The sudden thought of him as a little boy with the sad, lonely eyes in an orphanage crushed her.
While her insides burst with emotion, Tot began dancing to “Thriller” to wrap it up and the kids screamed in delight. Chloe laughed in surprise. She started edging in Graves’s direction as the kids jumped to their feet and formed a circle around the dancing robot whose moves could put MJ to shame.
Graves approached the circle to watch the robot’s feet, but Chloe continued advancing toward him, her eyes on his beautiful profile as she fervently wished those golden eyes would turn and acknowledge she was here.
She noticed he’d slipped the keypad into the pocket of his jacket, as though the dance routine had already been wired and programmed into the robot.
Her heartbeat accelerated. Then, she was there. Right beside him. Her elbow grazed his jacket sleeve, but with the music and the shouts all around her, she couldn’t really talk to him. She clutched the rose in her hand while at the same time moved her free hand the tiniest fraction in search of his. His knuckles brushed tantalizingly against the back of hers, and she held her breath.
Though he stood watching the robot at her side, Graves surprised her when he hooked his index finger around hers. Desire flooded her. The move was so unexpected it made her tremble with longing inside. He squeezed her finger meaningfully with his and then he gently tugged her aside. Chloe helplessly let him guide her weakened legs to follow him to the fringes of the circle, where the music wasn’t so loud.
He stopped at the very edge and positioned himself behind her, his hand sliding down her arm and resting at her hip. Her heart hammered and her skin tingled and her entire system went on hyperalert. And for a moment she just wanted to stand here and enjoy this. Being with him. His scent. The heat of his hand.
She kept her eyes on the robot as his front pressed intimately into her back. The heat emanating from his body spun through her. The smell of his aftershave teased her and dizzied her. His lips bumped her earlobe when he spoke, his voice a seduction of its own.
“When?”
She didn’t understand, and whispered, “What?”
His hand squeezed her hip. “When do you want me? When can I have you?”
A silence.
Her heart dropped and then jumped sky-high, and her toes curled in her Jimmy Choos.
“I…have social work tomorrow,” she forced herself to answer. “The children expect us to do handcrafts…”
“Saturday then. Your birthday.” His voice dropped to a thick murmur. “Do you think you can keep your hands off Preston until then?”
Thrilled with the possessiveness in his voice and words, she turned her head sideways and smiled tauntingly. “I don’t know. Do you think you can keep from handcuffing one of your ‘friends’?”
His slow smile was full of promise and sexual innuendo. He bent to her ear again. “Tease me all you want, Chlo. Because Saturday, I’m the one who’ll be teasing you.”
Chapter Four
Chloe woke up to Danny’s tickle torture and a loudly whistled birthday tune. Screeching when his fingers dove into the sensitive spot of her underarm, Chloe twisted in her bed sheets, wide awake now, and screamed, “No, Danny, no, stop!” until one leg kicked free and landed a good one right in his balls.
“Oooff!”
He collapsed on the side of the bed.
Chloe’s heart stopped. She groggily sat up and surveyed his motionless form in growing alarm. “Danny?”
He was hunched over, hardly even breathing, and then he growled, “I thought you’d want nephews in your future, goddamn it, Chloe!”
“I’m sorry,” she said, knee-walking over to hug him.
He attacked her with a laugh that indicated he had been acting this whole time and she squealed once more, flailing and kicking as he tortured her. “You cheater, you, stop it, you jerk, when I have a boyfriend I’m going to tell him to punch you!” she screamed, and then he pulled back with a frown, and Chloe frowned at herself, too. Because when she’d said “boyfriend” she’d pictured Graves’s dark, forbidden face in her mind.
And sadly Graves didn’t do girlfriends.
“Boyfriend?” Danny repeated the word in the disgusted tone he’d use to say “cow dung” as he straightened, already dressed for work in a sharp designer suit, his hair slicked back to reveal his sharp model features. “Is he the one who blows up your mouth like a goldfish? I don’t like that motherfucker. Give me his name again,” he demanded.
She smirked. “You won’t get it after this now.”
“Ah, little sis, your innocence astounds me. I’m going to get anything I ask for when you see your present,” he said cockily, brow raised as he handed her an all-access card for his Global Express jet worth a quarter of a million dollars.
An amount which would basically fly her…anywhere.