuck you.” The hot breath against her breast filtered through cotton to her skin. “Suppose he fucks you.” He raised his hand to cup the other globe and expertly thumbed the rigid nipple.“Suppose we both fuck you.You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

His words excited her, made her wonder if a woman existed who would
not
like that, but at the moment she couldn’t even attempt to make sense of what he said. Every pore was Grey’s and every one of them sang to his touch.

Inflamed from skin to bones, she rocked over him, delighting in the friction of his shaft under her wet cleft. Beneath her T-shirt she was nude, her sex and his hardness separated only by his pants. She could actually feel the heat of him as though there were nothing between them. That nearness, the awareness of how rigid he was—how ready to take her—made her pussy contract with need. He smelled of Dial soap and Grey, his hair a thick, luxuriant mane in her hands.

“Where did he touch you,Toni?” He spoke in a husky rasp, his eyes half-covered by his lids as he glanced up at her. “Here?” Both hands caressed her breasts.

Toni remembered Heath’s touch, the playfulness in his hands, and she couldn’t suppress a shudder.

Her breasts heaved in rapid pants as her hands sought support from his firm, square shoulders. “H-he grabbed my ass.”

“This ass? My ass?”

He palmed her ass, and a rumbling sound erupted from him. Her shirt had lifted as she changed position, bringing Grey’s hands in direct contact with her skin. He tugged the cheeks apart, then pressed them together.

“Oh, Grey.”

“Where else did Heath touch you?”

Ribbons of lust flittered inside her when she heard his name. “He . . . he rubbed his thigh against me.”

“Oh, really.” He brought one hand forward and slipped a finger between their bodies. She hissed and trembled as he rolled her clit in sharp little circles. “Did it feel like that?”

Her head fell back on a plea. “Yes.”

At his newly gained access, he swirled his tongue up her throat to her jaw. She lowered her mouth and parted her lips for him. He groaned and slipped his tongue in, kissing her.

He pinched her clit—not too hard, but just right; right enough to send shocks of pleasure across her body—and she gave out a squeak.

He chuckled at her reaction, his words soft and indulgent. “Do you want him to do that to you, darling?”

He wore the most amazing smile. Each was like a little trophy to her; Grey smiled so rarely. Now his teeth glinted white against his tan and his eyes glowed like sunset.Another trophy for her.Another delightful feeling of satisfaction because she pleased him.

“Do you?” he insisted. He pressed her clit in with his thumb.

She bucked and grabbed his shoulders, gasping as she said, “Yes!”

“Ahh.”

Honey oozed out of her pussy, spreading moisture across his pants. Inside she was a firestorm, sensations ricocheting within her womb. “Grey, you’re making me want to come.”

“So.” He slipped his finger farther under her, into her slit, and watched her as he delved in. “Come.”

He found her favorite spot, buried deep within her, surrounded by wet tissue and cream. He pressed and stroked it expertly, burying his finger to the base. She keened and started to ride that finger as she would ride his shaft.

“Yes, yes.”

The abrupt, continual ringing of the kitchen phone took a moment to filter through her haze.

“Ignore it.”

She groaned and inwardly wished she could. “It might be a client of mine,” she gritted, trying to get off. He seized her waist with both hands and held her back.

“Ignore it.”

As she hesitated, he pitched his hips up and scraped the column of his cock against her.Toni whimpered, riding that move with a to and fro of her hips.

“This is all you need right now,” he rasped.

“Yes.”

“This is all you want, all you need. A big, hard cock.”

“Please.”

“Will one do, darling, or do you want two?”

He was humoring her, maybe even mocking her, but she was still seized with tremors as the answer popped into her mind.

Oh, god, she was out of her mind, turning into a wanton, thinking only of coming, of being fucked and fucked and fucked.

Grey spread his thighs wide apart and angled her back a bit so he could grapple with the drawstrings of his pants. When his cell phone vibrated on the table behind her, they both went utterly still.

