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