Читать книгу Close To The Edge - Zara Cox - Страница 10
ОглавлениеCaleb
WHOA. TAKE IT down a notch or six, cowboy.
Getting involved with Lily Gracen while she was my client had bad idea written all over it. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Which was why I broke my rules for no one.
A fixer’s first and last defense against failure was his neutrality. Starting out I’d disregarded that by getting involved with Kirsten. A young actress on the precarious rise, her cultivated vulnerability had slipped beneath my guard, triggered emotions she’d expertly manipulated to suit her purposes. Emotions that had turned me into a laughingstock and nearly tanked my reputation.
Never again were two words I abided by.
Already, my sexual attraction to Lily Gracen was getting in the way of that neutrality. And that bite of protectiveness the moment I saw her? That needed to go, as well. My task was to find her stalker without messy emotions getting in the way.
But...once that was done, there would be nothing stopping me from rewarding myself with a taste of her.
Yeah, I wasn’t perfect. At no point in my life did I try to be. You can’t go countless rounds in the boxing ring of life without emerging with a few scars both inside and out.
I’d dragged myself from the rougher parts of South Central LA and into the twenty-thousand square feet of a Malibu mansion via some seriously rocky terrain, experiencing every imaginable facet of human nature along the way.
It was the reason I now lived by three simple rules:
Protect the innocent and vulnerable at all cost. Always.
No sleeping with clients, no matter how tempting.
No sleeping with the fucking clients, no matter how fucking tempting.
The foundation of rule one would never waver. I feared for the foundation of rules two and three as I held on to Lily’s hand, drifted my thumb across one satin-smooth knuckle. She gratified my touch with a sharp catch of her breath.
God, I wanted to hear that sound louder, preferably preceding a scream as I buried my cock inside her sweet little pussy.
But first, I needed to get down to business.
She beat me to it by tugging her hand out of mine. “Shall we discuss the details?”
As she walked away, I caught the scent of her perfume—earthy, evocative of rain-soaked heather, the kind that invited you to roll around in when the sun came out. I wanted to follow that scent with my nose. And then with my hands and my mouth.
Down boy, I cautioned my cock when it jumped in agreement.
“Sure.”
She sat down at one end of the sofa, crossed her legs and waved me to the seat next to her. “Sit down, Mr. Steele.”
The take-charge attitude from such a diminutive person was an unexpected turn-on. I let her have the leeway. For now.
I sat, dragging my gaze from her shapely calves and thighs. “One thing you should know—I won’t be managed. If you want me to catch this...person, you’ll let me do my job.”
She stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. “We’ll get to that in a moment.”
Again, I tried not to react like a horny teenager to the sound of her voice, but God, it was something else. Hell, from the top of those roughly chopped locks to the tips of her boots, she was something else.
“Is Steele really your last name?” she asked abruptly, her slender arms folded.
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you always go out dressed like that?” Okay, not how I’d wanted to start, but it was a pertinent question. I didn’t have a problem with the way any woman dressed, but some guys out there were sick enough to form vile opinions about women based on the way they dressed.
Her pointy little chin rose. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”
I laughed, absently noting how the sound scraped my throat. “Nothing to me. But everything to the wrong person.”
She inhaled sharply. “What does that mean?”
“That I hope your stalker is the type who’s just obsessed with your outer appearance. Those are the easiest to catch because they can’t help themselves. They’ll slip up and attempt to make physical contact with you sooner rather than later.”
A tiny shiver went through her but her gaze didn’t waver. “Why are you assuming the stalker’s interest is sexual?”
“Because I have eyes. You’re a fucking knockout. But if you say it’s not, I’m willing to delay a final verdict on the bastard until I hear all the facts.”
A light blush bloomed into her cheeks. From the way her lips pressed together I could tell she hated that little evidence of her emotions. I enjoyed it a little too much. “Are you always this blunt?” she asked.
I folded my arms to prevent them from doing something stupid. Like tracing that blush down to her throat. “Always. That going to be problem?”
Her small fingers gripped her biceps. “Only if you don’t like having it reciprocated.”
“I’m good with blunt. I prefer it, even. And yes, Steele is really my name.”
