The Satin Sash

by Red Garnier

  She tossed and wormed and bucked, pushing at Grey with her hips, her noises. “Fuck me. Fuck me like Heath.” He thrust faster. Both of them plunged faster. Heath in. Grey out. Then together. Fattening her, spreading her, swelling her. She had never thought it possible to feel so full. Her body tensed. Heath’s mouth was on her shoulder, moist on her ear. “Cat, baby, you’re so tight here.”

  Toni writhed, her mouth finding places to lick, her hands searching, one behind her, one in front, one for Heath, one for Grey, and she was chanting, chanting in doughy, breathy murmurs, “I love you.”A chant to Grey, to Heath, to what they did to her and to how they made her feel.

  Heath was hammering, grunting as he took that tight, hot, dirty place, and Grey went taut when she began to scream. Coming, Heath twitched inside her as he was drained of air and strength and his juice. Toni bellowed exultantly, her orgasm overtaking her, tremor after tremor. Heath continued to push into her ass, stimulating her nerve endings, while Grey went motionless inside her. He grabbed her head, bracing himself for climax. He gave his cry into her mouth, his body spasming, three shots of milk blasting against her walls, drenching her with his heat. And finally, they fell, and swam into a deep black sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  She woke with the sheets tangled around her ankles, and the bright sunlight pouring through the parted drapes.The room was cheery and quiet—and the bed was empty except for her.

  Pushing her hair back, she brought her knees up beneath the blanket and sat up. Physically, she felt comfortably relaxed, but inside she felt like she’d been punched. She could not shake the sensation as she stepped into the shower, lathered her hair, scrubbed her body. One thought alone seemed to overtake her mind: Heath was leaving today.

  She’d known him so little, and yet at the same time, she knew him so much!

  How could things change so fast? How could you meet someone and give so much of yourself so soon?

  Petulant, selfish, or greedy as it may seem . . . she did not want him to go.

  When she stepped out of the shower, she dressed in one of the embroidered cotton dresses he’d given her, hoping he would remember her in it. She knew she was not going to forget him.

  Emerging from the closet, she spotted Grey out on the terrace, his posture relaxed, arms crossed as he scanned the blue horizon. Water lapped at the dark ocean rocks, morning yachts floating in the distance.The breeze played with his hair, and she felt a wrench of longing so deep she had to pause to take a breath before leaning on the banister next to him.

  Grey, don’t ever let me hurt you. It would be my suicide, my death. . . .

  He eyed her profile with a furrowed forehead. “You all right?”

  Her smile was weak, but at least it was a smile. “Of course.”

  “Heath’s gone. He took a commercial flight, wanted to get a head start.”

  Something fragile and new threatened to break inside her. Hiding the bleak expression on her face, she circled a pattern with her finger on the banister. “I expected I would get to say good-bye.”

  Grey watched her with a calm but intent gaze. She wished he weren’t so perceptive. “He doesn’t like good-byes.That’s Heath.”

  Her arms went tight around herself, almost meeting at her back as she tipped her head to his. “Where is he flying?”

  “Chicago, to pick up his things.Tomorrow to Vancouver.”

  She turned away, attempting to clear her thoughts. Down on the beach, a couple strolled past, holding hands. She clung to their image like a lifeline and watched them in silence. “And what time do we arrive in Chicago?”

  “Late afternoon.”

  Perhaps he didn’t ask why, because he knew, or perhaps because he didn’t want to know, but Toni offered it, anyway. “I want to say good-bye, Grey,” she said in an odd croak.

  The broken admission didn’t mean anything else, except that she couldn’t bear to part like this. They had shared moments, and they had shared lovers, and though they had been joined by Grey at the beginning, now they were joined in ways she couldn’t fully comprehend.

  But the anger in Grey’s eyes flared bright, though fleeting. As soon as it appeared, it faded into coolness; his eyes became like fog. He seized her elbow in his hand, a dangerous muscle ticking in his jaw. “Fuck him well and hard,Toni, ’cause that’s the last time you’ll be fucking him.” Toni was ready to shout and deny his accusation, more than ready to fight with him, when he tonelessly added, “Here. He left this for you.”

