The Satin Sash

Toni had been sitting at her workstation all morning and had accomplished nothing but a headache.

Dropping her pencil, she pushed her chair back and wound her way around the living room, plumping the pillows. How would she get him to admit it, to stop being so hardheaded? She knew that he knew deep down she was right. Heath belonged with them. Grey adored him in his own way, and not talking to him was tearing him apart, too! They couldn’t push Heath out of their lives. He was all instinct and passion and courage, and Toni wanted him, needed him, with them. How would she make him come back? How could she make Grey accept him?

While she set the kitchen into a semblance of cleanliness and order, she heard a knock. She was so lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hesitate to stroll over and open the door, thinking it might be one of her neighbors.

Instead, she came face-to- face with the same pair of twilight black eyes that haunted her dreams, her nightmares, and all her daydreams in between.

Looking tired, Heath Solis ran a hand through his rumpled hair, and his lips slowly, slowly, curved into a devastating smile.

Her stomach tumbled to the floor. Her breath went with it. “Heath?”

“The one and only.”

He lifted his right hand and held up her satin sash like a white flag announcing the end of a battle.

She didn’t realize she was clinging to the door until her knuckles protested in pain. She loosened her hold, trying to stand upright. “I wasn’t sure when you’d find my sash . . . or that you’d even want to come.”

He dropped a duffel bag at his feet and took a step forward, prying the door from her fingers and shutting it behind him. He did not let go of the sash. “When have I not come when you wanted me?”

She sucked in a breath when he reached out to trace the boat-neck collar of her shirt with his free hand. Gooseflesh broke out along her skin as his finger trailed the edges. Her heart could not beat any faster and she survive it.

“Heath.”

His hand journeyed higher, up the curve of her throat. His eyes tracked the caress up to her lips. Her mouth opened, her eyes drifting shut as he pushed his thumb into her mouth. “Heath . . .” She tilted her face higher, drawing his digit inside and wrapping the heat of her mouth entirely around it. Longing spread through her veins, stretching her system taut. He tasted salty, and she wanted to continue licking until she had tasted every part of his skin.

“Oh, my god, Heath.” She tore her eyes open, pressed her breasts into his chest and tangled her fingers in his hair, and then his arms were unyielding vines around her, squeezing out the little breath that remained in her.

“Christ! You feel so good, you smell”—he sucked in a breath of her hair—“so good.”

She clutched the cotton of his shirt in her fists and smelled him, too. Earth. Sweat. Heath. She flattened her hands over his pecs to encompass as much of him she could. The drum of his heart beat strong and steady under her palm. “I missed you, Heath. It’s been horrible without you. Everything’s been just horrible lately,” she confessed.

His eyes were weighted, the lashes silky, almost resting on his prominent cheekbones. Framing her mouth with his thumbs, he studied her lips with the hunger of a wild man, but seemed hesitant to take them. “Fuck, Cat, I’m so screwed.”

“No. No.” She clutched his face between her small hands. “You’re home.You’re home, Heath.”

He drew back a little. “Do you mean that?”

She bit her lip, nodding.

“Shit, come here.”

He crushed her mouth with his. His tongue pushed inside, demanding, insistent, voracious, twirling against and around her. “I want you, Cat.” He lifted her off the floor and spun her around.“All of you, the good and the bad.”

She laughed. “Oh, it’s all good.”

And they were laughing, kissing, when a closing door broke through their merriment.

They swiveled their heads to the entry. And there stood Grey. With an enormous black gorilla at his side. The gorilla grasped a bunch of colorful helium balloons in his meaty hand.

“Grey?”A puzzled noise rose up her throat.“W-what is a gorilla doing here?”

Grey wasn’t listening to her. His gaze was riveted on Heath, his unguarded expression registering shock. Pain, anger. His lips hardened. “Heath.”

“Grey.”

With a strained move, Grey rubbed his two index fingers up the bridge of his nose, whispered something into his hands before he dropped them at his sides.

Toni gulped. In her anxiety and desperatio