It was one of the few facts my mother blessed me with in the midst of her dark despair; and one of the first things I did when I established solid, reliable contacts through my work was to find the man whose blood coursed through my veins. Turned out I came from a long line of mostly no-good Steeles. A shocking percentage had been criminals. Of those that were alive, including my father, I wanted nothing to do with in this lifetime.
I refocused on her as she recrossed her legs, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring. The hem of her black leather skirt had ridden up to midthigh, and she was making no move to pull it down. That tiny bit of exhibitionism ramped up my temperature another hundred notches. My tongue grew thicker and I watched her foot bounce for several seconds before I realized she was waiting for me to speak.
I cleared my throat and forced my brain back on the right track. “You think your stalker isn’t interested in you personally. So it’s work related?”
“I think so.”
“Okay. Tell me about the project you’re working on.”
She hesitated.
“I need to know where to start looking. Who to rule out,” I pushed.
She toyed with the tiny spikes on her wrist cuff as she weighed her words. “It’s an algorithm that significantly comprises data. On a small scale it can store almost fifteen times as much data as on the ordinary thirty-two-gigabyte chip you use on your phone.”
Okay, that blew my mind a little. But I suspected my mind was about to be blown even further. “And on a larger scale?”
“If our planned launch is successful next month, it can render almost all the current data storage algorithms obsolete in under a year.” She spoke with quiet but fierce pride.
I gave a low whistle. “And you wrote the code? All of it?”
There was no false modesty. Just a firm nod. “Yes. It’s all mine.”
“That’s impressive.”
Her gaze rose from her wrist to mine. The determined fire and pride that burned in her eyes said she knew what she was capable of, and was hell-bent on going after it. I could see how that would piss a few male egos off.
“Thank you,” she responded in a low, husky voice.
Impossibly, the evidence of power she held in her small body and that huge brain of hers turned me on even more. I was a greedy enough asshole to admit that I wanted to experience what that power blazing through her felt like. I wanted to see her drunk on it, if only for a moment, so I could feel the intoxicating afterburn of it.
But that urge would have to be curtailed for a while because, unfortunately, her revelation had thrown open several avenues where the threat could be coming from.
I rose, thankful that with the much bigger problem on my mind, my body was calming down a little from its sexual frenzy. Although I still needed to turn away to hide the semi-erection throbbing behind my fly. I was crossing the room when I heard her question.
“Is something wrong?”
I glanced at her over my shoulder. “That depends on how wide your circle of trust is. And how wide their circles are. I suggest we get things moving sooner rather than later.” I pulled out my phone and was about to hit the first number on my speed dial when it blared to life.
Maggie’s uncanny timing was impressive. But not if she was calling with anything that might distract me from Lily Gracen.
“Yes?” My voice was terser than I intended, but what the hell. The night was turning out to be interesting in some ways and extremely frustrating in others.
“Just checking in. On the off chance I blew it, I wanted to know if I should tender my resignation now or get some sleep and do it in the morning,” Maggie said with a pinch of sarcasm that straddled the fine line between amusing and insubordinate.
But despite my irritation, I toyed with giving her a bonus for landing me this job.
“We have a new client.”
“Yes! Great job, Maggie. I’ve no idea what I’d do without you, Maggie. I’ll even consider giving you that pay raise you’ve been hinting at for the last six months, Maggie.”
“Keep talking about yourself in the third person and your boss will think you’re a lunatic and fire your ass.”
“I don’t want that. At all. What do you need me to do?” she asked, back in my preferred super-efficient mode.
I strolled to the farthest window while I updated Maggie on the assignment. “My first thought was to keep her completely off the radar while I hunted down this creep, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“O...kay.”
“I need you to prepare a couple of safe houses. Have the jet on standby, too. We might need to change location quickly.”
“Yes, boss. Right away, boss.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Maggie.”
“Absolutely not. Safe houses. Private jet. Check.”
“Good girl. And if you insist on it, you can go get some sleep after that. But I need you bright and early in the morning. Got it?”
“Of course. I’ll text you once it’s done.”
I hung up, satisfied with taking the direct approach to Lily’s problem.
I turned around. She’d stopped messing with her cuff, but her fingers were linked over one knee, and the look in her eyes was mildly censorious.
“You have something to say?”
