A cloud of despair enveloped her, and she bleakly decided the first thing she would attack when she got to Luke’s place was his assorted bar.
Graves could be kissing that woman and sliding his hands all over her this very instant, his beautiful tanned fingers caressing her skin in ways Chloe had dreamed of.
Her pussy wept with longing, while an awful loneliness spread through her until she felt empty and unwanted.
Trying to push him out of her mind, she rode the elevator to the top floor of Luke’s building, pressed Luke’s stupid code into his naked-woman keypad, and then she strolled into his place, greeted instantly by Luke’s female butler who’d been reduced to some sort of harem girl who sounded almost orgasmic. Wel
come, master!
“I pity you, woman,” Chloe grumbled, shaking her head. “I really do.”
Luke’s pad was sexy, a version of a playboy mansion that took up three entire floors, with the pools and a mini golf course on the lower level, his “themed” bedrooms on the second level, and a huge terrace plus a bar and the living area with Luke’s trademark red velvet drapery on level three.
Before Chloe settled down in the living room to watch something cheerful like E’s The Soup, she determinedly went to pour herself three shots of tequila. She paused when she heard a noise by the door and Luke’s stupid, Welcome, master! erupted once more. So…
The master had arrived indeed. Excellent. He was just in time.
“All right, Luke, before you start taking your pants off, let me tell you exactly what I want from you—” She stuttered to a halt as she turned.
Her stomach dropped.
Graves Buchanan, the man of her dreams, somehow had pulled a Copperfield on her and now stood at the open door. His chest was broad and muscular in a plain gray T-shirt, the sleeves snug around his bulging biceps. He looked somber and thoughtful, but even then, Chloe loathed that he was still as sexy as he’d been half an hour ago—and he still made her heart ache like a sore.
“I’m afraid Luke’s too busy getting fucked tonight, so I’m going to have to see you home.”
Something warm flitted through her at the quiet jealousy in his voice. “Graves, what are you doing here?”
“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.”