  Her stomach constricted when he draped the familiar shimmering red around her neck. The cool material slid sensuously across her nape, making her heart hammer against her ribs.

  When Grey stepped away and disappeared into the house, the tip dangling across one shoulder was all Toni could hang on to.

  Clutching it on an end, she yanked it off and gathered it in one hand. She’d never thought the sight of such a soft, pretty thing could ever render her so wretched.

  Heath had left her sash.

  Out in the hallway,Toni thanked the cleaning lady who opened the door for her and stepped into the small hotel room.A faint smell of tobacco lingered in the air, and the bone-colored tapestry on the wall seemed peeled in places. At the end of the room, leaning over an open suitcase propped atop the bed, a shirtless, jeans-clad vision went utterly still at the sight of her.

  Shutting the door behind her, she leaned back against it, drawing in breath after labored breath.

  “So you’re not that good at good-byes, huh?”

  The atmosphere was charged with electricity as black eyes met green. Through the silence, the bitter wind outside blasted across the city and stormed across Lake Michigan. Rain pelted against the sidewalks, gently smacked the windows.

  With a hard, bitter, uncompromising thinning of his lips, Heath wadded a shirt in his hands and shoved it into the rumpled suitcase. “Does Grey know you’re here?”

  “Yes.”

  His head fell forward as though it weighed too much; then he sifted five restless fingers through his hair and made a low, cynical sound. “He must think me more saint than devil.” He stalked over to the window and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, his posture rigid. In silence, he watched it rain outside.

  She’d wanted to say good- bye, and yet a part of her was reluctant to do so when he seemed so distant.With a mounting sense of despair, she took a step forward, finding it hard to imagine that she’d clawed at that broad, ridged back only yesterday and had taken tiny bites of those beautiful square shoulders. They had been hers for a weekend, and a wealth of resentment filled her over not feeling free to touch him now. “You leave early tomorrow?”

  “First thing.”

  She paused behind him and inhaled a breath. His earthy scent was so powerful in the little room she thought she’d be intoxicated by it. “Canada?”

  “Yes.Vancouver.”

  Her control deserted her, and she pressed her cheek to his muscled back. He stiffened under her lips as she whisked them across his skin, but the yearning in her was so great, she did not care that he did not want her touch.

  “Cat, I don’t know what rules we’re playing by here.” His voice was coarse and broken as he shifted his weight to his left side—away from her.

  Did he feel they’d been playing a game? It had felt so real to her, fun like games, but serious like . . . life.

  Putting space between them, she circled the room even though there wasn’t much to see. A TV cabinet, a floor lamp, a landscape painting behind the bed. “Your flight from Cabo all right?” she asked.

  He splayed one tanned hand on the windowsill, unwilling, it seemed, to face her. “Yes.”

  “Heath, about last night . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Cat.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I had no right to . . . expect anything from you.”

  “You had every right.” When he looked at her, his expression bleak with meaning, the shining light in his eyes made her heart leap in a strange forlorn joy. “You ha
ve me by the balls,” he admitted.

  She wrung her hands, not entirely sure what he meant, but certain he wasn’t too pleased about it. “W-we were both tense.You were leaving, and things were so intense.”

  For one long, tantalizing moment, he seized her chin and ran his thumb along her lower lip, and an aching tenderness both bloomed and died inside her. She had to forget Heath....

  “Heathcliff . . .”

  “On your lips, I love my name.” He tipped her face up to his scrutiny and slid all his fingers into her hair, cradling her so gently she felt like porcelain. “Can I kiss you one last time?”

  “Please.” Oh, please.

  “This is your kiss, Cat, and I swear I’ve never kissed a woman the way I’m going to kiss you.” He whisked her mouth with his, scorching her with that fast pass.A sea of anticipatory ecstasy surged inside her.“It’s going to last forever, kitten. I’m going to take it with me.”

  She sucked in a breath when his lips whispered across hers. A flood of wanting drowned her words when his mouth opened and he leaned in to kiss her. His tongue massaged hers softly at first; then it raked across her top and bottom lip.