“Do you treat all your employees like that?”
I pocketed my phone. “Like what?”
“Like they’re one level up from chattels.”
I retraced my steps back to her. “I don’t have a problem cracking the whip, if that’s what you mean. I find it works best if it’s established clearly who’s boss.” I didn’t add that Maggie often rolled her eyes when I used my dominant voice. Which was pretty much all the time.
“So that’s your thing? You like to lord it over people?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets as I stood over her. This time the disparity was even more acute, and her upturned face was even more exposed. Fuck, she was so small, such a delicious morsel wrapped in a bundle of sharp brains and fierce beauty. That feral urge to possess her stormed through me, firing up every cell in my body.
Still, I should probably have curbed the words that slid to the tip of my tongue. But hell, I was never one to back down from speaking my mind. I’d learned the hard way how high the cost of holding my tongue could be.
“Would you like me to lord it over you, sweetheart?”
Her eyes widened into alluring green pools. Her nostrils pinched delicately as she inhaled too quickly. “Excuse me?”
“I will, Lily Gracen, but only if you ask me very, very nicely.”
Lily
There were so many things wrong with his statement that I didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t even sure where shock ended and annoyance started. Which was surprising since for the past three years I’d lived in an environment dominated by the worst type of male ego—one with a half-decent brain and a bottomless bank account.
Silicon Valley wasn’t the place for shrinking violets, and while my start at SDM may not have been conventional, I soon learned to find my voice or be flattened by pompous assholes.
That voice was now trapped somewhere between my throat and my tongue as I stared up at the seriously gorgeous man planted before me, watching me with eyes that started saucy little fires in my body.
I cleared my throat. “You’re forgetting who hired whom, Mr. Steele. Technically, I’m your boss. If anyone will be lording anything, it’ll be me.”
For some reason that made his piercing blue eyes gleam. “I don’t have a problem with a woman calling the shots. Within reason, of course.”
Between his eyes and his deep, sexy, gravel-rough voice, I forgot, for a moment, the sinister threats hanging over my head, jeopardizing everything I’d worked hard for. I was so close to living my life on my terms. To being free of the devil’s bargain my stepfather had struck with my employer to keep me shackled.
But staring at Caleb Steele, the deep unease I’d been bottling down since my stalker’s first contact faded a little, enough for me to experience new, equally unsettling sensations.
The thinly disguised sexual interest in his eyes had lit a fire beneath my skin from the moment our eyes met. I knew the way I chose to dress, the individual statement I made with my hair and clothes, meant I attracted looks that my younger, teenage self would’ve shied away from. But that was before I was forced to grow a hard shell. Before it became clear that no matter what I did, all I would ever be was a monthly check to my stepfather for the meager attention grudgingly tossed my way through years of bitter, enforced parenting, and a means of harnessing my talent from Chance Donovan, the man I worked for.
But freedom was within my grasp.
Once I got rid of my stalker problem.
Somewhere in a place I refused to visit very often, the sting of rejection resided. But that pain had diminished significantly over time. In fact, I discovered the neat little trick that the more I worked the less I thought about my dismal past.
Except that work was now in jeopardy. The jagged circle of thought brought me back to my solution—Caleb Steele.
The man who stood before me was a tower of raw masculinity and unapologetic dominance.
His dark blue eyes were commanding to the point of hypnotic, and he dripped the kind of sexual assurance that very few men could carry off.
As for the impressive bulge I glimpsed as he strolled across the room a few minutes ago...?
I pressed my suddenly hot thighs together, struggled not to drop my gaze to the part of his anatomy that was unnervingly close to my face and cursed the blush creeping my neck.
You have a stalker, Lily Angela Gracen. The last thing you should be thinking about is how incredible it would be to give your first blowjob to this drop-dead gorgeous man who’s staring at you as if he wants to take a very big, very greedy, bite out of you.
I stepped back from the edge of insanity as he leaned down, bringing his impressive height and stunning physique closer.
“Lily... Can I call you Lily?” he asked in that insanely sexy voice.
Enough already. My control may be slipping from me in other areas of my life. I wasn’t going to let it slip here. “No. You can’t. You haven’t earned that right.”
