Close to the Edge

by Zara Cox

  God, that voice. Would he sound like that when he was deep inside me, pounding my brains out?

  “Lily?”

  I snatched in a breath, schooled my expression and turned. “Yes?”

  “You done?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Time for lunch.”

  As we entered the elevator, I remembered other fragments of our conversation upstairs. “You said you had questions.”

  He was watching me with hooded eyes as if he knew the thoughts running through my head. “Yeah,” he replied absently.

  “What kinds of questions?” I asked.

  He slid his hands into his back pockets. “Different kinds. Personal and professional. Wanna start with the personal?”

  My breath caught. “I—”

  “Great. When was the last time you had sex?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Caleb

  “YOU’RE GOING TO have to answer me sometime.”

  After a sharp intake of breath and a furious blush, which took all my severely tested control not to trace with my fingers, she’d clammed up.

  To be fair, having a couple of SDM employees join us in the elevator had put the brakes on that conversation.

  But she’d maintained silence in the SUV and all the way to the restaurant.

  I parked in front of the Japanese restaurant, ignoring the valet waiting for us to exit the vehicle.

  “I’m happy to repeat the question if you want? Sex, Lily. When—?”

  “I heard you the first time,” she snapped, puffing out an annoyed breath as she reached for the door.

  I stepped out, a little annoyed with myself, too. Truth be told, I didn’t intend to ask her that. Not immediately.

  But as suspected, with every revelation of her brilliance, I grew more attracted to Lily Gracen. I’d come within a whisker of calling bullshit on my own rules and kissing her in the Faraday Cage room. After that little cock-teasing incident in the elevator, who the hell would’ve blamed me? Shit, I was getting hard just thinking about the way she’d worked me between her legs.

  And yes, I was a little peeved that she managed to get herself under control before I did. All the same, this was a subject that needed addressing, so why the hell not?

  I made eye contact with the two-man security team I had Maggie send ahead, and escorted Lily into the restaurant. The waiter showed us to the private booth I requested.

  “Lily.” Maggie called this my rumbling volcano voice. “This will go a lot faster if you didn’t stop to dissect every question or take offense at it.”

  She barely blinked at my don’t-fuck-with-me tone, studied the menu for a minute before she closed it with a snap. “What has sex got to do with anything?” she hissed.

  I shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I thought you were in a hurry for this to be over?”

  “I am, but—”

  “How old are you?” It was another pertinent question I hadn’t yet asked. She was over the age of consent but the flashes of innocence I spotted every now and then demanded investigation.

  “Twenty-four,” she answered with a frown. “How old are you?” she tossed back.

  If she didn’t know then she’d told the truth about skimming my past. That put a plus tick in her favor.

  “I’m asking the questions here, but if it’ll make you cooperate, I’m twenty-nine. I’m six-foot-four. I have all my own hair and teeth. Oh, and I’m single.”

  A hungry little expression flitted across her face but she hid it well. “How long have you been a fixer?” she returned.

  “You must have missed what I just said about questions.”

  “I’m supposed to trust you with my safety. I deserve to know a little bit about you, don’t you think?”

  Fair point. In her shoes, I would have a few hundred questions, too. She wasn’t a blind follower. Another turn-on. Still... “You get three questions. After you answer all of mine.”

  That earned me a sarcastically raised eyebrow that somehow managed to connect straight to my cock. Fuck.

  “What’s your deal with SDM? You said you had history,” I said.

  Her face immediately shuttered. “They put me through college and hired me straight after.”

  Interesting. “And college was?”

  “MIT.”

  “You’re from the East originally?”

  The waiter arrived at our table. Lily ordered a soda and six bite-size platters of assorted dishes without consulting the menu.

  “I’ll have what she’s having but with a beer,” I said.

  The waiter nodded and hurried away.

  “Why does it matter whether I’m from the East or not?” she asked warily.

  “Is that one of your questions for me?”

  “It’s a query generated by the fact that I think you’re wasting time on pointless questions.”

  She was unsettled by my line of questioning. Which triggered a need to know more. “You’re being stalked, Lily. You don’t think details of your background will inform me as to who is after you?”

  Her shoulders slumped a little but in direct contrast, her chin angled up. “Fine, I grew up in Maine, but we moved to Boston when I was ten.”

  “We?”

  “My stepdad and I. And before you ask, neither of my biological parents are in the picture. They haven’t been for a very long time.”

  I crunched on that piece of information for a minute. I wanted details but sensed it wasn’t an easy subject, so I dropped it. I had ways to find that out on my own anyway.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Living alone didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing anyone.

  Her mouth—her very fuckable mouth—compressed but I spotted the flicker of anguished fury in her eyes. The kind that came from a nasty betrayal. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. If I did, I wouldn’t—” She stopped short.

  “What? Have sex toys?” I shrugged. “That could indicate a voracious appetite, not the absence of a sex life. Although I’m guessing you’re not the kind of girl to wrap your legs around a man’s waist and rub your pussy so beautifully against his cock if you belonged to another?”

