she didn’t fall under Caleb’s no-dating-clients rule.
I fixed my gaze on my screen and continued working.
He got the message and returned to the sofa.
An hour later his shadow fell across my desk.
The breath I sucked in didn’t quite catch. Irritated by my body’s continued betrayal, I raised my head. “Can I help you?”
His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “You seem different. Much less...tense.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. You look relaxed.”
I cursed the flush that crawled up my neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You’re in your element.”
“Is this conversation going anywhere? I have a ton of work—”
My breath rushed out when he leaned across the desk and drifted a finger down my cheek. “You really don’t need to be so jumpy around me. You especially don’t need to get defensive every time I give you a compliment.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You want to pretend you’re offended because I said you’re more at home here with your computers than in that gilded cage you call a home. But you don’t have to be.”
The accuracy of his words made me jerk away from his touch.
My house was luxurious on many levels. But there was more to what I’d told Caleb last night. Truth was, it was also my cage. Chance had stashed me there when I’d first arrived in San Francisco because he’d wanted me isolated. Still wanted me isolated. For now it was a place to eat and sleep but it would never be my home.
Caleb was watching me closely, reading my every expression.
My gaze dropped to his throat as I cleared mine. “I’m not. You’re mistaken.”
He sighed. “What’s your favorite restaurant?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Food. Lunch. Where?”
“Why?”
“Jesus. You love making me sweat, don’t you, Lily?”
My fingers curled around the edge of my desk, unable to stop myself from replaying those moments in the elevator. The feel of his cock between my legs, his strained voice as he whispered his wishes to me.
All that power and glory under my control...
He leaned closer, sunlight glinting off his dark, mahogany-tipped hair. “What’s going through that mind of yours, I wonder?”
I dragged my gaze from his body and named the Japanese restaurant I liked. He tapped it into his phone and I heard a whoosh of a text.
“Why do we need to go out at all? This place has a takeout service. We could just order in.”
He shook his head. “Like I said, it’s time to change things up a little. Your stalker knows your routines so let’s introduce a new element into the equation.”
“Let me guess? You?”
“Yep. We’re putting ourselves out there. Besides, I have questions about the people on the list you gave me. I prefer we do it somewhere we won’t be interrupted.” He jerked his head to where a couple of analysts conversed outside my office. One of them looked up and started to wave.
Caleb’s glower froze it dead. They quickly dispersed.
“Wow, you must be very proud of yourself,” I said.
He turned back. “Last night you told me what you’re working on is top secret.”
“It is.”
He indicated the clear glass windows. “I would’ve thought you’d be locked away in a basement somewhere in one of those Faraday Cages.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again and tapped a command to shut down my laptop.
“Come on. I’ll show you how it works. Then maybe you’ll stop glaring at everyone who comes into my office.”
He smirked. “I can’t make that promise. And I didn’t glare at everyone.”
No. Miranda got the full effect of his megawatt smile. I didn’t want to examine why that bothered me so much.
In the elevator, I made sure to keep a distance between us although I didn’t escape the sizzling heat of his gaze as he lounged against the opposite wall.
Damn, I’d probably never ride an elevator again without thinking about Caleb Steele.
The code I inputted dropped us down to Basement Level 3. The guard outside the elevator took Caleb’s electronic gadgets. We walked down a corridor to a silver metallic door.
“To answer your question, both buildings are equipped with specialist reflective glass that makes it hard to spy on monitors from outside. And then there’s this.” I led him into a warehouse-size room completely empty except for the large meshed structure in its center with a desk and one chair.
“The Faraday Cage,” Caleb muttered.
I nodded.
“What’s that?” He nodded to the pedestal set up against the left wall with a small laptop built into it.
“Every keystroke I make on my laptop or work station upstairs is immediately saved into that laptop. Every twenty-four hours, I transfer data from the laptop to the supercomputer in the cage. Hacking it isn’t impossible, but it’ll be very difficult. And I didn’t come down here to work because as you can see there’s only room for one down here.” I didn’t want him prowling outside the cage, like a predator wolf, disturbing me with his presence.
Caleb walked around the cage, examined every inch of the space before returning to where I stood.
“You designed all this?”
I licked my top lip. “Yes.”
His gaze heated up, his eyes telling me he wanted to touch me and do other intensely filthy things to me. Things forbidden by his rule. “All that beauty and brains in this killer little package.”
That darned swell of pride rose again, mingling with the sizzling fires his eyes evoked in me. “Is that your way of saying you’re impressed?”
“It’s my way of saying I’m very impressed.”
Before I could stop myself, I was smiling, shamelessly basking in his praise.
His eyes dropped to linger on my mouth, and his nostrils pinched a little as he inhaled. “You have a beautiful smile, Lily. You should use it more often.”
I knew Caleb was attracted to me, but the look in his eyes as he called me beautiful shook loose something