He raised one sleek, dark eyebrow, and hell, even that small action was crazy-hot. And when he smiled, his eyes gleamed with a new, carnal light that threatened to set me on fire all over again. “I don’t usually go in for the brownie points system but if that’s what turns you on...” He shrugged.
I frowned. “You misunderstand. Deliberately, I suspect. We’re not discussing what turns me on. Or...having you lord...whatever over me.” Thanks, brain, for choosing today to deliver my speech in stupid ellipses! “That’s not going to happen, either, by the way, just so we’re clear. I’m all about having this problem handled, ASAP, so I can get on with my life. Plus, I’m friendly with people I trust, and I don’t trust you.” There. Direct and to the point.
“You don’t trust me...yet. That’s okay. I’m skeptical, too. For instance, I’m not totally convinced that a bodyguard or a private investigator can’t handle this job. So, Lily...how are you going to convince me to get off the fence?”
I hated the ground-shifting sensation that came with the idea that he could walk away. My research had indicated he was the man for the job. I didn’t have time to find another. “You want me to pay you double? Is that it?”
The snap of irritation in his eyes indicated I’d caused offense. My stomach knotted harder.
“I turn away three out of five clients. Money isn’t an issue for me. If you want me, do better.”
“Fine. I was told you’re the best of the best. I need the best.”
He didn’t answer for several drawn-out seconds. His hands returned to his pockets, and he rocked on his feet before he nodded. “Great. You’ve got me.”
Convinced the loaded words were just in my mind, I ignored the heat pooling in my pelvis and pressed on. “It’s almost two in the morning. Every second that passes is a second I’m being kept from doing my job. So can we proceed, Mr. Steele?”
“Does anyone else know you’re being stalked?”
“Not yet, but if the threats continue I’ll have to inform Chance Donovan. He’s my boss and CEO of SDM.”
Thoughts of Chance cooled my churning jets. As the moneyman behind my project, he was under pressure from his board of directors to deliver the code on time. Over the past month, that pressure had been redirected my way, with hints of the unpleasant consequences should I fail to meet my deadline.
“I’m hoping you’ll fix my problem before that becomes necessary.”
Caleb nodded, and I caught a different gleam in his eyes. Respect. Maybe a little admiration. For some absurd reason, pleasure fizzed through me.
“I was going to suggest a safe house but I’m guessing you’ll draw attention to your absence if you don’t show up at work?”
“Yes. Usually, I can come and go as I please, but I have a team working with me.”
His eyes narrowed. “A team?”
“The algorithm I’m building is huge. I have three teams of three working independently on different aspects of the code to minimize leaking of confidential information. They all report to me.”
“So they don’t know exactly what you’re working on?” he fired at me.
“No.” That had been Chance’s idea. One I disagreed with but had no choice but to accept.
My expression must have given me away because Caleb frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
My gut told me Caleb was the kind of guy who needed full disclosure or he might walk. “Chance and I have a history.”
“What kind?”
“I was fourteen when I...came to his attention.”
His gaze stayed fixed on me. “Let me guess. You hacked him. He caught you and convinced you to work for him instead.”
A cute anecdote except for the part where I became tied to my so-called savior via a thousand wires made of veiled threats. I tightened the knots of pain and bitterness threatening to unravel. “Something like that,” I replied. “Anyway, I can’t be away from Sunnyvale for long. Which is why I’m going back tonight. What I want to know is will you be coming with me?”
A hard glint entered his eyes. “I will. On one condition. If we’re going into your stalker’s territory, you’ll agree to do things my way, including letting me step into a situation if I think it’s for your own good.”
“But—”
“No buts. It says so in the small print of my retainer.”
We faced off, a vortex of thunder and lightning swirling around us, eddying us dangerously closer. “It said I had to relinquish reasonable power to you. Not all power.”
“‘There will be times when the fixer may have to take an act-first-explain-later approach to a situation. The client agrees to comply if such a situation arises.’ Did you make a note of that line?” His voice was low but deadly soft.
“Sure, I read that part. And you’re probably used to having your every mandate agreed to immediately. Unfortunately, you and I will have a big problem if you insist on being...rigid.”
“I can be as flexible as any situation demands. But not in this case. You forget. You need me.”
I hated my words being thrown back in my face. Almost as much as I’d hated the thought of hiring a bodyguard and waiting the stalker out.
