“You surprised me once, now it’s my turn.”
Her pulse spun like a whirlwind when he stepped inside and shut the door, his expression telling her, You’ve been a bad, bad girl and now you have it coming…
Her heart jumped inside her chest and her traitorous nipples puckered. Then she remembered that he had denied her, repeatedly, and that he’d handcuffed some woman to pleasure him tonight instead of her. She shot him a glare. “I want Luke!”
He crossed his muscled arms and braced his legs apart, assessing her in somber silence for a moment. “Half an hour ago you wanted me, Chlo.”
“Clearly I’m wasting my time with you.”
He nodded indulgently. “I assure you, you’re wasting your time with Luke, too.”
“Really? How will you keep a sure lay like Luke away? Do you plan to tell him I have STDs or something?”
“Maybe,” he said with another nod, and suddenly he pushed himself forward in her direction. “Or then maybe I can just tell him you’d rather have me.”
Graves walked, easy and catlike, toward the bar, and suddenly her heart fluttered like a morphing little gremlin in her chest. Her mind got way ahead of her, and her brain synapses went haywire with the prospect of him pulling her into his arms and kissing the idea of sleeping with Luke Preston out of her head for good.
But he obliterated her hope when he grabbed two of her tequila shots and unapologetically poured the liquid into the copper bar sink.
“Don’t do this when you’re driving, Chloe,” he admonished with a frown that made him look concerned and inexplicably handsome to her.
A knot of disappointment tightened in her tummy when he tossed the third glass down the drain, too.
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she rebelliously spun around and groped along the counter in search of the entire bottle. “Thanks for the advice, Poppa Buchanan, but I suggest you just go back to your big macho handcuffs and your bimbo now.”
Graves had cornered her, and now he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her head forcibly to his. She held her breath as he ruthlessly scrutinized her for a long, heart-wrenching moment. His voice broke with huskiness. “Don’t be angry I didn’t put them on you.”
“Well, I am, because I’m not afraid of them!”
Another hand, massive and strong, spun her around to fully face him. “You should be. You should be very, very afraid of them. Of me, Chloe. You have no ideas the things a man like me could do to you—things little pampered girls know nothing about.”
Chloe’s lungs felt like they were exploding. Combined with his spicy scent, the dark flames in his eyes whipped her senses into a frenzy. Up close Graves was more stunningly virile than ever, more masculine than any man she’d ever known. Dark, square, and with that self-commanding air, he made her thighs water and her knees melt.
Her voice feathered like a whisper, and it broke with the force of her need. “I’m afraid of big things and small stupid things…but I’ll never in my life be afraid of you.”
Chloe couldn’t help reaching upward and stroking three fingers down his hard, stubbled jaw. A hand shot out to halt her, his reflexes stunningly fast, and although he didn’t instantly remove her hand, she could no longer caress him.
“Don’t, Chlo.” His voice was raspy, the black circles in his eyes spreading to swallow the gold irises. Swallow her. “I don’t like being touched…or being kissed…and I don’t like feeling like I’m losing control.”
Dropping that little bomb on her, he slowly lowered her hand, and walked away to the panoramic windows.
Chloe gaped after him. Her world tilted strangely on its axis as she fought to make sense of his words.
Eyes wide in disbelief, she looked down at her hands, and something twisted inside of her so very deep she thought it was a knife cutting through her soul.
“You don’t like being…?” She couldn’t even continue. The words tasted sour in her mouth. A whole ball of sourness spread to the pit of her stomach. “Why? Is that why you use handcuffs? To keep from being…touched?”
Oh my God, did this mean she’d never be able to caress and feel the man she wanted?
His jaw muscles worked as he stared out at the city lights. “Maybe. All I know is the only one allowed to touch in my bed is me,” he said softly, so softly she felt it like a whisper on her overheated skin.
Her pussy clenched at the image of being tied in his bed. Touched and pleasured by Graves Buchanan. Chloe knew instinctively that Graves’s touch would give her such intense pleasure, she nearly climaxed just imagining it. God, she could be strapped to a tree, be gazed at by this man, those eerie gold orbs of his eyes wetting her, exciting her, arousing her beyond measure…she’d no doubt he could bring her to multiple orgasms.
“Graves…when you said kissing, you mean French kissing?”
He nodded. “Generally I find I just can’t get into it.” There was no apology in his tone, merely a fact stated out to her like he’d say: I don’t like Indian food. Period.
Chloe gripped the granite counter for support, for she just couldn’t believe it. Graves always stared at her mouth like it was the stuff of his fantasies. And yet he didn’t kiss? Okay…but why did this just make her want to kiss him harder? Just to prove to him he was so, so wrong? “How can you not get into it? How many times have you even tried? Can you tell me that?”
God, she had to make him change his mind.
Otherwise, how could Chloe ever suppress the urge to kiss his beautiful mouth?
He had such beautiful lips, that plump, pink mouth…oh God. She’d fantasized about it, dreamed of it so many times. But Graves was so detached, such a methodical man by nature, he probably didn’t appreciate complications that weren’t related to electronics.
Did he think kissing was complicated or just pointless? Sloppy? Too personal?
“The women available to me when I was growing up didn’t…live up to my expectations. So I had to make some adjustments,” he said, his back still to her.
Chloe swallowed a lump the size of Oklahoma. So he’d just stopped kissing women altogether?
“You can have any woman you want now, Graves. Any woman.”
He burst out laughing at that, then he raked a hand through his hair, and she could see the fabric of his T-shirt stretch over his bulging muscles. “I wouldn’t know what on earth to do with the woman I want, Chlo.”