The Dare Collection: August 2018. Avril Tremayne

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 mildly disquieting inside me.

       Just shut up and enjoy the moment.

      Except I was enjoying too much of it altogether.

      I was paying him to be here. Once his job was done, this would be a distant memory.

       Unless you make it infinitely memorable?

      I turned away sharply, the potency of that temptation taking me by surprise. Under the guise of taking the laptop to the Faraday Cage to transfer my latest work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities.

      Caleb and me.

      Doing the dirty.

      Last night he’d given me the green light. This morning in the elevator, he’d all but begged me to third-base him.

      What was stopping me?

      The discovery that Scott was just a pawn strategically placed in my life and not just a guy I’d met at a party and subsequently dated had left a huge deficit in my trust bank, not to mention a gaping vacancy in my sex life. This might be my chance to balance the sex part without the messiness of wondering about authentic emotions.

      Plus, if our three brief encounters were an indication, the sex would be off the charts.

      “Lily.”

      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