Graves met his friend’s gaze squarely in silence, waiting for Luke to ramble out of ideas, which sometimes took a goddamn while.
“I can’t see how you think taking a weapon of mass destruction to an orphanage would be a good idea,” Luke continued.
“We have some for entertainment purposes,” Graves countered.
“Ah, I forgot that. You have robot secretaries, I now recall. What I still can’t figure is why you don’t give them tits and asses and names like Debbie Blow Me and Letitia Lick My Weenie.”
“Because the world already has one of you to come up with that shit, asshole.”
“All right, so tell me why you want to do this. I’d love to know. As far as I know you’re not very chummy with Chloe. Heck, you’re not chummy with any of the ladies, warm, loving teddy bear that you are. Now you want to be best buddies with her? What about your BFF Daniel? I don’t get it, man.”
Because Chloe’s mine mine, she wants me me me. He exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. Luke was the closest thing to a gigolo, but he wasn’t a snitch when it came to serious business. And right now Graves couldn’t think of anything as fucking serious in his life. His balls still ached in his pants, almost as badly as his chest did. He had never, ever, felt like this before. He was really, truly, fucking in love and in lust with this woman.
“Graves? Man, you’re scaring me.”
Graves shook his head, inhaled again, and exhaled long and slow. “I want her so bad I feel like she’s opening me up and cutting right through me.” He dragged his hands over his face in despair.
“You want her as in…”
His face shot back up. “As in, I’ll kill you if you touch her. I wouldn’t even have to set a finger on you. I’ll just program your door to shut on your goddamned face.”
“Wow, you’ve even got the method down.”
“I’m not bluffing, man. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’ve lost my fucking mind, but it’s too damned late now to do anything about it.”
“Holy shit, you have lost a screw! What the hell are you going to do with a social butterfly like Chloe? She won’t come to heel when you command her like your toys, Graves.”
“Thanks for the shit input, Dr. Freud,” he snapped.
“You’re very welcome,” Luke said coolly. “But I definitely have to say all your troubles are due to the fact that you grew up without a mother. If you’d been exposed to even a fraction of some healthy maternal love, like myself, you wouldn’t have any problems accepting a woman’s affection.”
Graves snorted. “At least I didn’t lose my virginity to my old nanny.”
“Ah, now you’re giving me a boner.” Luke sighed and pushed to his feet. “Well, why didn’t you say you were going suicidal, Grave face? Chloe’s all yours, dude—don’t worry about me. I’ve got the entire city of Chicago at my disposal. Plus, I’m kind of relieved I won’t have to handle that slight inconvenience of dealing with Daniel…”
“Are you supposed to pick her up tomorrow or are you meeting her there?” Graves demanded.
“Meeting here there…” And Luke, with that mischievous sparkle in his eyes, dished out all the details.
Chapter Three
After a night of no sleep, Chloe rushed the next morning to make it by nine to the Ralph Lexington Orphan Home, a small two-story orphanage that had been founded by her great-grandfather. She rushed through her shower, rushed through breakfast, rushed on her drive, and she even rushed on her way into the building. And every nanosecond of every one of those moments, she did the same thing she’d done while lying sleepless in her bed at night.
She relived Graves’s kiss.
Over and over, she’d rewind, pause, rewind, replay…
She felt so haunted, so gripped by that moment, she could not push him out of her head. His raw, forbidden taste teased and tantalized her. His heat. His groans. His hands. The way he’d drawn out the moment…teasing her and somehow, making her want it so much more…
God, she had to stop thinking about it. Being in a daydreaming state all through the day with the children would just not do. Plus Luke would be here today to motivate the kids, and she had to be sharp and clear-headed when she exposed her plans and hopefully enlisted his assistance.
But definitely, a “pretend affair” with Luke was in order.
Shuffling into the great room, Chloe greeted Lisa and Marie, the two caretakers on standby, with a hug and a kiss, discovering that they’d already gathered the kids into several rows of perfectly lined chairs for Luke’s presentation.
Children of all ages lived in the home, boys and girls, some of them so lonely you could just break in two when you met them. Luke always made them laugh, though, and he never showed pity for anyone. He called them his “compadres” as though they were equals and dazzled them with his easygoing personality.
Chloe just loved to see them smile and therefore tried to bring a guest in at least once a month.
“All right, children, today I am having a very special guest who you might…”
Tittering and fluttering spread across the room, and suddenly all the little heads before her turned toward the swinging doors. Chloe heard a strange sound like the continual click of a thinking computer from that direction. Puzzled, she twisted around, and her eyes widened when a huge man-sized robot walked directly toward her.
With a bright red rose stretched out.
“I…” Oh my God, what is this?
She seized the rose with a hand that started to tremble. The robot turned to its audience and in a deep, robotic voice, told the children, “My name is Prototype R45, but my friends call me Tot.”
The kids started screaming “Tot! Tot!” He talked and moved fluidly, lifelike, like Iron Man except this was a real robot with no man inside. The gold-and-black outer suit gleamed, and he had the kids in his pocket in a mere instant. They were screaming out his name like it was Michael Jackson.
Chloe’s heart fluttered like it had grown a thousand wings—because of course there was only one business in the entire United States that handled this level of intelligent robotics, providing the government with some of its most advanced intelligence weapons.
And it was not Luke Preston’s billion-dollar underwear business that did this.