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ld wind slid across the back of her neck. She felt horribly, horribly humiliated for some reason, as though the seconds she sat there—speechless, stunned, perplexed—were telling Grey more than she’d ever wanted to let on about her evolving thoughts.
“Grey and I don’t believe in marriage,” she said with an impressive attempt at self- recovery. She breezed away from Grey. “We think it’s . . .” She seemed to have forgotten all the bad things they thought about the institution, so she waved a hand and said, “We just don’t believe in it. So I am Antonia Kearny, and I will continue to be Antonia Kearny until I die.” She patted Heath’s raspy, stubbled cheek, her chin up and haughty. “Satisfied, Heath . . . Solis?”
It took her every ounce of willpower and then some to meet Grey’s gaze head-on. He sat in the very spot she’d left him in, thoroughly quiet. He was smiling, but he didn’t look amused.
She shot him a brave smile, and when it faltered on her face, she knew she needed a moment to herself. “I’ll be back.”
Grey reached into the fruit bowl and thwacked Heath with a flying banana.
“What the . . . !”
“The next time you have an idiotic thing to say, don’t say it in front of Toni.”
Heath swept the fruit up from the floor and wiped it across his T-shirt. “You mentioned marrying her, so I thought you’d at least discussed it with her. Sheesh. What were you planning?”
Grey crossed his arms, his forehead furrowed in annoyance.“It’s called a surprise, Heath.You’re fairly good at them yourself.”
Casually peeling the banana, Heath took a bite and leveled him a look. He said nothing. But he didn’t need to. He’d fucking said enough already.
Grey glared. “And now that you’ve fed her stories of Heath’s Life as a Bi, she wants you and me to go at it—is that it?”
“How should I know?” He ate the last of the banana in one big mouthful and crossed the kitchen to toss the peel into the trash. “Toni’s just curious about men.”
“Good. She can watch me screw the devil out of you. I can think of a lot of ways to shut up that big mouth of yours.”
“And I can think of one very good way to make you squeal like a girl.”
“Who’s going to squeal like a girl?”
Appearing through the hall, Toni steered around the kitchen island, still wrapped in Grey’s shirt. She had rolled the cuffs up to her elbows, and the cotton fabric was wrinkled across her hips. Grey had thoroughly disliked it when women he’d slept with had taken the liberty of wearing his clothes, but the sight of Toni in his shirts had the opposite effect on him. It stirred a wildness in him, made him want to sniff himself on her, made him want to brand her with his tongue.
With a quirked brow, she directed a questioning look in Grey’s direction, then at Heath. “Who’s going to squeal like a girl?”
“Grey is,” Heath said.
Grey caught her before she could pass, flanked her between his thighs, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind. “Antonia Kearny,” he said. “Who would want to change such a pretty name?”
Grey would. Fuck, he was dying to. But all of a sudden, Toni didn’t seem too thrilled. Her words were as stiff as her back. “Nobody. I like my name just fine.”
He fell silent, and part of him wished he could see her face to gauge her expression. It had never occurred to him that she might not want to marry him.The possibility perturbed him. No, it ate at him. It would kill him. Not having her. Not making her entirely, irrefutably his.
“Toni Richards isn’t pretty?” he asked uneasily, and to that he got a shrug in reply. Heath’s intentional smirk didn’t help matters. Heath’s presence here didn’t help matters. Grey wanted to turn Toni around and go searching in her eyes—he thirsted to find the answer he needed, craved seeing her yes to that unspoken question in his gaze.
He couldn’t have asked for a more inopportune moment to seek it.
Now, in all honesty, he could not stop wondering whether she wanted to be his wife or not.
It would all have to wait.
Leaning close to the top of her head, he twined a hand through the soft coil of hair at her nape, caressing the curve that led to her shoulder. “Do you want to play?” he breathed into her.
“Like Monopoly?”
She tipped her head way back to meet his gaze. He smiled down at her, and his lower lip met with her top one when he huskily confessed, “A grown-up game, baby.” One where I’m all over you, sweetheart. Where you moan my name over and over and show me I’m your man . . .
“What’s it called?” she asked.
“It’s called, Heath Watches While I Take You Like a Caveman.” She laughed, and Heath sauntered forward, his eyes smoldering with intent. “Or we can play Let’s Watch Grey Take It Like a Man. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
