The Satin Sash

by Red Garnier

  She wanted him.

  She wanted Heath Solis.

  She still could not believe Grey had only yesterday mentioned the man was bisexual.

  Snuggled on the couch as he watched the football game, he’d made a casual remark about Heath being bi, and Toni had jumped. Heath is bisexual? Grey had waved it off as if he were discussing the most boring, most inconsequential topic ever. But Toni could not think of anything else all evening. Oh, she’d known that man was bad. Bad, bad, bad. She’d pressed her legs together so, so tight at a visual her mind suddenly conjured. “I didn’t know.”

  “Now you do.”

  “Did you and he—”

  Grey had chuckled softly. “I’m not bisexual, baby. He is.”

  Now Toni continued to wonder what kind of confused woman found a bisexual man attractive.

  The same kind who’d have a threesome.

  As soon as they landed, Grey stored his Harlan Coben in a glossy wooden plane compartment, and Toni slipped her Jodi Picoult into her tote bag. Anticipation simmered in her veins. Her nerves were wild and awake, sensitive to a glance, a whisper, the faintest brush against her skin. She wouldn’t let Grey know that.

  “Don’t think I’ve been playing your little game, Mr. Almighty Richards,” she whispered to Grey as she unfastened her seat belt and gathered her things. While he helped her out of her sweater, she lightly added, “I’ve been touching myself all week in the shower, and it’s been wonderful.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes.” She nodded somberly, tying her sweater around her waist. “It’s a fact.”

  He extracted her bag from her grasp, still whispering for Heath’s sake. “So why are your panties in a twist?”

  “They’re not in a twist.”

  His smile was full of carnal male knowledge. His heavy-lidded gaze made her nipples throb. “I know for a fact that they are.”

  “Ha. I can take care of my own panties, thank you.” She added a flippant toss of her hair as she slipped her feet back into her sandals.

  “Can you, now?” He flattened her against him so fast he knocked the breath out of her. With a grinding move of his hips that presented his need to her throbbing cunt, he had her gasping. “I want your pussy. I want your breasts in my mouth. I want you creaming all over me.” Her body responded to his erotic words, her muscles clenching with anticipation. “You need me inside you,Toni.Three days without me and you’re going insane.”

  “Dream on. B-by all means, let your imagination fly.”

  He kissed her with the force of an avalanche, pouring his passion into her, his tempestuous need having built up for seconds, minutes, hours, days. “I’m so hard for you I could break marble.”

  She could barely pry herself free. “Good; I hope you have fun with it.” In a nonchalant gesture that took a miracle to perform, she shouldered across him, down the aisle. Turning, she watched him slap Heath’s shoulder.

  “You coming, Heath?”

  Heath pushed himself off the seat. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  “He hates small airplanes,” Grey told her. “Motion sickness, I don’t know. He takes drugs even in the larger planes.”

  Heath raked a hand through his hair and shook off his daze. Even in such a state, the dangerous aura around him made her insides thrill.

  “Big, bad Heath is afraid of flying?” she said almost to herself, smiling at the notion.

  Grey squeezed her rump before she climbed down the stairs.

  “He heard that.”

  Her veins thrummed as she descended the stairs, strode into the small airport and went through the long line at customs, where a group of armed soldiers inspected their baggage.

  A frowning young man with a weapon slung around his shoulder rifled through her bags—his hands were all over her bras, her thongs, to the point that she was beginning to feel violated—while the three of them stood statuelike across the table and watched. Grey was simmering with impatience.

  Heath bent to her ear.“I think Grey has a mind to strangle that man,” he muttered.

  “Watch a man putting his hands on your woman’s panties and see how you feel,” Grey said, his words belying the coolness with which he spoke them.

  When the man glanced up, Toni smiled brightly and tried to pretend they weren’t discussing him. Or the fact he wore no gloves while he messed with her clothes.

  Lifting a hand to smooth away Grey’s frown, she rose on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his jaw. “I can always not wear them. I know you like that.”

  Like that? She knew for a fact he loved that.

