by Red Garnier
“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.”
One.Two.Three.
“Some meaningless chick you and your partner screwed!”
Four. Five. Six.
“You, putting all your moves on me. You didn’t even call me Toni. I could have been anyone.”
Seven. Eight. Nine.
“Sometimes I swear to god my vibrator has more emotion than you!”
Fuck!
“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?”
“It does . . . ,” she admitted, stroking his throat, “make me feel better.” Her teeth caught her lower lip, and her voice again went strange on him. “I couldn’t see you. . . . And your hands felt so different, like you were touching just anyone. . . . And you didn’t say anything to me even when I was trying to look so sexy for you. . . . I wanted to hear your voice . . . but you were mostly quiet, and I felt so . . .”
She inhaled a tremulous breath, and he realized that while he’d been quietly pleading for a lifeline from her, begging to crawl into her skin and feel close to her, she had wanted to be inside him.
He swallowed through a dry, sandpapery throat and closed his arms around her. “Come here, come closer. I need you. I need this.”
This was the kisses they placed on each other’s faces. This was the whispered words, the breaths they took in unison. This was their sweat-coated bodies tangling together, growing warm where they touched. She seemed so small when he gathered her like this, his entire body swallowing hers up.
“Heath just seems so lonely,” she admitted, her fingers fluttering across his shoulders. “I feel a little sorry for him.”
He inhaled the aroma of sex and peaches at her neck, in her hair, dragging her essence into his lungs. “He’s alone because he likes it,” he whispered against her throat. “I swear you’re the first person I know who’s sorry for Heath.”
“We should set him up with someone, Grey.”
He suppressed the urge to laugh.“And
who would you suggest, that wacky cousin of yours?”
“I don’t know. My friends are pretty.”
“Heath hates dates.”
“Well, he shouldn’t!” she chastised. Then, running lazy figure eights on the back of his arm,“Nobody should be that alone, Grey.”
He kissed her, let his lips enjoy hers; no tongue now, just their lips molding and absorbing the feel of the other. “I agree.” He plowed into her mouth, and her sweet, hot cavern was a welcoming heaven to his tongue.
Her thigh slipped in between his as their tongues curled. Her hands linked behind his head, and her breath seeped into him, “Grey.”
“Darling.” He covered a whimper with his mouth when he deepened the kiss, and his lungs closed. He wanted her again. To make her his, just his, remind her she was his. He couldn’t imagine being without her—without the mischief she got into sometimes, the smiles, the laughter, the love she gave him.
He wanted to give her the stars. He wanted to fight with her and have hot makeup sex with her. He wanted to shower her with gifts and love and devotion. He wanted to marry her.
The desire had been strengthening, gathering courage. Conviction. They’d laughed about marriage together, criticized the institution, had gone on and on about not needing it. It had all been Grey, trying to convince himself he didn’t need her, love her, want her more than anything or anyone.
Now nothing would give him more joy than making her his wife. Slipping his ring on her.Vowing the world to her.Waking up every morning to the irrefutable fact that she belonged to him . . . and he to her.
After Cabo . . .
“Thank you for this weekend,” she whispered, stretching under him and raising her arms behind her head in languor.
He palmed the sides of her thrusting breasts and pushed them together to run his tongue down the cleavage they created.“Hmm. You’re welcome.”The mounds brushed his cheeks, and his thumbs slid up to her nipples. They were soft at first touch, but responded after a second pass.
He heard her yawn, say something in a murmur. He lifted his head, giving a nibble on her chin as he came up. “Sleepy?”
“Deliciously, utterly sleepy, but please don’t stop. You’re heavenly.”
He chuckled and fell on his back, dragging her against him, where she snuggled her womanly curves against his side. She brushed a kiss across his cheek. “I love you.”
She didn’t seem to expect a reply any longer. She was already settled, a cheek to his chest, her breasts rising and dipping evenly against his ribs.
He skimmed his mouth across her forehead, his arms unrelenting around her.
“Don’t ever stop,” he hoarsely whispered.
“Hmm? Stop what?”
Loving me. “Telling me.”
She laughed softly. “I won’t.”
“I like hearing it.”
She surprised him, kissing his chest right above his nipple—the place nearest to where she rested her head—and whispered, “I know you do.”
Chapter Seven
Heath was moving around the guest bedroom the next morning, searching his duffel for a fresh T- shirt, when he spotted her out on the long, sprawling terrace. Straightening, he moved closer to the sunlit window, taking in that delectable rear as she leaned on the stone ledge. Her chestnut hair flew in tangles behind her as she took in the ocean view.The sun brought out the shades of red and a hint of gold in her hair, and he wanted to run a hand through it and inspect it up close.
Her profile was exquisite; her nose tipped up at the end, and her lips pouted beguilingly. Without makeup, her skin had a fresh peachy hue that appealed to him. Her small, curvy body appealed to him. Crap, everything of hers appealed to him.
Her dress today was emerald green and shaped like a tube. Heath was liking that tube. Seemed easy enough to pull down, or up, to reveal what Heath most wanted to see.
After a moment he realized she was mumbling, shaking her head, creasing that cute face into a frown.When he realized she was cursing Grey, Heath chuckled. God, he wanted to fuck her.
