Some lines should never be crossed

...unless it’s wickedly worth it

The moment he meets sublime coding prodigy Lily Gracen, Caleb Steele knows his “never get involved with a client” rule is going to be broken. But not until he stops her stalker. Caleb might be in charge of Lily’s safety, but when they’re locked down in her Silicon Valley mansion she’s the master. For keeping his hands off Lily is bringing Caleb close to the edge of his control...

“DARE is Harlequin’s hottest line yet. Every book should come with a free fan. I dare you to try them!”

—Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author

ZARA COX writes contemporary and erotic romance. She lives in the Garden of England—aka Kent—with her hubby and two kids. She loves to read and travel. In 2017 she managed to visit her number one bucket list destination—Hawaii—and is now actively pleading with her husband to live there! She loves to hear from her readers and you can get in touch with her via Twitter (@zcoxbooks), on Instagram (zaracoxwriter) or Facebook (zaracoxwriter).

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Close to the Edge

Zara Cox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07132-1

CLOSE TO THE EDGE

© 2018 Zara Cox

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2018-06-12

To Grace Thiele,

for being the physical manifestation of Lily Gracen.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Caleb

THE QUICK GLANCE at my wrist was a bad idea. I knew the moment my gaze dropped to the black-and-azure face of my watch that I’d added another half hour to this circus.

Shit.

“Oh, am I wasting your time? Do you have somewhere important to be?” the whiny voice demanded.

I sighed.

The ability to turn circumstances, good or bad, to my advantage was what had earned me my renowned status. But no one starts life thinking they were going to do what I do, be what I am.

A fixer.

I wasn’t complaining, though. I was great at my job. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t this damned good... Oh, who the hell was I kidding? Most days I loved my job. Tonight, not so much. The 2 a.m. calls were the worst. Especially when they interrupted a very promising pre-fuck blowjob.

But hey, what was a small case of blue balls when the siren song of work beckoned? As evading tactics went, it was an effective way to hold the demons at bay.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and glared at the glassy-eyed man-child straddling the banister in front of me. “Yes, actually. I do have somewhere else to be. So if you’re going to jump, get it over with so I can get on with my night.”

Christ, you’ve surpassed yourself this time, Steele.

My client’s slack-faced shock confirmed my thought. “Are you fucking serious?”

“As Zachary Quinto’s eyebrows. This is the fourth time I’ve had to deal with your...unhappiness this month alone. Normally, I would’ve washed my hands of you or dragged you to rehab. But I promised your father I’d look out for you. The only thing you’re addicted to is laziness—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. The band kicked me out!”

“Because you set your GPS to Cabo instead of your studio in Culver City. Last month it was Vegas. The month before it was Atlantic City, right?”

“I can’t just turn up and sing! I need inspiration,” Ross Jonas sulked.

“And you think you’re going to find that by jumping off this balcony tonight?” I shrugged. “Go ahead, then. I can have you in a nice corner slab in the morgue by sunrise.”

His jaw dropped again. “Holy fuck, you’re something else.”

I closed my eyes and wished those words were coming from a different mouth, preferably the scarlet-painted female one I’d left in my bed. When I opened them again, Ross was still there. Shame.

I wasn’t twisted enough to wish my client dead but I wanted this over and done with.

He wasn’t going to jump.

We’d been through this dance enough times. He chose this suite because there was a deep pool conveniently situated six floors below. And if by some exceptionally bad luck he didn’t make it, I had four guys on the ground floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel ready with a giant inflatable to catch his sorry ass because sadly, this wasn’t my first rodeo with a pseudo-suicidal client.

I would’ve dropped him as a client a long time ago, for his selfish antics for starters, and because I never took on suicidal clients, not even ones who were faking it. I wasn’t ashamed to admit suicide was a red-hot button for me. But Ross’s father was my first client, the guy who’d given me a break in a cutthroat place like LA, then gone out of his way to recommend my services to others. And when Victor Jonas had all but begged me to look out for his son, I’d agreed unconditionally.

The worst Ross, only child of rich, overindulgent parents, would suffer tonight if he did jump, was having the wind knocked out of him.

Whereas I was destined to suffer a stronger resurgence of the nightmares I fought each night, not to mention the cold shoulder of a pouty redhead if I didn’t wrap this up fast. “Yes, I am something else. And you have ten seconds to shit or get off the pot.”

I straightened from my leaning position against the French doors and moved toward him. He glanced furtively behind him and paled. “Fuck,” he muttered.

Two feet away I stopped and crossed my arms. “Listen to me. You keep flirting with death like this and one day you’ll succeed. Do me a favor, Ross. Put a little bit of the effort you use to jerk me around into doing some actual work. You might be surprised at how good it feels to reap the results of your hard work.”

The belligerence drained from his face. “But I’m out of the band.”

“Call your guys in the morning. Beg if you need to. Humility goes a long way if you truly mean it,” I said. I had no clue whether that was true or not. Humility wasn’t exactly a strong suit of mine. “And while you’re at it, try showing up when you say you will. Deal?”

