Busy getting ready, because tonight, she was giving her virginity to Graves Buchanan.
And then at around 3 p.m., she got the best present of them all.
A mysterious-looking present. When the maid let her know something had arrived for her, Chloe brought the package simply addressed to CHLOE to her room, still in her bathrobe. The package contained two gift-wrapped items: one small box and one flat envelope. The envelope contained a gemstone certificate, while the box contained a blue velvet ring box with a sparkling, dazzling white diamond nestled at the center. Also inside the box, a letter I on simple white paper had been tucked into the small dome at the top.
An earthquake that would rate about a ten on the Richter scale went all through Chloe, because suddenly she knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that it was from him.
Every ten minutes for hours, an identical present arrived, and each contained a gemstone certificate, an identical diamond, but each with a different letter.
Chloe had never had such a splendid admirer and her womb clenched in frantic excitement every time she opened a box and stared at her new diamond. Two carats each, D color, internally flawless; Graves sent a total of twenty-five of them, each for a year of her life.
Chloe knew that they were the cleanest, whitest stones, and with a GIA certificate and ideal cut for brilliance, they were the best his money could buy her. She also knew that it was difficult to find one D, internally flawless diamond, but twenty-five? She could only imagine how much time he’d spent having all of these located and then delivered for today.
But the letters, she just couldn’t decipher them. One diamond had contained merely a period, but the rest just didn’t make sense to her.
IIMLLICYUWUPTIDNAKOIGPHT.
She scrutinized them for hours and tried to decipher what the letters meant, but she could not sort them out and ended up tucking each letter back into a diamond box. Then she waited and waited…fantasizing about him…becoming more and more aroused…
Being a virgin somehow made you feel like you were missing out on something, like you were being left out of a special club only people who had sex were allowed into. Like any girl, she’d fantasized about her first time for years, always wondering how having a man inside you would feel, if your orgasms were different than when you had one by yourself, and more importantly, who her first time would be with. But Chloe had always known, in her gut, that last part. Many guys had tried, but she just couldn’t get into any of them; she just didn’t want them the way she wanted Graves.
She was picky about her bed sheets, and her underwear, and her shoes. Always demanding the best. Her first time? You bet she wanted the best. And she wanted Graves Buchanan.
She waited and waited into the evening, when she became so anxious she began answering some e-mails just to keep from pulling out her hair. Then she got a call from Lisa, one of the caretakers at the orphan home.
“Chloe! You won’t believe what just happened, but please, please don’t tell anyone I called. It’s supposed to be under the radar, but there’s been an anonymous donation from a big corporation for fifty million dollars to the home. Fifty. Plus new computers from that top intelligence corporation that builds the robots like the one we saw. Oh, my God!”
She rambled on about how the check had mysteriously arrived, but Chloe was barely hearing anymore, she was trembling with excitement and a rush of desire so great, she hardly knew what to do with it.
Graves—because of course it was Graves—had made a whopping donation and Chloe thought that so damned hot she wanted to fuck him right then and there just to show him her appreciation.
She loved how he made his donations anonymously, unlike Luke, who loved to take the spotlight.
After that call, Chloe was so primed for Graves it wasn’t even funny anymore. The entire day knowing she would be with him had felt like foreplay, spent in a constant state of arousal, and now she stood before her full-length mirror, dressed and pretty and more than ready to see him. It was already after eleven, and her heart was close to breaking because he hadn’t come to see her. Her pussy clenched at the same time she gritted her teeth from the agony of it all. And when she could simply take no more, she cursed him under her breath, grabbed her car keys, stormed down to her car, and headed for his apartment.
When she rang for his elevator, he didn’t answer for some time. At last she heard a gruff, puzzled, “Chloe?”
“Oh, good, you remember me.”
There was a silence like he couldn’t understand why the hell she was here. Damn him. She rode the elevator and once upstairs, she charged down the hall to his bedroom.
She stopped at the threshold and tried to calm her breathing, but her emotions ate her up like piranhas. Through a haze of lust mingled with anger, she noticed a dozen roses lay atop his bed next to a sooty black jacket, and then she saw Graves—delicious, unattainable Graves—stroll out of his bathroom in dark black dress pants to match the jacket and in the process of buttoning up the last buttons of a crisp white shirt. He was so beautiful her heart ached and her overstimulated body screamed in fury and need.
He reached for his jacket and then paused when he spotted her at the door, his face going blank as he assessed her in her emerald-green Herve Leger mini bandage dress. He gaped at her, motionless as a marble slab. “My God, Chlo, I can’t even fucking breathe.”
Her cheeks flushed, and her entire body trembled with mixed emotions. “I thought we said my birthday.” She panted, finding it impossible to still her erratic pulse. “It’s almost twelve!”
He signaled to the clock that said 11:46 on his nightstand, brows furrowed in confusion. “I was about to go get you.” His voice, husky and sensual, sent a ripple of awareness through her, and it only annoyed her more.
“I waited all day, Graves,” she gritted out, but she could smell cologne in the air.
Through the crack of his bathroom door she could see the mirror was fogged from a recent shower, and the thought that Graves may have been making himself handsome for her, just like she had been beautifying herself for him, made her pussy clench.
Graves cocked his head, as though truly confused about why she was so angry, and his tone was so tender she wanted to cry. “I had to wait, too, Chlo.” His moves were painfully slow as he draped his jacket over the back of a nearby chair, his muscles rippling under his shirt so sexily she felt quakes in her tummy. “I thought you’d like to enjoy your family, your friends?”