Claimed by Him

  She’d quietly pulled the door open and stepped out on unsteady legs, the onyx granite floor cold under her bare feet. “I’m here, Danny.”

  Graves whipped around faster than Danny did, and his handsome face fell when he saw her dressed and ready to go. She couldn’t miss his reaction, couldn’t miss the way he stiffened as though struck. She actually saw a thousand expressions cross his face within a short second—disbelief, disappointment, regret, and fury, until at last, he curled his fingers into his palms at his sides and schooled his face to reveal nothing.

  Maybe he wasn’t ready to confront Daniel like this. Graves had come to where he was by outsmarting people, she supposed, and he’d been ready to buy her some time, or buy himself some time, she wasn’t sure which. But she couldn’t do this to her family. Even a minute spent worrying about her when she was fine, more than fine, was too much for her to make them endure. It was nothing that they’d ever deserved. Asking Graves to lie to Daniel about where she was would be even worse, even if he’d been clearly ready to do it.

  No. This was better. Cleaner.

  Eventually her family would have to understand that this had been her choice. Plus the search party could have already seen her car downstairs anyway.

  “What is this supposed to mean?” Daniel demanded, glancing from one end of the living room to the other.

  With a sinking feeling in her gut, Chloe realized how it must appear. Graves was shirtless—gloriously so—and his mouth looked thoroughly kissed, while Chloe was barefoot, her lips red and swollen, and when she ran a trembling hand down her hair, she realized it probably had never looked so bad.

  Graves was deathly quiet as he assessed their new visitor, his eyes hooded like those of a hawk, his muscles tense as if for battle.

  As Danny’s eyes kept ping-ponging from one to the other, he wore a blank, puzzled look about him Chloe was unfamiliar with, especially when the man was as sharp as a tack and was always on top of everything.

  But then, in one single heartbeat, Daniel moved. Chloe had never seen him move so fast. One second he stood there, trying to comprehend the situation, and the next he was on top of Graves, ramming his fists three times into Graves’s jaw.

  Chloe stormed barefooted across the living room, her heart collapsing in her chest at the awful bone-cracking sound. “Stop it! Daniel, are you crazy? It was me!” She used her shoes to hit his broad back repeatedly, and when that didn’t work, she tossed her shoes aside and grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him away with all her might. “I wanted to lose my virginity, Danny, don’t be a dick!”

  Panting in fury, Daniel straightened and faced her with a scowl that was so black, it didn’t even mesh with his perfect, beautiful features. “To Graves?” he asked, horrified and disgusted. Then he turned and jabbed an angry finger in Graves’s bare chest. “You took her virginity, you motherless fuck?”

  In a slow, painstaking move that somehow seemed utterly threatening, Graves shoved his hand away and wiped the blood from his mouth with his forearm, his face tight and controlled. He wasn’t staring at Daniel. Instead he stared past Daniel’s shoulders directly at Chloe, and the biting intensity in those amber eyes suddenly made her used and well-loved body scream for his touch again. His kisses. His closeness. “No. The fault was mine,” he told her in a soft, low rasp.

  Daniel started pacing in circles. “Jesus, you’re the last man on the planet I expected to take advantage of my sister!” He started purposely for Graves again and Chloe jumped once more, this time blocking Daniel’s path and pushing him back with both hands. “Daniel! Get a grip! Please!”

  Daniel glared past her head at Graves, his face reddening as he held back with visible effort. Chloe was so mortified with embarrassment that she could barely look Graves in the eye. Of course Graves hadn’t wanted a problem like her—of course he’d resisted her. He knew this would happen and yet Chloe had insisted, like a stupid, spoiled, little girl…

  She heard a crack of knuckles nearby, and her head shot up in fear. Danny rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, his forearms huge and muscled, his veins popping out of his throat. “You know what? I don’t fucking care what my sister says. We’re settling this right now, asshole, and you’re not touching her again.”