When he nodded I stepped back, staying alert as he slowly climbed down. Relieved, I followed him back into the suite he’d checked into for the purpose of pulling this shitty, dangerous stunt.

I breathed through the fury and resisted the urge to tear another strip off him. “One of my guys is going to stick around, make sure you get to Culver City nice and early in the morning. Sound good?”

I slapped him on the shoulder and headed for the door. With any luck, my date would still be warming my bed.

“Hey, Caleb.”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

“Would you...really have watched me jump?”

My face tightened. “If you wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped you.” I paused a beat. “Did you?”

He shook his head sheepishly. “No.”

My anger spiked another notch. “Pull a stunt like this again and I’ll push you myself.”

I left him standing in the middle of the living room, shoulders hunched, pondering that.

My jaw tightened as the elevator rushed me to the ground floor. Unfortunately, the memories Ross had triggered weren’t as easy to leave behind as I exited the five-star hotel.

For my mother it’d been third time lucky. Or unlucky, depending on which side of the fence you stood on. My steps faltered as the acid-sharp pain that always accompanied the memory of her death plowed through me.

Damn Ross Jonas.

With a deep breath I walked out, handed a twenty to the valet attendant holding out the keys to my Bugatti and slid behind the wheel.

Before I could pull away, my phone beeped. Tugging it out of my pocket, I found a centerfold-worthy picture gracing my screen. The accompanying message flashed seconds later.

This is what you could’ve had tonight. Call me never!

I was torn between a smile and a scowl. A smile because if I chose to call her right then, she would’ve answered. A scowl because the redhead was the first to tweak my interest in a while, and I’d hoped she would end this uninvited dry spell that had taken over my sex life. But despite my earlier anticipation, the desire to get her back in my bed was dwindling fast. I stared at the picture again and stroked my dying wood a second before I hit the Delete button, erasing her from my contacts altogether.

I gunned the engine onto the Pacific Coast Highway, pointing my car toward Downtown LA. With my bedroom plans now shot to shit, and in no mood to return to an empty bed and dreams filled with memories I didn’t cherish, work was the next best option.

Nevertheless, I cursed when my phone rang. “Dammit, doesn’t anyone sleep anymore?” I griped.

Maggie, my assistant, answered, “You don’t pay me to sleep. You specifically stated during my interview that I wasn’t allowed to sleep.”

“You don’t get to sleep. That doesn’t mean you can interrupt mine. I’m shocked I need to explain that to you.”

“Tell me you’re not heading to Fixer HQ right now and I’ll hang up.”

I didn’t bother because she had a GPS tracker on my car. Once or twice that tracker had saved my skin and extricated me from some unsavory situations.

“What do you want, Maggie?” I switched lanes, enjoying the sweet purr of the engine.

“Wow, someone’s grumpy,” she muttered under her breath, then said briskly, “We have an urgent situation.”

I tapped my finger against the wheel. “Aren’t they all?”

“This one is less sex, drugs and rock and roll, more...something else.”

I suppressed a growl. “By all means, hold the dramatics.”

My sarcasm bounced right off her thick skin. It was one of the many reasons she was invaluable. “I’m sending you the address her people sent me. You can be there in fifteen minutes.”

The joy in my ride gone, I cursed. “Her people? Did you not explain to them that I don’t deal with people? That it’s one-on-one or not at all?”

Maggie sighed. “I know how to do my job, Caleb. Trust me, please, just a little?”

I frowned. I didn’t trust blindly because I didn’t trust anyone. Maggie knew this. Why she was choosing to tap into a resource not readily available to me wasn’t improving my mood. The sizeable monthly paycheck I signed bought me her hard work and loyalty. I didn’t expect anything else, and certainly not her request for me to trust her.

My phone buzzed with the incoming address. “I’ll be in touch.” I hung up, pulled off the road long enough to check out the Mulholland Drive address before I executed a slick U-turn.

High walls and electronic gates greeted me when I reached the property. Everything about this smelled like trust-fund princess with her panties in a twist about her latest flame. Or a chihuahua kidnapping that wasn’t worth my time.

Only the assurance that Maggie excelled at her job made me roll down my window and press the intercom.

The cast-iron gate slid back, and I drove up the cobbled driveway of a large stone mansion. In typical Hollywood style, the original property had been remodeled into a grotesque status symbol, with little care for artistic design.

I hid my lip curl as I stepped out and spotted the rent-a-cops stationed on either side of the house.

The front door swung open to reveal a young, sharply dressed man on the threshold. He seemed out of place in this setting but I wasn’t here to judge. “Good evening, Mr. Steele. If you’ll come with me?” He didn’t offer his name and I didn’t ask for it. This was LA, where even D-list celebrities were paranoid about revealing their identities to the wrong person.

The inside of the mansion was as gaudy as the outside, the designer having gone to town with an explosion of golds and leafy greens splashed across every surface.