  “God, you’re unbelievable,” she said under her breath.

  “I’m plain-speaking. There’s a difference, sweetheart.” Mixed signals led to complications. After Kirsten, I wasn’t prepared to take that risk.

  “When was your last relationship, casual or otherwise?” I pressed. It was obvious I would need to pry every piece of info from her.

  Her gaze dropped, and she toyed with the tableware. “Eight months ago.”

  “How long were you together?” Where did you meet? I hope he was a lousy kisser and even worse in bed.

  Jesus, Caleb. Get a fucking grip.

  “Six months.”

  Not long by any stretch, but long enough for me to be mildly jealous at the thought of some guy having a claim on her.

  The waiter’s arrival gave me a moment to examine that jealousy, grimace with disgust at myself for sticking steadfastly to my second and third rules.

  I watched her pick up a roll of sushi with her chopsticks and dip it in teriyaki sauce. I did the same and we ate in silence for a while.

  “Who ended the relationship?”

  She froze. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her glistening mouth, wondering how it would feel when I slid my cock between her lips.

  I looked up. She was staring at me. Her cheeks heated up as she accurately read my thoughts.

  “Answer the question, Lily.”

  She dropped her chopsticks, her face tightening again. “I did. And you’re wasting your time with this. Scott isn’t the one doing this.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that—”

  “No! I know what I’m talking about so p
lease drop it,” she hissed.

  “Not until you tell me why any guy whose veins aren’t filled with ice water would quietly walk away from you?”

  Her lashes swept down for a moment, then rose again, a challenging fire in her eyes. “Not every guy I come into contact with is a potential stalker.”

  “Scott wasn’t just any guy, though, was he? What aren’t you telling me, Lily?”

  She remained silent for a long stretch. And I waited her out, biting down my impatience.

  “Because Scott wasn’t just a guy I met at a party. Chance paid him to seek me out.”

  Shock bolted up my spine. “What? Why?”

  She swallowed and her hands balled into small fists. When she lifted her gaze her beautiful green eyes were far too haunted. “Because he wanted...wants to control me.”

  Jesus. “Again, why?”

  “What does it matter?” she snapped. “All you need to know is SDM and Chance need this algorithm. It’d be absurd for him to jeopardize it by having someone stalk me, so just...just take my word for it that it’s not Scott, okay?”

  I didn’t voice the world’s worst cliché right then because I didn’t want to piss her off even more, or sound like a hormone-addled teenager but, fuck me, she was so incredibly gorgeous when she was mad I lost the ability to think clearly for a minute.

  I let her take the deep breaths she needed to calm down.

  “You slip into Bostonian when you’re agitated, you know that? It’s cute.”

  She looked adorably nonplussed before she shook her head. “Nothing about any of this is cute, Mr. Steele.”

  “I disagree. I wonder, do you sound like that during sex, too?”

  Green eyes snapped fire at me. “You’ll never find out.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch her again. I reached out and traced the curve of her lower lip with my finger. Soft. Firm. Satin-smooth. “Are you sure about that, Lily?”

  She inhaled sharply and her eyes turned a shade darker. “Can we not turn everything into a sexual tennis match? It’s really exhausting.”

  Reluctantly, I retreated. “Has there been anyone else since Scott?”

  She picked up her chopsticks again. “Someone briefly. Nothing serious.”

  “Who, and for how long?”

  She sighed. “Mark Callen. For two months. He bought me a coffee at where I get my breakfast. I... I wanted to make sure Chance wasn’t still interfering in my life.”

  My jaw gritted. “Was he?”

  She shook her head.

  I relaxed a little. “Did you sleep with him?”

  Her glare burned me but I didn’t let up.

  “No,” she answered eventually.

  I was swimming in relief when she took a sip of her soda. I watched her throat move, wondering why the hell I found that so sexy.

  Hell, was anything about her not sexy?

  Yeah, the way she kept snippets of information from me. That didn’t turn me on even a little.

  That Chance thing really pissed me off, though. I made a note to have the asshole checked out.

  As for Lily, I wanted to know everything about her. Lily Gracen fascinated me the way no other woman had.

  “So you went out with him for two months but didn’t sleep with him. What the hell did you do? Hold hands and read each other poetry by candlelight?” I asked.

  “So what if we did?” she lobbed straight back.

  “Then I’d say it’s great you dumped the dickless wonder. You deserve way better than that.”

  “God, you really are a Neanderthal, aren’t you?” she snapped before pushing her plate away. Apparently, we were done eating.

  “No, I’m a man with basic but fundamental needs. If I have to endure the R word, then I sure as hell expect some regular fucking as part of the bargain. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  “So sex has to be a guarantee in a relationship or you’re out?”

  I took in her white-blond hair and the choker around her neck that howled at me like a damn siren call. The semi-erection that flared to life if she so much as breathed in my direction thickened behind my fly. “I like sex. It’s the single decent thing the good Lord granted humanity. I feel zero guilt for loving it. So yes, sex is a hell of a priority for me.”