  “Fine, Daniel. Have at me,” Graves said flatly.

  Chloe stared at them in complete horror. She’d die if Daniel hurt Graves again. And what if Graves ended up harming Danny because of her? Graves was a patient man but she didn’t want his limits tested, and despite his initial chivalry, she was getting the sense Graves was warming up to the idea of beating Danny to a pulp as well.

  She frantically jumped between them and faced her brother, trembling with fury now and desperate to get Daniel out of here. “Danny, stop this! Stop this right now! I seduced him, all right? It was me—I practically forced Graves to do it when I told him I’d get someone else to take me to bed if he didn’t. I promise you I did all this and more. I even forced him to kiss me. He doesn’t even like it and he doesn’t like touching, either. Please, please, let’s just go home, all right?”

  Her words made Daniel pause, but when Chloe turned to look at Graves, she was overcome by his expression.

  His mask had broken for a fraction of a second, and although it was so brief she hardly noticed, it was enough to make her realize that she’d just hurt him. Like a stab in the heart, or a slap in the face, he’d visibly retracted like she’d poleaxed him with a paddle.

  She blinked, and the next instant, Graves seemed to recover. But her heart cracked in two as he crossed his arms over his chest, widened his stance, and looked…defensive.

  Because he’d been somehow attacked…by her.

  She wanted to weep when she realized he’d opened himself to her, and she had repaid him like this. She ached to go hug him. Kiss him all over. But she’d have to apologize later, for Daniel was her biggest worry now. Her brother was as angry as she’d ever seen him, almost hyperventilating, his nostrils flaring, pacing the area like a bull.

  She grabbed him by the shirt. “Danny, it’s my life, okay? I’m the only stupid virgin among my friends. I needed to do this.”

  “You were the only virgin. No thanks to this asshole!”

  She stared at the man her brother pointed at accusingly, the passionate man who’d pleasured her all night and had surpassed every fantasy. The only man she wanted to be with—even though he may not want to be with her. Maybe it was too much trouble to be with a Lexington, after all. “I’m sorry, Graves,” she told him.

  She spun around, suddenly unable to bear staying here for a second longer. “Elevator!” she screamed, shoving back into one of her shoes and almost falling in her haste.

  The elevator did not move.

  “It only works for Graves unless he programs your voice in,” Daniel grumbled, holding her elbow while she slid into the other shoe.

  She turned to Graves and waited for him to say something, and their gazes held through a sudden, deafening silence. Every cell in her body was frantic to decipher the expression on his face, know what he was thinking behind those veiled gold eyes. Then he said the words, a coarse, sunken murmur that filled her with both relief and dismay. “Elevator up.”

  The elevator rolled up, and Chloe swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said again.

  “What are you apologizing for? Apologize to my sister, motherfucker!” Daniel thundered.

  The elevator pinged and she hurried inside, strangely overwhelmed but at the same time totally desolate, almost numb. Because in all of her imaginings of having an affair with the man of her dreams, she never imagined she would leave like this, and that when she left him, Graves would look so tormented.

  When Graves spoke, a flash of wild grief ripped through her, for his voice was soft and had a wealth of regrets in it. “I’m sorry it wasn’t what you wanted, Chlo.”

  Her heart broke a little when the door started rolling closed.

  ?
??You and I are having words, Buchanan!” Daniel yelled. “You better start planning your funeral, motherfucker!”

  “Bring it on, asshole!”

  The doors snapped shut after that sharp, impatient bark.

  Danny whirled around when Chloe was just about to burst into tears, his mouth clenched in disapproval. Danny was, quite simply, the best brother she could’ve ever asked for, and she knew that if she cried right now, he would hold her. He wouldn’t stay back like Graves…Danny would put his arms around her and squeeze her until she could barely breathe from the force of his hug. But she was wrong. For when he saw her crumpled expression, it only riled her brother further.