Suppressing a shudder, I went down a hallway into a large living room, growing impatient when a look around didn’t produce the her Maggie had mentioned.

“Wait here, please.”

He left. I paced, silently hoping this trip would be worth my while. I had a dossier full of needy clients but their demands were nothing I couldn’t handle in my sleep. Thoughts of sleep, or the woeful lack of it lately, ramped up the disquiet inside me.

I was busy smashing it down when the double doors opened in front of me.

At the first sight of her, my gut clenched tight and my lungs flattened with expelled air I wasn’t interested in replenishing.

I wasn’t sure whether it was the shock of her roughly chopped white-blond hair that gripped my attention or the wide, full red lips currently getting sucked between her teeth. Maybe it was the bright, oval-shaped green eyes staring directly at me. Or the lush petiteness of the body draped from head to toe in black leather and lace.

Leather and lace.

The combination was lethal enough without the silver-studded leather cuffs encircling both wrists and her slim throat.

Jesus.

She was a cross between a wannabe punk rock star and a BDSM enthusiast’s wet dream.

She stared at me, our height disparity forcing her to angle her head and expose her delicate neck to me. Edgy hunger burned through me as I tracked her alabaster-pale face, the lightest flutter of her nostrils, the velvet smoothness of her mouth. The racing pulse beneath her choker.

She inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I hear you’re a fixer.”

“You heard correctly.” I wasn’t in the phone book. Referrals were strictly by word of mouth. I sent silent thanks to whichever client had sent her my way.

She gave a brisk nod. “Before we start, we need to discuss an NDA,” she said in a sexy voice I wanted in surround sound in my head.

I was used to nondisclosure agreements. No one worth a damn did business these days without first whipping out an NDA. But whether it was the time of night or my general mood lately, I shook my head.

“Before we discuss NDAs I need the broad strokes of the job first.” Who was I kidding? This woman, whoever she was, intrigued me. I was fairly sure I was going to take the job.

Her mouth firmed. “Fair enough. I’ve picked up a stalker,” she said matter-of-factly. “It started off as cyberstalking but in the past three weeks it’s escalated to physical stalking.”

The bolt of unexpected protectiveness shot through me, unsettling me enough to make me cross my arms. “And you haven’t called the cops because...?”

“Because it could be linked with the work I’m doing.”

“What work?”

“Extremely sensitive work that I can’t discuss without you signing the NDA.” She held out the document.

My intrigue spiked. “Okay, let’s see it.”

It was seven pages long, far more detailed than the standard three-page NDA, with her name left blank. I noticed her studying me from the corner of my eye as I read it a second time. When I was done, I shifted my gaze to her, my interest mounting when she met my eye boldly. “It looks good. Pen?”

As if on cue, the door opened, and the young guy who opened the front door walked in. I watched him, then her, looking for signs of a relationship. She nodded her thanks when he produced a pen, but there was nothing else in her gaze that tweaked my senses.

I grimaced at the relief that shot through me, and signed.

She took the pen and inserted her name.

Lily Angela Gracen.

I stared at the name, searched the corners of my mind and came up empty as the guy witnessed the document.

As she walked him to the door I allowed myself a second, more intimate look.

Hell, she was stunning.

No one deserved to be stalked, online or in real life, but fuck, looking at her, I understood why she could become an object of some psycho’s obsession.

The moment the thought crossed my mind, I froze, rejecting the idea of her being in danger, even while my cock stirred to life, excited by the magnificent vision crossing the room toward me.

She moved with understated but sexy awareness, a woman who acknowledged her considerable attributes but didn’t need to flaunt them. A woman who knew the power of those curvy hips, her plump lips and generous breasts.

Despite her combat boots adding a couple of inches to her height, she barely came up to my chest. Petite, perfectly proportioned, she was the epitome of a filthy, decadent Pocket Venus.

She probably weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds. On a good day I bench-pressed twice her weight. My mind reeled with images of how she would feel in my arms.

Easily pinned against a wall, her naked, delicious weight trapped between my greedy hands.

Easily tied down to a bed with silk ropes if that was her thing, her skin flushed pink as she straddled the fine line between preorgasmic tension and a screaming climax.

Easily subdued and tossed into the back of a van by some unhinged asshole with entitlement issues.

I yanked myself away from lurid sexual scenarios and adjusted my stance to ease the constriction in my pants as the most gorgeous creature I’d seen in a long time stopped before me.

“Who was he?” I nodded at the door.

“He came with the house rental. I asked him to stick around to witness the document.”

“Okay, now that I’ve signed your document, let’s start again. I’m Caleb Steele. Fixer.”

She stared at the hand I held out. “Lily Gracen, chief coder for Sierra Donovan Media.”

Despite what was happening to her, she had more than a little sass. And if she was a coder, she had brains, too. A lethal combination on any given day. Packaged in that body, I got the strongest suspicion I was in for an exhilarating ride.

After several moments she took my hand.

