The Satin Sash

Stunned, she’d stopped typing and gaped.

“I know how much you wanted to impress my parents, and when you saw them for what they were and refused to play into them, you impressed me. All the money in the world couldn’t buy them your class.” He feathered his mouth across hers, and his lips twitched, forming a crooked smile. “Aren’t you glad fourteen nannies raised me rather than them?”

Toni had pictured a blond, gorgeous little boy trying valiantly not to care whether anyone showed up for his soccer practices.And when she tried to remember if he’d ever showed her a birthday picture where his parents were actually in it and found that there were none, she disliked Mr. and Mrs. Richards all the more. But oh, she loved their son.

“Toni was just telling us about your plans,” her mother was telling him.

“Was she.” The lack of a question in his voice told Toni he knew full well what was coming.

“Yes.” Her mother’s face furrowed as she wiped her mouth with a linen napkin. “Homer and I can’t say we agree. Antonia is thirty already, and she’s not getting any younger.”

Under the table, Grey’s hand went to her thigh, drawing her eyes to his. “Fill me in, sweetheart?”

Smiling, she patted his leg under the table, resisting the urge to do some other kind of touching, which was tempting with him near. “It’s not what you think. Sweetheart.”

Her mischievous grin brought a twinkle to his eye.

“Marriage makes people compromise,” her mother went on. “Toni would compromise for you as much as you would for her. Homer, I brought the meat loaf; could you bring more gravy?”

Her father grumbled a protest but promptly rose to fetch, and her mother beamed.

“See? Compromise.”

“Mom and Dad have been talking marriage and babies all afternoon, Grey,” Toni said, rolling her eyes and spearing a carrot slice from her plate.

Grey opted to fork something up from his plate, too.

“Well?” her mother prompted, pinning him on the spot with a direct look.

Grey faced Toni. “I’d say no more than two.”

She almost choked. She snatched up a glass, took a long sip of water, and plopped it back down. “Two what?”

“Kids.”

She sent him a puzzled look, her heart fluttering wildly, unexpectedly, and then she managed to steer the conversation to other, safer topics.

Grey listened to her father’s hunting tales, praised her mother’s new cookie recipe until she flushed, and Toni was left imagining what a little Grey would look like. She’d never thought of Grey in a fatherly way. He was too . . . proud and too . . . worldly. And yet he was so gentle and protective of Toni, it brought to mind how he would look lifting a little girl up high in his arms.

How could Toni not want that?

And why did she have a feeling Grey would give her a threesome a thousand times over a family?

The rest of the evening she fought bravely to push those thoughts aside.

Once they said their good-byes and crossed the walkway toward the street, she said, “Did you mean it, what you said in there?”

“What? About children?” He steered her toward the Porsche when she’d instinctively started for her own car. “Let’s take mine. I’ll have yours picked up tomorrow.” He waved her keys in the air, his eyes glinting. “Your tire’s fixed.”

“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it until I saw you’d left your Porsche.” Stopping, she gazed into his beautiful eyes, filled with awestruck admiration. “But you don’t miss anything, do you?”

There was an almost imperceptible softening in his gaze. Tenderly, he ran his knuckles down her cheek. “It’s fixed,” was all he said.

“Thank you. My hero.And I’m happy to report your car is intact!”

He walked her over to the passenger’s side, but rather than helping her into the vehicle, he flattened her against the door so fast she gasped from the shock of his weight. “I need to have you; I need to be inside you.”

Heart thundering, she stroked her hand lightly across the prominent bulge on his crotch, watching his face tighten.“And I want . . . this.You. Inside me.”