Rule's Obsession (The House of Rule 1)

Chapter One

Damian Rule sat in the reception area of the sports-themed hair salon and wondered for the hundredth time why in the hell he continued to come to this place. It was inconvenient, far out of the way of both his condo and his downtown office. Furthermore, the ambiance was intrusive; the lighting was harsh and a continual stream of commentaries about sporting events that he didn't give a shit about blared from several flat-screen televisions scattered around.

As he surveyed the room with set features, he acknowledged that the employees who worked here and the clientele that frequented this establishment weren't the type of people he usually mixed with. But he'd come in one day out of desperation for a haircut when he'd been on this side of town, and he'd been coming back ever since. True, the stylist here did a fairly decent job, but certainly not so amazing that he couldn't do without her.

As the woman in question came to get him for his appointment and immediately started babbling and rummaging through the top drawer in her unit before she began, Damian tuned her out and let his eyes wander around the part of the room that he could observe from the reflection in the mirror.

He didn't see what he was looking for right away, but he continued to watch the mirror. The place was busy; it always was. Several stylists moved around, either standing at their stations tending to cuts, or leading customers to and from the row of sinks. After a few more minutes of patient observation, his diligence was rewarded with a slight motion at the back of the store that caught his attention. Ahhhh. . . there she was.

Her dark head was bent over something she was mixing in a small bowl, and at the sight of her feminine form and downcast eyes, Damian felt the same tightening in his groin that he felt every time he saw her. As he continued to watch her, he acknowledged to himself exactly what it was that kept bringing him back to this particular salon time and time again. He didn't come here for the location, or for the stylist who cut his hair, or for the sporting events that were broadcast during business hours. It was none of those things.

It was the woman he was looking at now. The stylist who held his attention, the one who went by the name of Angie.

Damian rolled the syllables through his head and let the connotation of the name bring an image to his brain. Angie. Angela. Angel.

His mouth twisted into a smirk. Angel. Yeah, right.

The girl didn't resemble an angel in any way, shape or form. Unless, of course, you counted the fact that she could undoubtedly take him to heaven with those full lips of hers.

Fuck.

He needed to get her out of his mind; he knew he did. But how the hell was he supposed to accomplish that when he kept letting his dick lead him back here every time he needed a damn haircut? He'd been coming here, watching her for months. It was absolutely, undeniably, fucking amazing that Damian had been able to sit still and only observe her for this long. She did shit to his insides, that . . . fuck. He took a deep breath and steeled his guts. He didn't want to think about what she did to his insides.

Unable to fight the compulsion, he continued to watch her, as if his eyes were magnets drawn to metal. His cock swelled against his jeans as he studied her. Yeah, an angel, she wasn't. In fact, she was possibly just the opposite. Although she moved with an unconscious grace, the girl certainly wasn't peaches and cream; no, she had the darkly intoxicating look of wickedness about her. She was a feminine, appealing, begging to be fucked little devil.

She was a hot, slender, gothic mess.

She looked to be about medium in height, maybe smaller, but he couldn't really tell because she always wore black platform heels that boosted her height and made the legs beneath the black fishnet stockings look amazing. He had no way of knowing if she always wore short skirts, or if it was just his luck, but every time he saw her, she was in a skirt so short it almost made him come, just from watching her. She was totally amazing, totally fuckable. . . absolutely fuckable enough to keep him coming back here just to get another look at her, over and over again, no matter how much he fought against it.

Each time he walked in here, he expected to find that his mind and his libido had only been playing tricks on him. There was no way she could be as hot as he'd imagined the time before.