“Sir Richards, teléfono!”
Grey wearily scrubbed both hands over his face. “Oh, for god’s sake.”
Toni snatched one big hand down and peered into his eyes. “I thought you weren’t working this weekend.”
Grey bent to kiss her neck before he rose. “I’m not.”
It had t
o be at least eight p.m. in Chicago. She thoroughly appreciated her friend’s dedication, but if Louisa didn’t rest, that meant Grey didn’t, either, and he worked hard enough as it was. “What time does Louisa leave the office, anyway?” she asked, scowling.
“Apparently never,” he called as he lunged up the three steps to the house.
“Grey has a new assistant,” she turned to explain to Heath. “She’s a friend of mine, actually.”
“Do you have many friends?”
She couldn’t tell if he was really interested or simply making idle conversation. Looking at the particularly impressive poker face he wore, she couldn’t tell a thing—she ought to know about that, seeing as Grey had elevated it to an art form—so she kept her reply on the short side. “I have a few good friends. But I’d love to see them more than I do.You?”
He shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Just Grey.”
She sat up straighter and folded one leg to tuck her toes under her opposite knee. Lights from the interior of the house threw a wide stream of light over the pool area, casting an interesting play of shadows on his face. If her gifts lay more in the creative arts, rather than the graphic, she’d have an urge to paint him. Draw the slanted lines of his eyebrows, capture the angle of his nose, the exact shade of shadow across that belligerent jaw. “Grey told me how you met,” she said, wondering, Why is Heath Solis alone in the world?
His eyes fell to her breasts, her position fully exposing the globes to him, and something in her went liquid when his eyes began to glimmer.
“So his dad hates you?” she continued.
“Intensely.” He wanted to suckle her. His jaw was working as his eyes took in her nipples. And she knew, knew, in every atom of her stirring body, he wanted to suckle her.
“It’s mutual,” he said at last.
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
“And what was a sixteen-year-old boy doing parking cars?”
“If you touch your breasts for me, I’ll tell you.”
His brazenness sent a river of heat pouring between her thighs. Even as she told herself she should make him work for it, even as she told herself to laugh it off and ignore him, she shifted her weight on one arm and obediently, coyly, found herself handling one perky breast. It swelled in her hand, grew heavy as she massaged with her fingers.
“All right,” she said huskily, “now tell me.”
True to his word, he said, “I did all kinds of stuff before Grey and I started working together.” His ravenous stare turned her muscles to mush. “That was my first time parking cars, and wouldn’t you know it? In roars Lucien Grey Richards in his shiny red Fer rari.” He chuckled softly, his hair slapping against his temples as he shook his head. “He was lecturing this quiet young man who rode shotgun. . . .”
“Grey,” she breathed, making love to the word, to her breast.
“Yeah. He had on that stony face of his. He was quiet . . . you know, pissed. His old man got out of the car and slapped the keys to my palm, saying something like, ‘If I see a single scratch, you’ll be working the rest of your life to pay for it, son, so I suggest you take good care.’”
She sat up, engrossed, and Heath narrowed his eyes when her hands fell to her sides. He paused for only a moment. “I stared down at those keys,” he continued, “thinking how very much I’d like to test that threat, and then Grey came over and whispered so the old man wouldn’t hear. I swear he was reading my mind. He said, ‘Don’t be shy. Take her for a ride.’ Then he smiled that cold smile of his. ‘Make her squeal.’ He was so pissed and so cool about it, he gave me a laugh. So I thought, I kind of like this guy.And I took her for a ride, made her squeal.” He grinned at her. “And made his father squeal, too.”
Toni laughed, enjoying hearing the story again. “You two are so bad.”
“You’re beautiful when you smile.”
She jerked in her seat, taken aback by his compliment.
“Don’t,” he whispered.