Page 34 of Close to the Edge

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 arelationshipor 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.”

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