  Fresh heat flared in her cheeks, but she still delivered the most dick-torturing smile I’d ever seen. “Except when it comes to your clients, though, right, Mr. Steele?”

  Dammit. She was too fucking much. I breached the gap between us, spiked my fingers into her hair and tightened my fist.

  She glared at me but didn’t struggle to get away. “I’m beginning to think you enjoy taunting me by refusing to use my name,” I breathed.

  “I don’t have a problem with saying your name.”

  I tugged her even closer. “Then do it.”

  She looked me straight in the eyes, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “Caleb.”

  I tilted her head until she had no choice but to raise that gorgeous face, offer up those luscious lips to me. “Again.”

  She glared fiercer at my instruction, then parted her lips. “Caleb.”

  The soft, whispered delivery was deliberately provocative. I knew it. But it still chopped me off at the knees. “Fuck.” With a groan, I lowered my head, but stopped a breath from her lips. “Kiss me, Lily.”

  “Why?” she breathed defiantly even as her eyes devoured my mouth.

  “Because you’re dying to. Take it, baby. Take what you want.”

  Her ragged moan was music to my ears but hell for my cock. All the same, I let go of her, put the power in her hands and nearly roared with triumph as she leaped on me.

  And goddamn it all to hell if she didn’t taste twice as heady, twice as decadent, as before.

  It started with one hot little sound under her breath as my teeth grazed her bottom lip. A cross between a whimper and a sigh, it snaked down my groin, curled itself around my cock and stroked me into rigid life. And that was before I’d even tasted her properly. I nipped her again, resisting the urge to take a deeper, more satisfying bite.

  The promise of more lay within, but I was more than content, for now, to just sample her plush lips. Over and over. To hear the tiny sounds turn into moans, to feel her strain toward me as her own hunger clawed at her.

  Her hands delved beneath my jacket, clawed at my T-shirt before she slipped them underneath.

  In that moment I stopped caring that we were in a public place.

  A breath I didn’t remember holding expelled from me as her small nails dug into my skin. I suppressed a growl and fought the need to ravage, reminding myself that besides every shitty thing happening in her life, she hadn’t had sex in a while. Exhibiting even a fraction of the wild craving whipping through me might send her into retreat mode, and fuck if I was going to allow that to happen.

  But God, she was exquisite. The way her lips clung to mine was driving me insane.

  “Jesus, you taste amazing.” I couldn’t help the words from spilling out when we broke apart to get a hit of oxygen.

  She tensed. I sucked her bottom lip into my mouth and trailed my tongue over her velvety skin. A sigh and a moan rewarded my effort.

  I’ll stop in a minute.

  We hadn’t finished our talk. Plus, we needed to put on the brakes before we were thrown out for public indecency.

  Besides, I couldn’t sustain this much longer. Not without throwing my rules out the window, flattening her to the booth seat and delivering on every single promise and filthy fantasy I’d harbored since she walked into my life.

  But I could drag her a touch closer. I could slide one hand down her back and mould it around her pert little ass, reconfirm that her flesh was as tight and supple as I imagined.

  I would stop. Right after she gave me another of those exceptio
nally indecent moans.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lily

  HOLY. SHIT.

  What the hell was happening to me? Why did Caleb only need to crook his finger before I threw common sense out the window and jumped him?

  And these sounds I was making? Yeah, I really needed to stop moaning like a whore in church. But up until a minute ago, he’d let me take the lead in our little make-out session.

  Then something flipped.

  Now, the way he was using his mouth, his tongue, heck, his teeth? In the few times I let him kiss me, Mark’s teeth always managed to collide with mine, generating an unpleasant nails-on-a-chalkboard sensation.

  Caleb knew how to use his. Little nips at the corner of my mouth that shot fire straight between my legs, even bites on the very tip of my tongue where I had no clue I was so sensitive.

  Our previous encounters, I’d felt like I’d plugged into a steady current. This was probably what it felt like to bungee jump off a helicopter over a live volcano after being injected with pure adrenaline.

  Three numbskulls from the research department confessed to doing that once for the intense rush. I still believed they were completely insane, but if what they experienced was remotely close to what I was feeling now, then...yeah...I got why they would chase such a thrill.

  Caleb’s tongue swiped between my lips, instantly igniting a yearning to feel it swiping between my legs on its way to concentrate on my clit, now throbbing insistently.

  And God, his hand was kneading my ass in that superhot way again.

  His hand slipped lower to the curve of my butt and nudged me closer until somehow, I was in his lap. Was that the slow grind of the thick erection against my thigh? Holy...God. He felt even bigger than this morning in the elevator.

  The thought of all that power and girth inside me freaked me out a little. Okay, a lot.

  Until I reminded myself that I had the power. I could stop anytime I wanted. By simply pulling back. Letting go.

  Let go!

  I dragged my hand down from where it’d ended up on his ripped chest. Down to his waist, to the solid square of his belt buckle. Any lower and I would touch his cock again. I moaned at the intense urge to do just that.