The Satin Sash

He plopped down on a couch seat and yanked a stiff cushion from behind his back, then thoughtfully set it across his lap. She’d made dinner. She’d dressed up. And Heath was freaking embarrassed that he was already so eager to fuck.

He’d had this pain for days.

Innocent to his dilemma,Toni stared into his eyes as she lowered herself to take the seat next to his.“I wanted to,” she admitted, reaching out to clasp his hand and link their fingers on the pillow.“I wanted to cook for you. I want to make you and Grey so happy, Heath.”

He was so aroused, he could not suppress the pained sound in his throat as he stroked his hands through the silky tendrils of her hair. “You do, sweetheart, you do.” The satiny mass fell across her bare shoulders in wavy tresses he wanted to wrap around his face and hands and cock, and he could barely think straight when he buried his nose and inhaled its sweetness.

Ahh, buddy, get your butt over here now.

It was all he thought of as he took her lips and kissed her. Get the fuck over here now. It was all that kept him from coming when she stroked his erection over his jeans, and it was all that kept him inserting one finger

rather than three under her dress and into her weeping cleft. Get the fuck here now, Grey!

And yet minutes became hours, and Toni’s arousal began to dim with worry. Attempting to salvage her pride, Heath ate Grey’s portion of her meat loaf and potatoes, but while he ate he was quietly hurting for her.

And he was hurting for himself.

Because it was Heath that Grey did not want here. It was Heath that Grey would never take.

Toni’s eyes kept straying to the door.

Heath’s eyes kept straying to the door.

Neither spoke.

Well into the small hours of the night, they settled in the couch and she fell asleep in his arms. By then, it was more than clear to Heath.

Grey was not coming.

The office fell into a cadaverous silence when Grey strode across the carpeted floors the next morning. People began whispering as he quietly shut the massive doors of his office behind him. What nobody expected was the appearance of Heath Solis a few minutes later.They knew it was him, and he was everything he was reputed to be. Dark, big, and menacing, he crossed directly to Louisa’s desk. He was not smiling.

“Heath Solis to see Grey.”

He didn’t sit down on the chair Louisa offered, but waited standing, arms crossed, his hip propped on Louisa’s desk as she shakily dialed Grey’s extension. “Mr. Solis requesting to see you.”

Three seconds later, the doors were thrust open to reveal Grey. The men assessed each other, then Heath pushed himself away from Louisa’s desk and strolled into the office behind Grey. Inside, the air crackled with hostility. Heath’s arms lay rigid at his sides, and his knuckles jutted out of his fists.

“She’s miserable.”

If Grey thought he couldn’t feel lower, more contemptible, he had been wrong. He felt the pressure of Heath’s words in his chest, crushing into his heart, and it irked him that he cared. Releasing a tight, broken breath, he turned back to his desk, to the pile of papers he had yet to get to, the million things he wanted to do, one on top of the other, to keep from thinking of her. Of them. Together.

“She made her choice.”

He shuffled the papers on his desk, then rearranged the pens by color. Blacks, blues, reds. “Heath, I’ve got Parsons in Atlanta, but he’s an imbecile with the zoning commission. I need to know your plans.”

Heath gaped at him, then shoved his arms up high.“Toni needs you, and you sit there and talk to me about Parsons?”

“She made her choice!” he snapped. She made her choice, and she chose you. My baby chose you.

“I can’t fucking replace you. I can’t fucking make up for your half, and you can’t fucking make up for mine. She adores you.What is it that you can’t stand—that she loves me, too? That I want to belong to someone, to her?”

He only half listened; his brain was pounding. His temples throbbed and he knew, without a doubt, if Heath did not leave, he was going to lose it. He was on the verge of smashing someone’s head into the window, a hair away from turning back into his ancestral ape and roaring out with pain. He wanted him for breakfast. He wanted his blood.

Searching for the last vestiges of control, he looked Heath directly in the eye and said, “If you ever mention her again—”

“What?” Covering the distance to his desk, Heath dug into his jeans pocket and slammed his palm into Grey’s chest. “Where’s your half ?” Grey’s eyes burned at the sight of red. “Did you tear it up, throw it away?” Heath nabbed Grey’s wrist and forced the sash into his palm, anger making his teeth show. “We waited all. Fucking. Night for you!”

Trancelike, Grey ran three fingertips across the cool fabric, then dropped his face and buried his nose deep inside. Oh, fuck. Her scent clung to the satin like perfume, and he wanted to suffocate in it. He wanted to hear her, see her, touch her. In that instant, while the fruity scent of her feathered across his straining lungs and the sight and texture of the sash made him long to burn in hell rather than stand this, Grey could not summon any anger. Not for Heath. Not for her. It just hurt. Like nothing in his life had ever hurt before.