For a frozen moment, she raised her gaze to his with a beseeching, almost vulnerable expression on her face. His heart turned over in his chest when he recognized the painful need in those sultry green eyes.
She bit her lower lip and kept her hand against his, both of them half clutching the keys. His gut twisted painfully tight as his attention suddenly dropped from her eyes, to her lips, to her shoulders, to her breasts, while every pore and cell in his body screamed for him to touch her. Memorize her. Suckle her.
“You coming back to the game, man? I’m enjoying juicing you out of your last drop of cash, dude,” Luke called.
Graves didn’t even turn, for his gaze was now helplessly strapped to Chloe’s full pink lips as she finally curled her fingers around his keys and pulled them away. Her whisper feathered across his skin. “I’ll be careful with it, all right? Will you be here later so I can give it back?”
It felt so goddamned intimate, talking to her in whispers against the door. Hot, roiling blood pumped headily through his veins. He shook his head, dizzied by her nearness. His cock throbbed so painfully inside his pants he could almost feel a drop of come at the tip, she excited him so much. “Not at this rate, I won’t,” he said, still gobbling her up with his eyes. “But I’ll take your car and we can exchange tomorrow.”
Something intense flared in her gaze. He could barely keep himself from dipping his head and tracing the dimple on her chin with his tongue. “Thanks, Graves. Are you sure?”
He nodded, and when she spun around, he couldn’t stop himself. “Hey.” He caught her wrist, and her gaze shot up to his as if in surprise. He squeezed her hand meaningfully. “Don’t make it easy for the guy. Don’t let him go too far, all right?”
She assessed his face as though she was waiting for him to say something else, then she smiled sultrily. “Is there something wrong with pushing the limits a bit?” she asked, so softly the whisper caressed him all the way to his scrotum. And then she was gone, leaving him sniffing her intoxicating scent and thinking of her delicious ass and all the ways he could pat it, stroke it, even playfully spank it.
“So who’s this asshole Chlo’s dating?” Luke demanded.
“Some guy you don’t know.”
“Hell, you want my advice, Danny?” Luke asked.
“Nobody wants your shit advice, Preston,” Cade snarled.
Graves scowled as he retook his seat and waited for the name. But they were all silent, watching their cards until they all started calling Luke on his last play.
“You check him out already? The guy?” Graves demanded of Daniel. “What does he do for a living? Hell, he could be married for all we know. What if he’s as twisted as you, man?”
“No, man, Chlo isn’t like that! She was a pageant girl, for Heaven’s sake. She likes it sweet and easy, man.”
Sweet and easy. Graves’s stomach twisted as he wished, fervently wished, he could be sweet and easy. But Graves had grown up on the streets, and he didn’t get to where he was by taking it sweet and easy with anyone. He’d been initiated into sex by a pair of ten-dollar whores, and that’s the way it had always been for him. Sex was hard, and he was boss, and every single time, it was with no strings attached. He didn’t do kissing. Hell, he couldn’t even stand to be touched.
But when he looked at Chloe…
Holy God, she stirred every primal, animalistic instinct inside him. He wanted to fuck her so hard he’d sink his teeth into her neck and give her a goddamned hickey that would hurt like fucking hell tomorrow. He wanted to hear her scream his name, over and over, until her throat went sore and his dick went limp inside of her.
Suddenly Graves replayed the way she’d looked at him, her eyes alluring, almost…inviting. His balls strained with arousal, and his blood stormed through his body. God, she was fucking up his mind so bad, if he didn’t do something about it soon he was going to combust.
“Graves? What have you got, man?”
Graves looked up to find three pairs of eyes on him. But all he saw were those green eyes, somehow imploring him to fuck her.
No, God, he had to be hallucinating. Wishful thinking or some shit.
He needed to get out of here. He needed…he needed to get a fucking grip on himself and this idiotic thing he had for Chloe.
He set his cards down, scowling. “You know I’ve got shit, but I can tell you like to ask, Luke.” He quickly felt behind him for his cashmere coat. Suddenly, he was unable to get out of there fast enough. “I’m out the next round, guys.” And to Daniel, as he stood and shoved into his coat sleeves, “Tell Chloe I’ll pick up the Rover tomorrow.”
“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?