I was weeks from being free of Chance and my stepfather. The thought of adding even an extra hour’s delay to that liberating moment was unacceptable. Still, relinquishing control was hard. “Do you find a client taking charge of their own safety a deal breaker for you?”
My question seemed to throw him off. A tiny frown pleated his brow, and then his striking blue gaze left mine to scour my body before returning to my face. As I watched, he reeled himself in. Like the man, his expression was fascinating to watch. It was as if he’d been in danger of overstepping a line and had coldly and ruthlessly corrected his course.
“No, but if you want an obedient thug, feel free to pick one of those rent-a-cops outside.”
“All right. If you’re up to something more challenging, then I agree to your terms.”
The direct taunt to his supposedly flawless record—and yes, to his ego—was one I made with my breath held tight. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, I hated the thought of him walking away even more.
With a single step, he closed the gap between us and lowered his lips to my ear. “Be very careful where you throw your little gauntlets, Lily Gracen. One might come back to bite you in your delectable ass.”
It was impossible to stop the hot little shiver that raced through me. He saw it, and a bright blue flame lit his eyes.
“Well, be warned. I bite back.”
“This is going to be very interesting,” he mused. Then without taking his eyes from mine, he reached for his phone. I heard faint ringing in the background before it was answered.
“Maggie, is the primary crew in place?”
“Yes, they’ll land in Palo Alto in thirty minutes. They can be at Miss Gracen’s house in an hour. Do we have a green light?”
He lowered the phone. “Do I have the green light, Lily?”
“Your team is already in San Francisco. So you intended to take my case all along?”
He shrugged. “I needed to make sure you were fully committed but I saw no reason not to start the ball rolling.”
I took a steadying breath. “I don’t appreciate being toyed with, Mr. Steele.”
All traces of humor left his face. “Then we’re in total agreement because this is no fucking joke.”
His harsh reply tightened the skin on my nape, warned me there was something else going on here.
“My guys are waiting,” he pressed. “All they’ll be doing tonight is setting up a few cameras outside the property and scoping out the area. They’re experts, trustworthy, handpicked by me. They won’t rifle through your underwear drawer or whatever naughty things you keep in your closet if that’s what you’re worried about. So, do I have the green light, Lily?” That last bit was muttered with a hot little taunt as his gaze raked my face.
I fought to hold on to my irritation and dismiss the tiny lick of embarrassment.
So okay, I wasn’t the tidiest person at the best of times. And being neck-deep in my project, I’d let my standards slip a little further and canceled my cleaning service because I hated the disruption. Which meant any number of personal items, including the ones I used to de-stress after a hard day’s coding, could be scattered anywhere in my house.
The joy of living alone meant I could pleasure myself anywhere from my bathroom floor to the movie room lounger where I usually crashed when I couldn’t be bothered to drag myself to my bed. The thought of Caleb Steele’s men reporting my habits back to him made my palms burn with humiliation.
Which was absurd.
I was a grown woman, for heaven’s sake. One with healthy needs I wasn’t ashamed of satisfying in defiance of the restrictions Chance Donovan had tried to place on me.
Nope, I wasn’t going to think about Chance or how he tried to control me through Scott, my ex-boyfriend.
Very soon they’d both be so far in my rearview I’d need a telescope to see them.
“You have the green light,” I said, blanking my mind to the possibility of my sex toys being discovered. “You’ll need a code to get into the house.”
The small cocky smile that curved his lips suggested that he really didn’t, but he chose not to vocalize the fact. “Shoot.”
I rattled out a long alphanumeric code. He impressed me by not asking me to repeat it and recited it to Maggie without hesitation.
About to hang up, he paused when Maggie called his name. “Yes?”
“The pilot is still on standby. I’m assuming you and the client are returning to Palo Alto, too?”
“Yes, we’ll be at the airport in half an hour.” He hung up, the blue of his eyes drenching me with the sensation of being swallowed whole. “Come on. Let’s go get this bastard out of your life.”
I grabbed my things and followed Caleb Steele outside with the distinct feeling he’d left out a vital part of his statement. Something along the lines of...and then we can get onto more important things.
Or maybe that was all in my dirty imagination.