The second I felt the warm sizzle of her flesh, experienced an extra shot of testosterone through my system and watched her eyes widen in mutual acknowledgment of the rush, I accepted my reality. Signed NDA or not, the unholy fire spreading through my bloodstream had only one destination.

I was going to cross a helluva lot of lines, all of which started and ended with one fact.

I was going to fuck Lily Angela Gracen.

CHAPTER TWO

Caleb

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.

CHAPTER THREE

Lily

IT WASN’T THE first time I’d ridden in a Bugatti—Silicon Valley was crawling with billionaire tech geeks who collected supercars like they were baseball cards.

But it was the first time I’d ridden in a supercar driven by a man like Caleb Steele. And this, too, was turning out to be a sex-steeped experience.

The man drove his car like he was making love to it. Scratch that. He drove like he was fucking it. Smooth. Sexy. Relentless. Each flick of the gear and flex of his thigh as he switched from gas to brake was a hypnotic symphony. One so absorbing I couldn’t look away.

I realized my lip was caught between my teeth, and my fingers were digging into the soft leather, and forced myself to release both. To take a breath unfortunately filled with sandalwood and prime male, in order to get my brain on track.

Caleb Steele was the type of guy who would see my discomfort as a weakness and use it to his advantage.

“Where are we flying from?” He’d been mostly silent since we left the mansion. Admittedly, I found it a little disconcerting, especially since I’d anticipated being peppered with questions.

He changed lanes again before he answered, sending me a sidelong glance that left me with that faint impression of what being electrocuted by a low current would feel like. Even after he looked away, I experienced aftershocks.

“Van Nuys Airport. Don’t worry, petal. I’ll have you home in no time.”

“I don’t like pet names, Mr. Steele.”

“You don’t like pet names and you don’t want me to use your first name. The only way I’m calling you Miss Gracen is if we’re role-playing naughty teacher/stern principal.”

I was gripping the seat again. Dammit. I forced myself to uncurl my fingers before I damaged them because I needed them to write code. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, after all.”

Watchful blue eyes gleamed wickedly in the lights from the dashboard. “Sorry, baby, it’s too late to change your mind. You’re stuck with me.”

Baby. Sweetheart. Petal. He probably had an endless list of pet names he tossed at women.

Short of lowering myself to his level and calling him Big Guy or Sexy Ass or Hot Rod, I had to concede this round. “Fine, you can call me Lily. Because, heaven forbid, you run out of pet names and start calling me honey cheeks.”

“Thank you, Lily,” he said in a low, deep voice that rumbled over me like delicious hot fudge over a sundae. “And by the way, I would never peg you as honey cheeks. Not with that flawless pale skin.” That slow-building, insanely sexy smile returned. “Is it deliberate?”

“Is what deliberate?”

“Your paleness. It works well with the Goth vibe but it must be hell to avoid the sun when you live in California.”

“What does the paleness of my skin have to do with the case?” Or anything else that doesn’t make me think of sex?

“Zilch. This is insatiable curiosity on my part. So?”

“So, you’ll just have to accept that it won’t be satisfied this time.”

“Shame,” he murmured. “I’ll just have to use my imagination.”

I averted my gaze, but I was still thinking about that smile, the effortless sensuality he wove into the most innocuous words, when he swung the powerful sports car onto the exit ramp leading to the airport.

After passing through security, Caleb drove into a brightly lit hangar and parked next to a gleaming white jet. Its steps were lowered, the engine humming. The pilot and copilot were talking to two airport officials as we alighted but my attention was drawn to the woman standing at the bottom of the steps.

Her short, sequined silver tube dress, long silver necklaces and rows of hooped earrings ruled her out as an attendant. She was shrugging into a bomber jacket when Caleb stepped out and came around to open my door.

“Do we need to discuss appropriate work attire again?” His tone was bone-dry as he addressed her.

She reached up to free her bun, then gave a resigned grimace. “Not that you’ll care but I interrupted my date to return to the office for this assignment.”

“A date? With an actual guy?” Heavy skepticism laced his voice as he retrieved my overnight bag.

The woman rolled her eyes and turned to me. After a quick once-over, she held out her hand and smiled. “I’m Maggie, Mr. Steele’s long-suffering assistant. You must be Lily Gracen?”

At my nod, her face turned serious. “We’ll catch the A-hole who’s doing this to you. Don’t tell my boss I said so, but he’s ace at what he does. Our success record is pretty impressive. You’re in good hands.”

Caleb slammed the door. “Cut the corporate spiel, Maggie. Lily already knows she can trust me.”

I ignored him, and smiled at Maggie. “Thanks.”

“Did you bring what I needed?” he asked his assistant.

Maggie nodded. “Everything is already on board.”

“Are we cleared to fly?” he pressed impatiently.

“Almost.” She pointed to where the copilot was talking to the ground crew. “They’re not happy that you’re flying outside curfew—”

“You told them it was an emergency, right?”