  She sobbed his name, and he whispered hers, and then he delved and delved and delved his tongue into her hungry mouth until his lips closed fully around hers. His kiss was like the storm outside, starting with a drizzle and then bursting with passion once unleashed.

  She felt his teeth behind his lips as his tongue pushed and then as he caught her lips between them. She could only moan when the pressure of his hands on her back glued her against him. Their sexes rubbed as hungrily as their mouths, their entire bodies.

  Their tongues tangled and melted against each other, their mouths slanted, their ravenous kissing sounds echoing in the room. They kissed until her mouth felt swollen, until her tongue felt numb and she was hardly moving her mouth. She just let him plunder, take it, take it all. He panted against her when he withdrew, leaning his head against hers as they tried to recover.

  “Go now,” he whispered, setting her away.

  She couldn’t bear to, held herself between both her arms. “Talk to me a little.”

  He expelled a frustrated breath. “Cat, go.”

  “Just talk to me; say nonsense.”

  “Nonsense.” He smiled for the briefest, most enchanting instant; then he sobered up and touched her nose with a fingertip. “Did you sleep well?”

  His palms were rough running along her cheek, and she found herself tucking her chin into his hold. “Like a baby.”

  “I woke up, and you were curled on my stomach like a kitten.” He smiled fondly as if remembering.“Grey had nearly tossed us out of the side of the bed.”

  Her smile didn’t quite make it. She felt so wet. So achy. So trem bly. She made an ugly sound and choked,“I’m so wet, Heath.” And I’m so sad you’re leaving us.

  “Argh, Christ, don’t. How many times do I need to fuck you to make you not want to anymore?”

  She sifted her fingers through the fine hairs across his torso with her fingers, then bravely traced his right nipple. It was so small and dark, a temptation to her lips. “I had the most amazing time of my life.”

  He drew her closer and seized her lips again, growling when she pressed her breasts against him.They nibbled at each other’s lips and continued kissing, tonguing, the bulge of his erection pressing insistently against her belly swamping her pelvis with heat.

  When he pulled free at last, he expelled a ragged breath and pressed his hands to his temples, as though his hands were all that kept his head together. “Go.”

  She was shaking, couldn’t seem to make her legs move. “I’ll miss you.” Come home with me and Grey. . . . We’ll make love until morning. . . . We’ll laugh and eat and sleep. . . . “I’ll really miss you, Heath.”

  His beautiful black eyes ran over her face, taking in her anguish, mirroring it with a spark of pain in his own. “Shit, come here.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close, burying her face in his neck in a protective way much like Grey’s.

  Against his throat, and reluctant to move from the circle of his arms, she whispered, “Maybe you can come to the city more often and—”

  “No.”

  It was a chore to speak, but she forced the words out of her dry throat. “Why?”

  “Grey’s not comfortable with it.”

  “But why?” She drew back to stare into his eyes. “He was fine in Cabo.”

  He lifted one challenging brow, then two. “His dad’s not in Cabo, is he?” At Toni’s confused frown, Heath explained, “Lucien Grey Richards has spent his lifetime tailoring a perfect son. Grey’s not going to do anything reckless. Not where the old man can see, anyway.”

  “But Grey is perfect,” she countered, anger raising her voice. “No matter what that old fart thinks.”

  “I know.” With tenderness shining in his eyes, he rubbed the gooseflesh off her arms.“He doesn’t want to expose you to anything that may harm you.You’re his everything—do you know that?”

  “I adore him.” And why do I feel this strange other thing toward you? “So even if you wanted to come back, he wouldn’t let you?” she questioned.

  “I leave because I want to. He doesn’t send me off.”

  When he noticed she wasn’t convinced at all, he chuckled and reached for her arms. “Come here, my sentimental little bit.”

  “I’m sentimental?” She scowled, but still allowed those thick arms to wind snugly around her. “Tell me you wouldn’t like to be with me again, Heath,” she dared.

  He did not deny it, but stood embracing her in silence. She shook her head, realizing how selfish she was. She had never realized how much so until she couldn’t stand the thought of letting him go.