  “What in the hell were you looking for here, Chloe? A fast track to heartache?” He looked aghast and incensed at the same time. “Mom and Dad are going to hear about this!”

  Anger surfaced within her, and thank goodness it managed to push her tears to the background. She thrust her chin out and jammed a finger into her brother’s thick, hulking chest. “No, they won’t hear about it, unless you want me telling them about your dirty little secrets, too! And that sexual playground you have down in your apartment!”

  He glowered down at her, then stared deep into her stinging eyes. “Are you going to cry, Chlo? Goddamn it, if he ever, ever, sets a hand on you again—”

  “I’ll be the happiest woman on earth!” she shouted back.

  Daniel shook his blond head. “You don’t mean that, Chloe.”

  “I love him, Danny.” She rubbed her chest where her heart hurt and then she just flung herself at him and buried her face in his shirt. “God, I’ve loved him for so, so long.”

  Danny’s arms immediately engulfed her, and she wished they were Graves’s arms, even though these felt so good anyway. He smoothed his hands down her back with his big, splayed palms and spoke in a worried whisper against her hair. “Chlo, damn, Buchanan wouldn’t even know what to do with someone like you. He was raised differently. He wasn’t coddled like you were, Chloe. He’s not that…affectionate.”

  An image of Graves tenderly looking down at her flashed in her mind, his lips kissing her sore wrists, his voice deep and soothing. And suddenly she ached to shower Graves Buchanan with all her love until he was bursting with it. Until he had no choice but to love her back.

  But did Graves have it in him to care for her? They were so different, but he felt so right, she had never had a doubt in her mind he was the only man she’d ever want. One she admired and respected and desired like crazy…

  If she hadn’t been madly in love with him since the beginning, then she’d have fallen for him hard when he’d opened up to her this morning. Oh, God, the things he’d said. The way he’d…bared himself to her. She’d never felt so powerfully toward any human being in her life. She’d never responded to being kissed like she had when under the onslaught of Graves’s delicious mouth. It was fire. Magic. The best kind. She would’ve stayed in his bed an entire month without food if only she could feast on his lips like she had minutes ago.

  “Chloe…damn it, I told you to stay away from my friends,” Daniel growled in a rough, anguished voice. “Graves is…He loathes anything that will detract from his reasonable thinking capabilities. I can’t believe he slept with you. He never gets mixed with women who expect more than a brief, impersonal tumble.”

  Grief weighed hard on her shoulders, and she shook her head against Danny’s chest. No, he’d done it because she’d pushed him like a spoiled brat used to getting her way. She’d pushed him until he caved. And now she would pay the consequences, for he may very well never want anything to do with her again.

  But, besides an affair, what had she been thinking to accomplish?

  Did she expect a successful, self-made billionaire who could have any woman, anything in the world he wanted, would willingly commit to one girl? And a high-maintenance one like Chloe? Look at Daniel, heck, all of his friends. No man with that degree of success was looking forward to the responsibility, the problems, of a relationship.

  And Graves had a reputation of being particularly uninterested in a partner.

  She thought about him and wondered about his expectations of his sexual partners. Just sex—delicious sex—and then they were on their way. Easy, uncomplicated. Also, unemotional. God. How could Graves ever feel something for Chloe, if he kept holding her at bay? She’d thought it would be so great to sleep with him, lose her virginity to him, but when he’d kissed her this morning, the sounds he’d made…like he was dying for her…oh God.

  She’d never considered that having a little bit of him would only make her crave and want a little more…

  More of those golden eyes, looking at her like he wanted to pray to her and to fuck her. More of his kisses. More of his touch.

  More than he was probably willing to give.

  Chapter Six

  Graves stood in the middle of his living room, his insides twisted into a knot so tight, he wanted to puke. He felt like a fucking loser for the first time in years, still not even believing that Chloe had jumped at the first opportunity to leave. One second Daniel had been here, and Graves assured her he had it under control, and then she’d just gotten up and…left. Jesus! She’d been so determined to get into his bed…he’d never even thought she would want to get out of it just as quickly. And it’s all your fault, idiot.

