An image of Graves tenderly looking down at her flashed in her mind, his lips kissing her sore wrists, his voice deep and soothing. And suddenly she ached to shower Graves Buchanan with all her love until he was bursting with it. Until he had no choice but to love her back.
But did Graves have it in him to care for her? They were so different, but he felt so right, she had never had a doubt in her mind he was the only man she’d ever want. One she admired and respected and desired like crazy…
If she hadn’t been madly in love with him since the beginning, then she’d have fallen for him hard when he’d opened up to her this morning. Oh, God, the things he’d said. The way he’d…bared himself to her. She’d never felt so powerfully toward any human being in her life. She’d never responded to being kissed like she had when under the onslaught of Graves’s delicious mouth. It was fire. Magic. The best kind. She would’ve stayed in his bed an entire month without food if only she could feast on his lips like she had minutes ago.
“Chloe…damn it, I told you to stay away from my friends,” Daniel growled in a rough, anguished voice. “Graves is…He loathes anything that will detract from his reasonable thinking capabilities. I can’t believe he slept with you. He never gets mixed with women who expect more than a brief, impersonal tumble.”
Grief weighed hard on her shoulders, and she shook her head against Danny’s chest. No, he’d done it because she’d pushed him like a spoiled brat used to getting her way. She’d pushed him until he caved. And now she would pay the consequences, for he may very well never want anything to do with her again.
But, besides an affair, what had she been thinking to accomplish?
Did she expect a successful, self-made billionaire who could have any woman, anything in the world he wanted, would willingly commit to one girl? And a high-maintenance one like Chloe? Look at Daniel, heck, all of his friends. No man with that degree of success was looking forward to the responsibility, the problems, of a relationship.
And Graves had a reputation of being particularly uninterested in a partner.
She thought about him and wondered about his expectations of his sexual partners. Just sex—delicious sex—and then they were on their way. Easy, uncomplicated. Also, unemotional. God. How could Graves ever feel something for Chloe, if he kept holding her at bay? She’d thought it would be so great to sleep with him, lose her virginity to him, but when he’d kissed her this morning, the sounds he’d made…like he was dying for her…oh God.
She’d never considered that having a little bit of him would only make her crave and want a little more…
More of those golden eyes, looking at her like he wanted to pray to her and to fuck her. More of his kisses. More of his touch.
More than he was probably willing to give.
Chapter Six
Graves stood in the middle of his living room, his insides twisted into a knot so tight, he wanted to puke. He felt like a fucking loser for the first time in years, still not even believing that Chloe had jumped at the first opportunity to leave. One second Daniel had been here, and Graves assured her he had it under control, and then she’d just gotten up and…left. Jesus! She’d been so determined to get into his bed…he’d never even thought she would want to get out of it just as quickly. And it’s all your fault, idiot.
Hell, was he even surprised Chloe had left his bed? He hadn’t really kissed her, not like a girl like her had expected or wanted, and he could barely absorb her touch without feeling like he was climaxing…
If Chloe only knew.
How deep and far she’d gotten to him.
If she only knew that Graves had never, in twenty-nine years, wanted to kiss and be touched by someone so damned badly, that with just one look at her he felt destroyed by her eyes, her hands, her lips, and that the need to brand them all, every perfect little part of her, burned like a torch inside of him.
He’d built a thousand walls around himself decades ago, never really needing anything but the bare essentials…never allowing himself to want something that wasn’t in his power to give to himself. And then she happened. And holy fucking shit, now nothing was ever going to be the same for him again.
Because now he wanted Chloe Lexington to get back here and tear down his every fucking miserable wall, bulldoze right through him, and force him to glue himself back together until he was somehow right for her. Right and perfect for her.
When he’d heard Danny was downstairs, his brain had fired up with solutions. He’d planned to buy some time so Chloe could stay, at least for an hour or two. Graves would have managed it for sure, and they’d at least have had time to work things out, see what she wanted from him relationship-wise while he determined whether he was capable of giving it to her. But now, they hadn’t been able to talk, and she’d left and asked for his forgiveness. What the fuck had she been apologizing for?
For barging past each and every wall he’d ever built, undetected, until suddenly she was reigning supreme, his every thought, his every desire, his every obsession, all revolving around that sprightly blonde and her smile, her mouth, and the way she brought out everything good and bad and guarded inside of him?
And what in the hell had he been thinking…that sleeping with the woman of his dreams would change nothing?
It tipped his entire world upside down. What he felt for her was like being thrust into a blender, damn it. Of course you didn’t come out intact.
And now that he’d had her, did he honestly think—a man who’d won prizes for intelligence across the country—he would ever want to go back to his old sex partners, impersonal, quick, no-strings-attached sex? Versus combusting up in flames with the woman he loved everything about?
Nothing good in his life had ever fallen into his lap before except Chloe—stubborn, beautiful Chloe. Graves was used to fighting teeth and talon for what he wanted and that was exactly how he was going to fight for her now—even if he had to butt heads with his best friend to do it.
But he wasn’t out to seduce the little lady. Oh, no.
He was out for Chloe Lexington’s heart, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t get it.
He stalked to his kitchen and put on coffee while barking instructions to his butler to call the floral place he’d previously used. He ordered a hundred dozen flowers to arrive in a truck within hours at her home. The message was to read simply: FROM GRAVES. YOU WIN. YOU’VE GOT ME.