“Yes, boss. They still need to tick their boxes. Give them a minute.”

“I don’t have a minute,” he snapped, turning toward the group.

“Seriously, they’re almost done—” Maggie started, but he was already walking away. She stopped talking, looking a little perplexed.

I frowned. “Is he always—?”

“The definition of a bull in a china shop? Surprisingly, no,” Maggie answered her own question, her voice contemplative. “Sure, he’s impatient and he wants everything done yesterday, but it takes a lot to ruffle his feathers. Although...”

“Although?” I prompted after a throb of silence, telling myself it was just mild curiosity that triggered the desire to know what made the enigmatic fixer tick. What made him give a damn and what bounced off those impressive shoulders?

Maggie’s sharp, gray-eyed gaze snapped to me. I suspected the evasive answer before she opened her mouth. “A testy client earlier tonight before he came to see you. That’s all.”

I suppressed surprisingly sharp disappointment and glanced over to where the man I’d appointed as my fixer was gesturing impatiently to the men. He stood over a head taller, easily the most striking, and the low timbre of his voice rumbled through the large space, sending a decadent shiver to my lady parts.

After a minute the officials handed over papers to the copilot.

Caleb returned and picked up the overnight bag he’d set down next to the car. “We’re clear to fly. Shall we?”

I sidestepped him when he reached for my arm, prompting another raised eyebrow I ignored. The lingering tingle between my thighs insisted touching him was a bad idea.

“Great to meet you, Maggie,” I said.

The assistant smiled. “Likewise.”

I walked up the stairs to the plane, aware that he trailed behind me. Drawn by an undeniable need, I looked over my shoulder. He’d paused with one foot on the bottom step; his eyes were fixed on me. Or rather on my ass. That insane tingle intensified between my legs.

I barely had time to step back before he was towering over me. For a handful of seconds, he stared down at me. Then his gaze flitted past me to the small cabin.

“Go grab a seat, Lily. We need to be wheels up before the stiffs out there find another reason to delay us.”

* * *

The interior of the plane was as pristine and classy as the outside. Fitted in mahogany and cream tones, the club seats were grouped into two sections, one side with a shiny table separating the seats and the other without.

I chose the seat with a table. Anything for a buffer between Caleb and myself.

He watched me slide into the window seat. He didn’t immediately sit down, even though the jet was rolling out of the hangar. Instead, he took his time to shrug off his lightweight jacket. The midnight blue shirt underneath was fitted, lovingly following a streamlined torso.

When he pivoted to hang up his jacket, the muscles in his back rippled with a sleek, edgy synergy that triggered a need to see him minus that shirt. Unlike me, he was perfectly tanned, the Californian sun having found the ideal specimen to blaze upon. Without a doubt, he would be firmly toned all over.

The urge to glide my fingers over those muscles intensified the incessant throb in my pussy.

I inhaled unsteadily, shifted my gaze and focused on securing my belt as he slid onto the seat opposite me. A moment later one arm extended toward me.

Annoyingly agitated with my skittish emotions, my head jerked up. He was unbuttoning his cuffs, casually folding back his sleeves, exposing thick, brawny arms overlaid with silky wisps of hair.

The innate grace flowing through the moment was almost hypnotic.

God. Enough.

The man was mouthwateringly attractive, granted. But I’d never lost my head or hormones like this, not even during the brief months I thought I was in love with Scott Wyatt, the man Chance planted in my life to manipulate me. Even before I found out his true motivations, Scott didn’t set me on fire with a mere look.

After he was done with his hot little arm-porn display, Caleb rested his arms on the table. “Do you want a drink?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

He nodded and glanced at his watch. “It is three in the morning, and we land in about forty-five minutes. We can use the time to discuss the case, or you can get some sleep?”

“You’re giving me a choice?”

He smiled. “I’m not a complete ogre, Lily, regardless of whatever impression Maggie gave you.”

It unsettled me that he’d read me so accurately. But wasn’t that why I chose him? He’d risen to the top of my list almost immediately when I searched on the dark web because he was a maverick to the core. Totally unscrupulous when he went after something he truly wanted.

And the way he was staring back at me strongly suggested I was somewhere on his want list.

Maybe that was the reason I should’ve been bone-tired but felt oddly invigorated despite being awake for twenty hours straight. If I’d been coding, I’d be getting ready to crash hard by now.

My stalker’s latest “gift” arriving in my mail this morning had wiped rest from my mind.

That unwelcome reminder refocused me. “I’m fine to answer your questions.”

His brisk nod signified the switch back to fixer mode. “We’ll get to the background stuff when you’ve had some sleep. For now, tell me when you first realized you’d attracted someone’s attention?”

I didn’t need to think hard. The memory was etched in my mind. “About seven weeks ago I received a piece of what looked like my code in an email. It was a very rough copy but it got my attention. And no, I wasn’t able to find out who sent it.”

“So we could be dealing with corporate sabotage.”