“Fuck.” Grey reached around her and pressed the answer button, his tone clipped, cold. “Grey here.”

A silence.

“Friday will be fine.”

More silence.

Breathless to continue, she slid part of her body between his legs and lowered her mouth to his chest. He caressed her back with one hand as she circled his nipples, teasing them with her tongue. The little pulses in her pussy seemed to come at the same time as the jerks in his cock pressed firmly against her lower belly.

“The numbers are at the office—tell him you’ll fax them over tomorrow morning.”

He stroked her hair with heavy petting motions as her mouth ventured lower.

Once she was a breath away from the bloated head of his penis, he fisted a hand in her hair, hampering her progress. She squirmed in protest and raised her lashes in time to catch the twitch of a smile on the corner of his lips.

“I appreciate it,” he grumbled as he clicked the phone off and set it down on the table with a resounding thump. “Christ, don’t do that to me.”

She shot him a smile full of wicked intent. “Was that Louisa?”

“Yeah.” His hands returned to her head and gently rubbed her scalp.

“How’s she doing?”

“Other than calling me on Sunday and asking if she may move a pen?”

She laughed.“She’s new; give her some time.” She surged up to kiss him and sultrily whispered, “Have I told you how wonderful you are for hiring her? She was so desperate.”

“
I
was desperate.Which explains my hiring her.”

She smiled, letting her hands drift down his taut arms, every inch of them like rock.

Louisa had been Toni’s friend forever, and though she didn’t have much experience in the corporate world, she’d been in sore need of a job. Grey’s assistant had recently married, and Toni had asked him to consider her friend for the position.

Toni couldn’t remember a single time Grey had denied her anything. She couldn’t even ogle anything in a store window for fear Grey would haul her inside and flick out his American Express black Centurion.

He was cold when it came to business, and out of necessity, cutting to strangers who approached—Grey was too smart not to realize when someone had a hidden agenda. But he’d strip the shirt off his back for the people he loved.

Toni was passionately in love with him, but she’d thought that would mean she was passionately and exclusively
in lust
with him, too.

“Come here.” He swiped the newspaper aside and boosted her up, setting her rear on the table. “I can’t take it when you look like this.”

She lifted her arms so he could tug off her shirt and squirmed delightedly when he rained slow, loving kisses on her shoulders, her nose, her forehead.

“So sexy,” he cooed. “Groggy and tousled.”

“You look very sexy yourself. Naked and—”

He stepped out of his navy drawstrings and she completely lost her voice.

She sizzled at the sight of him, glorious, nude,
hers
. She licked her lips as he came forward, his long erection perfectly angled toward her entry. She parted her legs and wrapped them around his hips. He entered, hot enough to melt her.

They moaned together. Her body arched to receive him, her thighs clenching around him.

He shut his eyes.“So good.” He started pumping without haste, each leisurely stroke searing her with pleasure. “So tight, baby, so good.”

Her spine arched instinctively as she fell back on the tabletop, writhing with sensations. Their bodies touched solely in the spot where their damp, burning sexes joined, and that singular contact intensified the pleasure. Every nerve in her body seemed to home in on Grey’s powerful inward strokes, and she swore she could feel each up to her heart.

She braced up on her elbows, her breasts heaving as she watched the massive shaft move in and out. Glistening and corded with dark veins, it stretched her wide, reached down to the depths of her.

She watched his gorgeous face, every ripple of muscle in his body. Every flare of his nostrils and flex of his abdomen, every crease added to his face as he grimaced with pleasure. She watched it all. And when the pleasure became excruciating, she could watch no more.

Her eyes drifted shut, a profound warmth unfurling within her. She made flimsy, throaty noises of encouragement so he wouldn’t stop.

He didn’t. He kept pushing in so slowly she could savor every inch as he entered.

“You coming, darling?” His voice was as dense as his plunges.

“Yes.” She bit her lip, tensing her muscles, trying to prolong the ecstasy. “You?”

He rasped, “I’m there.”