The Satin Sash

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.”