  When a second man came over to “aid” in the inspection, the entire process became ridiculously intrusive and began to annoy her. Grey finally stepped forward, his voice authoritative. “Are we done here?”

  The men tucked her red La Perla back into the suitcase with a grave nod, and Grey zippered it up. He snatched her hand, linked their fingers, and together they made their way through the rustic halls of the airport, each hauling his or her own suitcase.

  “Cat, I’ll get that.”

  Before she could protest, Heath, carrying only a small travel duffel around his shoulder, grasped the handle of her suitcase and hauled it on. She smiled, wondering why the gesture seemed . . . so nice. “Thank you.Why did you call me Cat?”

  She was in such a sexually deprived state, his drug-induced drawl had the effect of a vibrator on her. “I’ll have you purring like one.”

  The airport was a small one-story building, noisy and crowded with tourists. The scent of food and sweat permeated the air. To one side of the hall, an array of colorful Mexican tiendas displayed T-shirts and dolls and sombreros. The other side was occupied by revision tables, waiting areas, flight check- in, but the area was so limited in tables and chairs that people were actually scattered on the floor as though at a picnic.

  As they pulled their suitcases down a long ramp, Grey’s housekeeper, Señor Gonzalez, a kindly brown- eyed man with laugh lines around his mouth, waited next to a shiny black Lincoln Navigator. All of Grey’s cars were black, something Toni didn’t get; she’d learned from experience that the tiniest scratch was always most visible on those. She’d given a few to his Porsche that fairly screamed “Toni was here.”

  While the men flung the suitcases in the trunk, she hovered nearby.

  The heat pounded atop her head, but a hushed breeze played with her hair. Not a sharp Chicago breeze, but a flimsy one that made the nearby palm trees gently sway. She could smell the ocean in the air and couldn’t resist dragging in a good lungful before she slid into the back of the car.

  Heath rode up front with the reed-thin Mexican; Grey and Toni in the back. Grey slipped an arm around her waist and hauled her across the slippery leather. He flattened her cheek to his chest.“Stay right here with me.”

  He was so infuriatingly sexy. She’d been so sure he wouldn’t last at his play. So certain he’d lose at his own game and take her one evening, one morning. He hadn’t.The man’s will was iron, and now she was steeling herself to punish him. A little. If she could manage.

  They rode for thirty minutes through desert landscape dotted with cacti, a landscape that looked lonely and barren and beautiful.

  Once they reached the picturesque small town of San José, the scenery changed, with the endless blue of the ocean visible to their left.

  Grey and Señor Gonzalez had a bit of a language issue—neither spoke the other’s—so they didn’t communicate through the entire ride. Heath occasionally spoke to him in Spanish, but his voice was still thick. She assumed he was still groggy. It was kind of adorable.

  His T-shirt stretched taut over the roundness of his shoulders, and his glossy black hair looked played-with. During the ride, he ran a heavy, tired hand through it, and she suppressed the urge to reach out and do the same.

  This weekend, they were both hers.

  The car climbed up a narrow road.They passed gates and long stretches of manicured gardens, and then the house came
into view. White and grand, it sat atop the rocky cliff, with sweeping terraces and massive archways, surrounded by lush green palm trees. Up the wide steps and inside the sunny foyer, they were greeted by an array of fresh flowers Señor Gonzalez had set atop the central round table.The tall windows in every room had been opened to let in the breeze, and the marble floors shone like mirrors.

  Grey showed Heath to the guest room before following Toni to theirs. Their room at the Cabo house was three times bigger than their bedroom at Toni’s.

  A fluffy lime green rug covered the floor, while the walls were cheerfully decorated with two rows of framed beach drawings. A plush duvet was spread across the bed, an assortment of soft- hued pillows propped on the massive oak headboard.The glass door windows covering one wall opened to a sprawling terrace that boasted a variety of teak furniture and a perfect view of the Sea of Cortez.

  The great crash of waves, even with the beach a 120-stone staircase away, echoed in the stillness.

  Toni started unpacking.

  On the small forged-iron table by the window, Grey unloaded their passports, his iPod, her home keys, then propped his shoulder against the wall, ankles crossed as he fiddled with his cell phone, scanning his messages.

