He wrapped her in his arms, roughly drawing her against him. “What I want is right here.”
His glaring hard-on was cushioned in the cleft between her buttocks. She stood utterly still. Smelling divine, feeling divine. Her suppleness amazed him. Her shampoo drifted up to his nostrils, the scent as tantalizing as spring.
“I . . . don’t sleep with my clients, Mr. Richards.”
He eased her gently around and flashed her a wolfish smile.“All right. I won’t buy.”
The breath shudder
ed out of her lips, and for the first time in his life, Grey wanted lipstick smeared all over his mouth. Her eyes were bright with sexual energy and wide with innocence.
He found the combination irresistible.
Their kiss had been sex in itself. A mating of tongues, a fusion of mouths, souls. Cultivated and controlled as he was, he’d barely been able to rein himself in. Pins flew from her hair; his pants were at his ankles; her panties shredded across the floor. She was on the window seat, one breast poking out at an awkward angle from her dress, her pussy exposed to him like an open flower—and only then did Grey pause for a breath, for a condom, for a freaking grip on himself.
Then the tips of her heels dug urgently into his buttocks, and he snapped like a twig.
The sex had been no smooth seduction. It had been carnal, reckless, animal.
No one made him lose control like she did. For months he was all over her, insatiable, intent on feasting on her until he was sated. And while he waited for the loss of interest that never came, they began flirting, teasing, exchanging secrets, childhood anecdotes—a Pandora’s box Grey had never opened before. Not to discover someone else’s contents, not to share his.
One weekday morning he woke up in her apartment with a pleasant buzz in his head, a smile of contentment on his face. He caught sight of her quietly watching him, and it hit him; that knee-buckling, chest-expanding feeling he knew he’d never felt in his life.
He left for work as usual, but surprised her by storming back within minutes. She had her briefcase in one hand, the other reaching to unhook her coat. “Did you forget something?” she asked, blinking in surprise.
He meant to tell her he adored her, tell her she was his everything, that he wanted her, needed her. Instead he growled, “This,” hooked two fingers into her belt, and hauled her forward until he latched on to her mouth. And he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, and the words wouldn’t come.
They were there. In his heart. Quiet, burning words he couldn’t speak even while she framed his face with her hands and whispered, “I love you, Grey Richards.”
He felt stripped of his skin, defenseless, because this fiery little creature could speak those achingly beautiful words he couldn’t. This sweet and saucy girl, with her reckless chestnut hair and big, innocent green eyes, loved Grey.
He’d never felt so vulnerable in his life.
And he watched as her face went pale when she realized he wouldn’t, couldn’t, say them back.
She laughed. At herself. Maybe at him.
She mumbled something indiscernible, pivoted around as she shook her head, but he clutched her back to him with force. “Say that again.”
Her next laugh couldn’t quite hide her unshed tears, but even then she gazed into his eyes and softly, stubbornly said, “I love you. With all my heart.”
And when he couldn’t find it in him to speak, he used the tongue that felt stiff and dry in his mouth and loved her with it.
Money did not teach you how to care, how to show you care, or how to deal with the discomfort of expressing it.While Grey’s parents had traveled the world, money had been Grey’s nanny. Countless maids, chefs, chauffeurs, and toys had been his. None had made up for the absence of his parents.
His mother had the bearing of a queen, and Grey remembered touching her little. She’d never been much for hugs, though she had been free with her smiles, plastic as they were. As for his father, Lucien Grey Richards didn’t give anything for free.
But he sure had a lot to say about character. No tears. No weakness. No sniveling. No neediness. Grey had gotten it all down to a T by the time he was ten.
Still, nothing he did seemed good enough for them.
Toni had been raised differently. Her mother baked. Her father worked to put money on the table. Toni talked to them regularly. She was affectionate, compassionate. Warm.
She was strong-willed, but the fact that she could bend to accommodate made her so much stronger in Grey’s eyes. People like Grey were make-or-break, but Toni flowed like a river—calming or destructive as only water could be. Her capacity to love humbled him. Her excitement for life, her thirst for new experiences, that impish humor that came at the oddest moments.
And her passion . . .
If he’d thought she was enthusiastic about her work, she was even more so about Grey. She gave him her all, freely and un questioningly. And now this woman who’d turned his world upside down, who called him to his face all the words nobody dared, whose first impulse once she got into bed was slipping into his arms to be held, wanted Heath Solis.