“Ah, Graves, I love it when you lose, man, you get that graveyard look you were born with.”
“Fuck you, Luke.”
Chloe climbed into Graves’s Range Rover, and for a moment she just sat there behind the wheel, inhaling until her lungs could burst. His car smelled of him: male, elegant, elusive.
“Damn you, Graves,” she said, her chest quivering with emotion. He was so nice all the time, so gentlemanly, and she just loved the way his face tightened when he saw her. But how she wished…
Oh, God, she had to stop wishing things about Graves, because she’d been “coming on” to him in the only subtle way she knew how for the past year, and the guy didn’t so much as twitch a muscle.
And yet, if he wasn’t interested in her, then where did the piercing intensity come from when he looked at her?
There had been times during the past months when she’d fairly felt him strip her down with his incredibly hot werewolf eyes. And yet lately he didn’t even steal a peek at her anymore, no matter how short and skintight her dresses got.
Did this mean he wasn’t interested, or that he was?
Sighing in frustration, she finally started the car. Chloe really didn’t have a date tonight, only the possibility of meeting her friends over at Katy’s house, chatting and ordering take-out. But when she’d seen Graves’s silver Range Rover Sport in the building parking lot reserved for those who had penthouses, her heart had gone haywire at the thought of seeing him. She’d gone and changed like some teenager going on her first date, all the time racking her brain for an excuse to get into Danny’s study and just look at him, see all that male appeal and that sexy, square, tanned face.
This was not a new thing, finding excuses to see Graves.
Sometimes it just felt like she woke up with the hopeful thought of getting a glimpse of the guy. She ached to make those immobile lips of his smile, to feel the butterflies in her stomach when he spoke her name in that deep, rumbling baritone, to look into those amazing amber eyes and feel the heat they generated pool in liquid lava between her legs.
She knew he was off-limits according to Daniel, but she didn’t care what her brother said. Daniel said all his rich friends were a bit eccentric and that Chloe would do well to steer away from them.
She’d tried. She’d really tried.
But when she lay in bed at night, touching herself, she could never reach that perfect spot until Graves’s face flickered in her mind. And his deep, low voice, and his sad, golden eyes.
Womb clenching tight at the thought, she pulled the car out of the parking lot only to halt at the first stop light. This wouldn’t do though. This waiting for Graves to suddenly want her was like waiting to win the lottery. You may hope and wish all you like, but in truth, there was a fat chance of it happening. And now that her twenty-fifth birthday was coming up, frustration rode her hard over the fact that she hadn’t been able to hand her V-card to the only man she’d ever wanted to give it to.
At a younger age, she’d even expected to be married with babies by now. But her family’s untold wealth and power had intimidated every man she’d known. Once a guy found out she was a Lexington, they either fell absolutely in love—which was creepy and disappointing—or they no longer wanted anything to do with her. For who could really keep up with an heiress? Graves, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about her family’s billions, since Danny said he had even more than they did. Which was amazing, since he’d been the one who’d had further to climb than anyone.
The light turned green, and while Chloe absently viewed the rearview mirror as she accelerated, she caught sight of her Mercedes pulling out of the building parking lot. Her heart stopped. Graves was leaving already?
Her mind flickered with images of another fun-filled night with her friends, and then twirled with the possibility of an exhilarating, titillating night at Graves’s place, and her pussy clenched with fierce want of him.
She now had the perfect excuse to go to Graves’s place. Her first excuse ever.
Her insides grew warm and mushy at the thought of seeing him again, and her panties got soaked every second she thought about it. She could pretend her date had canceled and would return his car, and maybe he’d invite her in for a drink, and what if one thing led to another and he kissed her and then…?
She swallowed, then came to a decision and made a screeching U-turn, promptly following the rear lights of her car. He stopped at the gas station, and her stomach moved when she realized he was filling up her tank.
Oh, God, she wanted him so much it hurt.
Braking at the side of the road across the street, she watched his muscles bulge as he shoved the pump into the gas opening. It was a stupid thing, really, but as he leaned his beautiful butt against the side of her car and waited, looking down at his cell phone and answering some e-mail or text, she felt her nipples draw tight as pebbles at the intimacy of him filling her car up for her.
Twenty minutes later, her Mercedes slid into the parking lot of an extremely posh building. She waited for a couple of minutes, then eased his Range Rover underground, parked, crossed the lobby, and asked the receptionist for his apartment number. Of course, she was told he had a separate elevator, being the sole owner of the entire top two floors. But Graves was just like Danny and they loved intelligent homes, so it was no surprise for her to have to click a button downstairs for his own private elevator to be “activated.”
What surprised her was how quickly he, personally, answered the ring.
“Code’s unlocked. Come up and down the hall.”
Anticipation flicked through her as she boarded the elevator. She rehearsed her excuse for returning his car so soon. My date canceled…
No, for that would make her sound unwanted, and what she needed for him to see was that she was desirable and available. Right?
Briskly reviewing her options, she stepped into his apartment, her heels clinking on the granite floor. Some sort of security became activated, for she heard a “scanning” sound surround her and then it fell silent.
It was all dark across the living room except for the city lights that flickered outside the window, but once deeper into the hall, all lights vanished.
She held her breath as she entered the dark room at the very end of the hall. Graves’s deep baritone voice cut through the air. “Close the door please.”
She started. Then, hands trembling, she closed the door behind her. Her vagina clenched.