The possibility shocked me. “You think one of SDM’s competitors could be behind this?”

The underhanded tactics that went on in Silicon Valley weren’t a secret, but usually they involved throwing enough money at an acquisition to secure it or throwing even more money at a problem to make it go away.

His mouth twisted. “You’d be surprised at the lengths companies would go to get an edge on the market. If your code is as revolutionary as you say it is—”

“It is,” I confirmed. The possibilities of my algorithm scared me a little but I was extremely proud of what I’d achieved. The thought of someone stealing it filled me with equal parts fury and fear.

Caleb leaned back but it didn’t release me from the raw force field of his personality. I was convinced he’d need to be in another state for that to happen.

“Then I suggest we make a list of the top twenty companies you think might benefit from this code.”

I shook my head. “That’ll be nearly impossible to investigate before the deadline.”

A fierce light blazed in his eyes. “Make the list, Lily. I’ll take care of it.”

I got the unassailable impression that he would. The depth of that belief scared me a little. But it excited me even more. Which was ludicrous and a lot disturbing considering I detested being taken care of.

Not true. You hate that no one’s cared enough without having an ulterior motive. Just like you hate that soft place inside you that wants to be taken care of.

I tightened my gut against the abrading truth. But it was no use. Lately, I hadn’t been able to suppress thoughts of my stepfather as easily as I used to. Truth was, my stalker had amplified the yawning cavern of my life. He, or they, had exposed vulnerabilities that made me feel raw and fearful and alone. It was that last sensation I especially despised. I wanted that aloneness gone, and if I had to endure Caleb Steele for a while to achieve a return to normal, then so be it.

“Okay, I’ll have it ready for you in the morning.”

“Good. Tell me when you first noticed this wasn’t just an online thing?” he whipped back, sharp eyes narrowed.

A swell of fear met quiet fury at the recollection of that first violation. “Two weeks ago I got another piece of code in the mail. It’s a long way from the one I was working on, but someone out there is taunting me with knowledge of what I’m working on.”

A muscle rippled in his jaw. “Did they make demands? Ask for money?”

“No.”

“They’re trying to scare you into changing your routine. Trip you up in some way. When was the next time?”

“He left me another code on top of my bike outside a coffee shop four blocks from my house.”

His mouth thinned. “So he knows where you work and live.”

I fought the shudder that rolled up my body. “Looks like it.”

His hands curled into loose fists but his breathing didn’t change. He carried on staring at me with a level look, then nodded for me to go on.

“The last time was yesterday morning. I received another code, but with a picture of me attached.”

“A picture?” Caleb asked.

I nodded, a sheet of ice unravelling through me at the recollection. “It was taken two days ago. I was shopping.”

“Fuck.” Caleb’s jaw rippled with tension before he leaned forward, bristling with quiet fury. “What happened to the package?”

“I have it at home.”

His expression tight, he reached for his phone and had another conversation with the unflappable Maggie, issuing terse instructions about retrieving the package and having a discreet service dust it for prints. Just as briskly, he hung up and dropped the phone on the table between us.

“Tell me about your online activities, outside of the work you do for SDM.”

“That’s a very broad question.” The plane dipped, taking a little bit of my stomach with it. “You want to know if I messed up somewhere?”

“I’m sure you didn’t but something you did triggered this.”

The logic was too sound to dismiss. I tried to suppress it but my unease grew. “You don’t think I covered my tracks?”

A smile twitched his lips. “You’re a coder. I’m sure you can clear your caches in your sleep. And I’m not talking about porn. Although I’d love to know which sites you prefer.”

A flush heated my chest and spread lower to my abdomen. “Mr. Steele—”

“Lily?” he responded with a heavy dose of snark.

I took a calming breath. “I don’t leave a trail of where I buy my lingerie or post minute-by-minute details of where I’m going to be at any given time of day. I know how to protect myself.”

“And yet he found you,” he stated with bracing finality.

After a moment, I looked at him. “What do you want to know specifically?”

“Coders make decent hackers. If you hacked your way into a job with SDM, you must be great. What’s your hacker handle?”

All of a sudden the name that sent shivers down the spines of faceless dark web hackers felt pretentious. “Cipher Q.”

His brows slowly rose. “You’re Cipher Q?”

Another emotion swept in to mingle with the cocktail swirling inside me. This time it was most definitely not unpleasant. “You know about me?”

He shrugged. “Cyber crimes are a problem for a few of my clients. Maggie and a few people on my payroll keep an eye on things like that for me. A few months back she wouldn’t shut up about some big-deal hacker contest going on. You won, if I remember correctly?”

The kick of pride warred with the need to set him straight. “Yes, but it was all aboveboard. No cyber crimes involved.”

“Who came second?”

“Nordic Razor.”

“What do you know about him? How did he take coming second?”

“You think he’s doing this?”

His shoulders rippled beneath his shirt as he shrugged again. “Not everyone likes losing to a woman.”

I shook my head. “It’s not him.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. I need the names of everyone who took part in the contest, too.”