  Hell, was he even surprised Chloe had left his bed? He hadn’t really kissed her, not like a girl like her had expected or wanted, and he could barely absorb her touch without feeling like he was climaxing…

  If Chloe only knew.

  How deep and far she’d gotten to him.

  If she only knew that Graves had never, in twenty-nine years, wanted to kiss and be touched by someone so damned badly, that with just one look at her he felt destroyed by her eyes, her hands, her lips, and that the need to brand them all, every perfect little part of her, burned like a torch inside of him.

  He’d built a thousand walls around himself decades ago, never really needing anything but the bare essentials…never allowing himself to want something that wasn’t in his power to give to himself. And then she happened. And holy fucking shit, now nothing was ever going to be the same for him again.

  Because now he wanted Chloe Lexington to get back here and tear down his every fucking miserable wall, bulldoze right through him, and force him to glue himself back together until he was somehow right for her. Right and perfect for her.

  When he’d heard Danny was downstairs, his brain had fired up with solutions. He’d planned to buy some time so Chloe could stay, at least for an hour or two. Graves would have managed it for sure, and they’d at least have had time to work things out, see what she wanted from him relationship-wise while he determined whether he was capable of giving it to her. But now, they hadn’t been able to talk, and she’d left and asked for his forgiveness. What the fuck had she been apologizing for?

  For barging past each and every wall he’d ever built, undetected, until suddenly she was reigning supreme, his every thought, his every desire, his every obsession, all revolving around that sprightly blonde and her smile, her mouth, and the way she brought out everything good and bad and guarded inside of him?

  And what in the hell had he been thinking…that sleeping with the woman of his dreams would change nothing?

  It tipped his entire world upside down. What he felt for her was like being thrust into a blender, damn it. Of course you didn’t come out intact.

  And now that he’d had her, did he honestly think—a man who’d won prizes for intelligence across the country—he would ever want to go back to his old sex partners, impersonal, quick, no-strings-attached sex? Versus combusting up in flames with the woman he loved everything about?

  Nothing good in his life had ever fallen into his lap before except Chloe—stubborn, beautiful Chloe. Graves was used to fighting teeth and talon for what he wanted and that was exactly how he was going to fight for her now—even if he had to butt heads with his best friend
to do it.

  But he wasn’t out to seduce the little lady. Oh, no.

  He was out for Chloe Lexington’s heart, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t get it.

  He stalked to his kitchen and put on coffee while barking instructions to his butler to call the floral place he’d previously used. He ordered a hundred dozen flowers to arrive in a truck within hours at her home. The message was to read simply: FROM GRAVES. YOU WIN. YOU’VE GOT ME.

  He had just hung up and his coffeemaker barely started to gurgle when his butler told him, Mr. Daniel Lexington to see—

  “Yes, activate,” he snarled.

  He was actually expecting him. Hell, he’d known Daniel for years, and because he was secretly a twisted monster, the bastard had been overprotective of Chloe for years. Graves would fight him if he needed to. He just didn’t care anymore if it all went to shit. All he wanted was…

  “Chloe?”

  Chloe stood in the middle of his living room, looking at him, her golden hair rumpled, her eyes wide, her dress still hugging every goddamned luscious curve of her, and breathing hard. “I made Daniel bring me back, but he’s leaving so we can talk.”

  His chest moved at the sight of her, recently tumbled by him, loved by him, all night. A rush of need and feeling for this girl exploded inside of him, and he started for her like a man possessed.

  “Graves, I’m sorry I pushed you. I’m sorry I put you in this position! I just came to say that I didn’t mean to ruin your life…I didn’t mean I didn’t love what we did, I just wanted to get Danny off your back, but I wouldn’t change last night with you for anything in the world. I wish I was a virgin again so I could do it all again with you.”