  “Heath, you deserve to be loved.You deserve to have anything you want. . . .” She smiled brightly, even though her every expression seemed like pain on her face today. “Don’t settle for less.”

  “I never planned to settle.” He held her at arm’s length and delivered a meaningful look.“Now I might never.You make me want things,Toni.Things I cannot have.”

  She did not want to hear more.

  She wanted to hear it all.

  “At the benefit, did you want to get to Grey through me?”

  “No. Cat. No. I wanted you. I still want you. I’d spent months dreaming of you, and the moment I saw you . . . I needed to have you. I’d have taken you for myself if you weren’t his.”

  “But I am his.”

  Their eyes locked for an electrifying moment.

  “Don’t make me hate him,” he said hoarsely, and, jerking his eyes away, raked a frustrated hand across his hair.

  “Heath, what if—”

  “No what-ifs. Only what is.” Her stomach muscles clenched as he fixed her with a black, tormented look, his profile as hard as granite, and said, “Go home to Grey.”

  That was all the good-bye she was going to get; Toni realized she was being dismissed when he went to the closet to fumble around with more of his clothes. He did not glance back at her, didn’t so much as give her another view of his face.

  Some emotion demanded justice, but she could not speak it, could not even name it. Impulsively, crazily, maybe desperately, she pulled the sash out of her bag and buried it deep in his suitcase, and thought, hoped, prayed before she made her way out of his room, Come back, Heath Solis.

  Grey waited in a cloak of obscurity, sprawled on the couch among the shadows. His thumb steadily clicked the ballpoint pen in his hand. Click. Click. Click. The tip went in and out, in and out. A panel of light from the hall streamed into the entry when the front door opened. He sucked in a breath, his finger frozen on a click.

  Toni shut the door behind her. By the cautious way she advanced, he was certain he’d been spotted.

  She flicked a lamp on, her eyes landing on him. So rumpled. Her hair was tangled, her mouth swollen. She had just been fucked.

  She moved to him and stopped a f
ew feet away, her eyes never straying. He let the pen fall on the cushion, roll to the back.

  “Grey.” It was there in that tearful tone—oh yes, she’d let Heath fuck her.

  He shoved his pants and underwear down to his knees and the pink rod of his cock popped out, slapping his abdomen. “I’ve had this for hours,” he rasped.

  Glimmering green eyes followed the pronounced veins pulsing up the lengthened flesh.The crown was bloated, stretched taut as a drum, and it quivered painfully.

  Her purse fell to the floor, her shoes were kicked off, and she fell to her knees between his thighs, as though helpless to stand.“Grey.” Her fingers trembled as she reached out to grasp him, and he lifted his hands to stroke his fingers down her cheek.

  “Kiss me.”

  She pressed her lips to the tip and kissed once, twice, then licked down the length. Groaning hurt. Just sitting here, wanting, hurt.

  She cradled his balls in the bowl of her hands, using her thumb to stroke the seam where they joined. He sifted his fingers through the tangled silk of her hair, fisting a handful at her nape so he could pull her head back.

  “Did you come?” His voice was terse and gruff, and the air felt dense with his arousal.The scent of him wanting her.

  “I didn’t fuck him, Grey.”

  Something let loose in him. A breath. He grazed her temple with the pad of his index finger, then smoothed her hair gently back. “Thank you.”

  She peered at him through her lashes, her gaze both needy and coy, as though two hours being separated had grown into hundreds. As though they had more between them than time, more than mere inches.

  “Make love with me?” he asked as she kissed the bloated head again, tenderly, lovingly using her tongue to draw the milky drop at the tip into her mouth. “Just you and me, like before.”

  Good-bye. No more Heath touching her. No more hands on her other than Grey’s. No more Heath haunting her.

  He fought to keep his head from rolling back, to keep his eyes open, but her mouth was so warm, so sweet around his cock.

  Fabric rustled as she guided his pants down the rest of his legs and tugged them free of his ankles. He watched her, feeling too big for his skin, near bursting at the chest.