“At this rate I’ll be spending all my time compiling lists for you. I won’t have time to work.”

He shot forward and the force of his dominant personality hit me like a tidal wave. “You won’t be working at all if this situation escalates. Did you forget already that I’m in control here?”

I’m in control.

Words I’d heard far too many times in my life. Words that had imprisoned me for far too long. My teeth met in a grinding clench. “I don’t like being ordered around, Mr. Steele.”

“Too bad. Until this bastard is in custody, you’ll not only do as you’re told, you’ll also learn to love it.”

Maybe it was something in his voice. Or the words he used with me. But my fury faded, along with that carnally needy, traitorous voice that wanted to say, Yes, Caleb. I’ll learn to love it. That tingle between my thighs still throbbed, but it was with a different sort of need.

A burning need to, for once in my life, grab and keep the upper hand. To put this man in his place once and for all.

Because, fuck that noise. My days of pretzeling myself to please others were nearly behind me.

I unclipped my seat belt and was out of my seat before I fully processed my actions.

Being pint-size had its advantages. It made crawling on top of the table a piece of cake.

I relished Caleb’s unguarded intake of breath as I leaned forward and shoved my face in his. With a couple of inches separating us, I caught every fleck of surprise in his eyes as he watched me.

“You really think you’re in control here?” I murmured softly.

A slow, assured smile widened his sexy mouth. “I know it,” he rasped.

“I see.” I scooted another inch closer, glided my tongue over my bottom lip. His demeanor changed. His ravenous gaze dropped to my mouth and his next breath wasn’t quite so steady. “You didn’t ask me how I found you to handle my problem, Mr. Steele.”

His eyes grew wary. Good. “Maggie handles background stuff.”

I nodded. “Hmm. She did ask me the right questions. But I’m afraid I told a little white lie. I don’t personally know the client I named as my reference. I found him, and your whole client list, some other way.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You hacked me.”

I allowed myself a little smile. “No, I skimmed you. But you know what I could’ve done if I wanted to?”

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Uncovered every...single...detail about you.”

Silence throbbed. The muscle jumped faster. “What’s to stop me from bending you over this table right now, giving you the spanking you richly deserve before I dump you in Palo Alto and walk away?” he breathed through gritted teeth.

The erotic image of his palm turning my ass pink threatened to wipe off my smile. I ignored the balloon of heat dampening my panties and traced my fingers over his jaw, suppressing a gasp at how warm and vibrant he felt.

His sharply exhaled breath washed over my face.

“Because I took a little peek at your active cases. I wanted to make sure I’d be your number one priority. Your most exciting case finished two weeks ago. You’re a man of action, and you’re bored, Mr. Steele. Right now mine is the juiciest case to drop into your lap.”

My thumb skated dangerously close to his lips. He bared his teeth, and another image flashed into my mind—how those perfect whites would feel grazing my clit.

“I could always take the vacation I’ve been promising myself for a while now,” he rasped.

“You won’t. Because I also saw the way you looked at me when I walked into the room tonight. The way you’re looking at me right now.”

My fingers drifted down his solid neck to his collarbone, then over his hard chest to rest on his belt. Without breaking eye contact, I closed the gap between us and brushed my lips, whisper-light, over his, reveling in the instant clutch of lust that darkened his eyes.

“I know you’re rock-hard for me, that you’ve imagined a dozen different positions in which to fuck me.”

I drew back and pried my gaze from his to the fists clenched with white-knuckled control on the table on either side of my body. “But you won’t touch me, not until you catch my stalker. Because you don’t mix business with pleasure. I know that about you, too.”

My hand dropped to its final destination, gliding over the stiff, mouthwateringly impressive bulge behind his fly from root to tip. A strangled growl left his throat.

“So, you think you’re in charge, Mr. Steele? Dream the fuck on.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Caleb

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

I stared at her, torn straight down the middle between fury and pleading. Between shoving her ass out of my plane and begging her to stroke my cock again. Harder. Between admitting that yes, she and her case intrigued me, and the urge to say to hell with it.

Back in her seat, she stared at me, a saucy smile lifting her delicious mouth. A smile I promised to wipe clean the first opportunity I got.

Shit.

Women with mouths like hers shouldn’t be allowed to swear unless there was immediate, no-holds-barred fucking involved. Because between that, the almost-kiss and tortuous stroking of my dick, I was now guaranteed to walk around with a hard-on strong enough to shatter glass.

Even my fury at her invading my privacy wasn’t enough to calm the fire raging in my crotch. The knowledge burned, though, along with a need to know what else she found when she went... What did she call it? Skimming?

Did she know about my mother’s suicide? About the desperate but ultimately fruitless measures I’d used to try to save her? About that one session with the child psychologist after my meltdown? Thankfully, the nightmares that had dogged me since her death weren’t on record anywhere.

Still...she’d crossed the line.

Why?

“That was a dangerous little play you staged there, Lily. Is control really that important to you?”