His jeans felt tight and his dick kept expanding. He was so primed for her, so full of hot, needy cum for her. And he knew she ate it—oh yes, she liked eating him up. And he’d heard her and Grey last night.... Had it been around three a.m.? Maybe four a.m. He wasn’t sure, but he heard the cry she gave. He’d bucked up in bed from that sound alone.
She rounded with a stomp of a pink-toed foot and her head jerked back when she spotted him. She absorbed his gaze for a sizzling second, her chest rising and falling in hungry little pants. Are you thinking of me fucking you, kitten? Do you want my hands on you, my hard dick inside you?
He crooked his finger at her, watched her lips part in surprise, and then he reached out to slide open the door. He almost groaned when she pulled her eyes away and stormed back inside. He was just not used to this pain. A boner was something to be taken care of fast, and this one wouldn’t cease. He’d had it for days. Weeks. His need was so great that all he could think of was spreading her legs again. He had been thinking of her hair last night, her shoulders; now it was just what lay between her legs that overwhelmed his mind, promising him ease. When would he get there, be there again? Damn.
He knew Grey was somewhere in the house, even if he hadn’t understood what the fuck the Mexican guy had said this morning about Sir Richards. Apparently, Grey was royalty around these parts. But Heath wasn’t caging himself in this big white room. He enjoyed being alone, but not when he knew Toni was somewhere in the halls and rooms of this immense house.
He came down the hall and found her cuddled on a couch, a magazine open on her lap. Her emotions flickered across her face when she spotted him; she was shocked, delighted, wary.
The living room was—surprise, surprise—white like everything in the house. Grey knew how to spend his money, though; with its solid dark woods and light fabrics, windows that spread from top to bottom and side to side, this room and the woman sitting motionless at its center made Heath think of paradise. Eve and the apple. His eternal doom. All that shit.
The low couch she sat on, with its stunning beach backdrop, was wide enough to sleep two people comfortably, and accented with plump pillows in a green that was almost as striking as the eyes that were now watching him.That couch had been specially made for a man to fuck on it.
His shoes made no sound when they hit the carpet.“Aren’t you going to say good morning,Toni?” he asked.
She seemed ready to bolt. “Hi, Heath.”
His eyebrows flew up. This was not the merry welcome in the morning he’d fantasized about. “You don’t sound so enthusiastic. Am I not wanted here anymore?”
Leave. His specialty. School, foster parents, friends. Before anyone could even ask him to, he left. He had never been wanted, and he’d never cared. But today he cared.Today he cared to be wanted. He remembered being inside her body, sucking those breasts, all of his cock massaged by those tight, wrenching ripples in her pussy. By her tongue, her lips, her mouth.
But maybe she wanted him to leave. “Do you want me to go, Toni?”
“We invited you here, didn’t we?” Ah, she was surly. Well. He’d take care of that easily.
“Where’s God?” he asked, taking a seat.
Her lips curved into a smile. Ahh. She’d liked his joke. “On the phone.”
“He pissed you off?”
She shrugged. Okay, so she wasn’t in the mood to confide. He got the message. He snatched up a magazine and flipped through the pages, pretending to be as interested in kitchen decoration as she was. He peered at her through his lashes.
“He’s been on the phone all morning, and it drives me insane. The man doesn’t know how to unwind.Why can’t he just disconnect?” She studied him with narrowed eyes. “You don’t seem to have that vice.”
“I’ve got plenty of others.” At her inquisitive gaze, he offered, “The only thing I like about phones is smashing them.”
She smiled fleetingly.
“Maybe Grey wouldn’t need to be on the phone so much if your friend were a better assistant,” he told her.
She sighed. “She’s just new to it, that’s all. She’s eager to please, and she needs that job.” Then, face brightening, “Would you like to meet her? My friend? She’s very pretty, and Grey and I were discussing the possibility of setting you up on a—”
“I’ve already met Grey’s secretary,” he said, frowning over the fact that Grey and Toni had been discussing Heath’s future like they were lords of it.“And I don’t do dates. But thank you.To know you both thought of me last night in your love nest makes my heart flutter.”
Her eyebrows pulled low over her nose. “For your information, she’s his assistant, not his secretary,” she corrected. “And this wouldn’t be just a date. She’s very beautiful and dedicated and—”
“And she wants Grey to fold her over his office desk with her ass up in the air,” Heath bluntly finished, propping his feet up and crossing his ankles atop the coffee table.
Toni met his gaze with a blank expression.
Heath quirked an eyebrow.“She wants to fuck your man,Toni.”
She seemed incredulous at first, then shot him a furious scowl that made him smile. He could tell she didn’t believe him, but he knew what he’d seen. Whatever-her-name-was wanted Grey to ram her against the wall and spill his guts into her. She’d been panting all over the place that time Heath had been at the office, looking down at her boobs to see if she had enough cleavage going on, swinging her butt when she walked away.
“You think everyone wants to have sex,” Toni grumbled, slapping the magazine shut. “You have a dirty mind.”
He folded his legs and straightened. “And in this case, I’m correct as usual.”
Impatiently, she pushed back a strand of her hair.This particular way she wore it—loose and artfully framing her face—was by far his favorite. She just made his dick itch so bad.
“Grey and I . . . ,” she began, lowering the magazine to her lap. “We have a good thing going.”
Her eyes flicked up to his and away, and her shyness endeared her to him. Her skin was flawless. He could almost feel it on his finger tips. Silk. Like that red sash he’d stroked along his cock, down his balls—the sash that still smelled of her.