  When he tucked it back into his pocket, he pushed himself off the wall and lazily sauntered around the room. So nonchalant. So unaffected by this abstinence that had her in a frenzy.

  On the bed, he found a lacy black pair of panties she must have overlooked. Absently, he fingered the crotch, and she felt the touch on her sex and tensed against the sensation. She gritted her teeth, angry at herself.

  She had been like this all day. So sensitive to the merest look, touch, scent.

  Smiling, he crushed it into a ball and tucked it into the pocket of his tan slacks. She wanted to clamp her mouth over his and devour him.

  Instead, she feigned indifference and went to the window, remembering the whales they’d seen the last time they visited. Soaring into the air, crashing back into the water. The water lapped at the jutting black rocks, and she marveled at how calm the sea looked. How she would like to feel it against her. How Grey would feel against her . . . and Heath . . . And then she forgot the sea, the whales, the past and the future, when Grey drew up behind her.

  “I’m dying to make love to you.”

  Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself, clutched tight. “I’m dying, too.”

  He drew nearer, the heat of him infiltrating her clothes.Was he stroking her hair? “Are you wearing some? Panties?”

  Her breathing pattern changed. “Why do you want to know?” The words were faint; inside them, a silent scream for him to touch her. Make love to her.Take her before she went up in flames.

  He seized her wrists and brought her arms up, flattening her hands against the window. His weight pressed into hers as he caressed her sides, his voice the very sound of desire. “I’m going to strip you down to your skin, and I’m going to take every little inch of you with my tongue.”

  It took an effort to say, “Hah.”

  He nudged her legs apart with his knee, seized her long skirt with both hands, and crept them up to her waist. Air rushed across her bare bottom. “I’ll make you come for all the times you haven’t come, and then I’ll have you coming some more.”

  A tremble shot through her, and she fought for it not to show, her palms sweating against the glass.

  His hand slipped between her ass cheeks.A shock of excitement ripped through her as he groped her. “Pussy.” His terse whisper passed through her in a current of electricity. “My hot, wet, juicy pussy. You’ve been walking like this all day?”

  His fingers tunneled into her cleft, stroking the outside, startling her to a cry when he pushed in. She threw her head back, parting her legs wider. “Yes!” She was frantic for him, for this.

  “I feel starved, Antonia.” The words were whispered against her neck as he expertly rolled her clit under his thumb, his zipper scraping her buttocks as he rubbed his arousal against her. “I’m starved for the sounds you make, the sight of your face as you come. I’m starved for your nipples, your tongue, the things you say to me when I’m inside you.”

  “I miss you, too.” Her eyes drifted shut, her body rocking to his moves, their unchecked passion soaring through her. “Three days, and I can’t stand more.”

  He chuckled. “In three more days, you won’t be able to stand, period.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, and he covered one breast with his free hand, massaging the flesh. “Do I amuse you, Miss Kearny?”

  Her lingering laugh drifted to a moan when he twisted his wrist, a second finger joining his long middle one inside her channel. Her hips moved to his hand, seeking more.

  The click of the bedroom door faintly penetrated the cloak of their desire. One word leapt into her mind, and her eyes sprung open.

  Heath.

  Grey slid out of her. “We’ve got company.”

  Taking her wrists in his hands, he gently lowered her arms. He was breathing as fast as she was, his face close to her ear. “We’re going to strip you naked, and we’re going to lick you like candy, and when you’re squirming and begging for cock, we’re going to fill you up until you can’t breathe.” His sweltering tongue did erotic things to her earlobe, gingerly fucked the crevice. “We’re going to do this all weekend, Toni. Night and day. Until all you can think about is getting more tongue on your pussy, more dick in your mouth, more getting lapped at like a wet, juicy lollipop.”

  She’d come if he kept speaking, plunging his tongue into her tingling ear.

  “Turn around for me, baby.”

  She did. Flutters exploded in her stomach at the sight of Heath. Not a dream. Not a thought. But real. Flesh-and-blood man.