The answer blazed in her eyes before she lowered them. “Isn’t it to everybody?” she fired back.

Okay. Control, or giving it up, was an issue for her. I tucked away that piece of info.

But despite her spine of steel, I didn’t need to look hard to spot her apprehension. Plus, she was on edge. Clients in that state tended to knee-jerk the hell out of situations.

I took a breath as the plane taxied to the hangar. “You went to a lot of trouble to hire me. Don’t fuck it up by digging into my life again. Trust me, I’ll know. And I won’t give you a pass next time. In return, I’ll loop you in as much as I can. Deal?”

She stared at me, the fire raging in her eyes for another second before she offered a curt nod. “Deal.”

I rose from my seat, uncaring that my erection still throbbed stiff and eager in my pants.

She’d stoked the fire. She deserved to burn a little. And from the pink staining her cheeks as her beautiful eyes dropped to my crotch, she was burning all right. Still twisting with fury and lust, I leaned down and whispered, “As for your assessment about how many ways I want to fuck you, try a few dozen times north of your calculation. And, guess what?”

Defiant eyes met mine. “What?”

“I know you want me, too, so I guess I won’t be the only one suffering, huh?”

She didn’t answer, not that I was expecting one.

We both retreated into our thoughts as we exited the plane.

The ride Maggie had organized was a sturdy SUV with darkened windows, which I appreciated. Sadly, there were a million ways for stalkers to spy on their victim these days, and a million ways for victims to respond if they felt powerless.

The thought triggered a question that helped to drag my attention off Lily’s small but perfect body and thoughts of what I wanted to do to her. “Do you own a gun?” I asked after stashing our bag and hopping into the driver’s seat.

Her eyes widened as she shut her door. “A gun? Why would I own a gun?”

“Don’t look so surprised. You’d be shocked by how many people exercise their right to carry a firearm. I don’t want to be surprised down the road.” I rolled my shoulder as unwelcome thoughts of Kirsten, my ex, and phantom pain from my bullet wound registered.

Lily caught the movement, questions filling her eyes as she replied, “No, I don’t own a gun. And I don’t intend to arm myself, regardless of this situation.”

“Good.”

She kept quiet, until curiosity got the better of her. “Were you—?”

“You’ve pried enough for one night, Lily. Let’s focus on why I’m here, okay?” The snap in my voice made her flinch, but I didn’t regret it.

I stuck to a quieter, longer route from the airport to Lily’s address in Menlo Park. She started to fidget when we turned into the tree-lined road that housed a row of impressive mansions.

“Will your guys still be there?”

I checked the time on the dashboard. “No. Maggie texted me when they left. They’ll come back tomorrow to take care of the security inside the house.”

Surprise widened her eyes. “Oh. Thanks.”

I glanced over to see her worrying the inside of her lip again. “You’re welcome. Wanna tell me why having them inside the house makes you so nervous?”

She averted her gaze. “I’m not comfortable with strangers invading my space,” she muttered.

I sensed she wasn’t being entirely truthful but let the matter drop. “Okay.”

She looked relieved as I checked out our surroundings.

Half of the properties were displayed in all their sprawling glory, but the other half were hidden behind palm and fir trees. Many places for a stalker to hide.

Lily pulled out her phone and hit a button on the screen, nodding at the property coming into view. “It opens the gates.”

The electronic gates were swinging open much too slowly. “They need to open faster. You don’t want to be a sitting duck out here while the gate takes its sweet time to let you in. I’ll get it fixed.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

When the gap widened, I drove through. Compared to the other houses on the street, hers was on a smaller scale but still impressive enough to blend comfortably into the neighborhood.

Built on two levels with a tapered roof, the tiered white European-style mansion took up several thousand square feet, with tall rectangular paned windows that drew an inward grimace. All her stalker needed was a decent set of binoculars and he could follow her every move when she was home. And that second floor tier was also a problem especially if my suspicion that one or all of the bedrooms came with a terrace overlooking the backyard was confirmed.

The front door looked solid enough, though. I couldn’t do anything about the Roman pillars framing the front porch, but the seven-foot potted plants on either side of the door needed to be relocated.

She opened her door and jumped out. I stopped myself from growling my annoyance and got out, reaching her just as she climbed the last step onto the stone-laid porch.

I touched her upper arm. “Wait.”

Apprehension flickered across her face. “Your security people were just here. Surely you—?”

“Can’t be too careful. Keys?”

She dug through her satchel and handed the keys over. I unlocked the door and saw a large foyer.

“There’s a light switch on your left,” she said.

I flicked it on, bathing the large space in a warm golden glow. An alarm beeped from a panel next to the switch. I entered the code.

Silence settled in as I took in the layout of the first floor. Two short corridors forked from the entrance foyer on either side of a grand staircase made of wood and trellised iron. At the end of the left hallway, I saw shadowy frames of sofas and a coffee table, which meant the right hallway probably led to the kitchen.

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