  Definitely not her worst nightmare.

  His eyes came at her across the room, heavy lidded, shining with lust. He wasn’t smiling.

  Grey drew her protectively to his side. “Breathe.”

  But she couldn’t. Not when Heath fisted his hands on the front of his shirt and tugged it over his head. The chest he revealed was ridged and muscled, every rib delineated, his abs marked with taut muscle.

  Black hair reckless atop his head, his muscles flexed as he carelessly tossed the shirt aside, and then his hands went to his waistband. God, she felt like an innocent. A virgin.

  Her legs turned rubbery as he flicked the button of his jeans, his fingers deft as he lowered the zipper. Heat pulsed between her thighs, fast like her heartbeat.

  She couldn’t help closing her eyes as Heath started shoving his jeans down his hips. But she heard the slide of denim, heard her heart thundering, heard the fabric whisper down his legs.

  Grey gathered her blouse at her sides, sliding it up. This is it, this is it, this is it . . .

  In her wildest imaginings, she’d pictured herself as a beach temptress—not coy, but a brazen goddess driving two gorgeous males to uncontrollable lust. In reality, she was just Toni Kearny, and she was overwhelmed. She could hardly breathe, much less move or act sexy.

  Grey gripped her waist, his fingers digging into the side of her hip. “Open your eyes, Toni. See what you do to him.”

  She pulled her eyes open and gaped. Heath was wearing the longest, biggest erection she’d ever seen. He stood with his feet braced apart, his arms at his sides, his fingers curled into his palms. And something hummed. Inside her. In her blood, coursing dangerously through her veins.

  Her eyes ran along Heath’s strong cheekbones, the plump curve of his mouth, the golden tan across his body. Silky hairs dusted his chest. An arrow of thicker hair started under his navel and fanned out to a dark thatch from where that enormous penis thrust out. Her fingers tingled at her sides, alive with a need to touch him, compare him to Grey, discover their differences and their similarities.

  “You see Heath?”

  “Yes.” God, yes, she saw. Felt. Sensed. Smelled them both.

  Grey captured her earlobe in his teeth. “We
own you tonight.”

  “I . . . I own you both.”

  The admission made Heath’s eyes flash, like a bull at the sight of red, a green light, a yes.

  Grey buzzed her ear with his nose and his hands were roaming, caressing up her hips. “Let’s get naked, Miss Kearny.”

  Jolted into action, she clenched her fingers in the fabric of his polo and struggled to wrench it off him. He helped her, then shucked off his Dockers, his underwear, until she beheld six feet three inches of glorious, bare-assed, mouthwateringly naked Grey.

  Looking down at her, he caught her wrist and tugged her forward. “My turn.”

  He’d undressed her a thousand times. When he did it leisurely, he always kissed bits and pieces he revealed. Now he kissed the swell of one lace-encased breast as he reached behind her to undo her pink bra.“So beautiful . . .” He pulled the straps from her shoulders and let it fall, raking his tongue across one elongated nipple. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re so sexy. . . .”

  She wanted to eat him up with her mouth, to swallow his beautiful words into her.

  Her bra dropped at her feet, and her breasts sprung fully free. He kissed both.

  Gently he turned her around to unhook her skirt while Heath came to her, smelling of earth and rain and a rich, balmy musk. Her skirt swooshed down to her ankles. A gust of air cooled her before Heath’s proximity reversed her body to heat.

  She felt so naked. But his face . . .

  His face was ravaged with need. His nostrils flared. Suddenly, she felt as though she were the only woman he’d ever seen; so alive were his eyes on her, so greedy, taking in the perky swell of her breasts, her clean-shaven pussy.

  His fingers skimmed up her cheek as he ducked his head. His tongue glided up the corner of her lips, teasing her with the tip. “I’m so fucking turned on,” he growled. He turned his head to lick at the other corner of her lips, harshly whispering, “Say my name.”

  “Heath.” It felt too good to say it.

  “Ahh, Toni.” His head went down, and his tongue swept gently across the puckered bud of one nipple, his fingers enclosing the flesh around it.