Текст книги "Playing with Fire "

Автор книги: Kate Meader

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After several taut moments, he raised his head. “Did you just—?”

“Yes,” she gasped, annoyed with him for asking, but mostly with herself for being a complete embarrassment. What the hell was wrong with her that she shattered with the slightest provocation? Gone in sixty seconds.

In the dim light filtering through the half-circle window of the front door, she watched his reaction, willing him to be a dick about it.

“Been awhile?”

And we’re back. She called on the two brain cells she had left to form a few well-chosen words. “I’ve been fantasizing about the entire Hawks defense all night. You’re just convenient.”

“Well, I’d hate to inconvenience you,” he drawled before he kissed her deep, and her lips clutched at him along with her hands at his shoulders. She hated herself for her weakness, but she’d hate herself more if she didn’t turn it to her favor.

“I wonder what would happen if I kissed you somewhere else,” he whispered thickly between brain-destroying kisses. “If I licked and sucked you where you need it most.” He scraped his shadowed jaw against her cheek. “Tell me where you need it most, Alexandra.”

Speech was impossible. Verbalizing her need was tantamount to begging, so instead she took his hand and placed it between her legs.

“That’s my girl. Never be afraid to tell me what you need.” After a few lascivious rubs against the seam, he unbuttoned her jeans and drew down her zipper. Agonizing in its slowness. With a testing finger, he pulled at the front of her panties.

“How many?”

“What?”

“When I asked you earlier how many fingers were considered too handsy, you thought of the ideal number to fill you. I know you did. How many?”

Get out of my head, Eli Cooper.

Not patient enough to wait for a response, he slipped one—not ideal—finger into her panties. Deeper. Oh God oh God. A hiss escaped his lips on finding her drenched and swollen in readiness for him. She tightened around his finger, an involuntary reflex.

He groaned. “Need an answer.”

“Two,” she gasped as his thumb pad brushed across her clit. The first orgasm was amazing, this second one was going to make that one look like—oh shit! She had no ready comparison because he plunged two fingers inside her, pumped her once, twice, three times, and sent her hurtling off the ledge. Again.

What the hell was he doing to her?

Control. She needed to grasp it now and wreck him like he’d done her. Panting her way back to an even draw, she reached for him. Jeans, unzipped. Shirttails, out. Hands, all over him. His eyes never left hers, steadier than her heartbeat, steadier than her hands.

How could he be so calm?

Time to muss this guy up. She palmed the hard glory she found between his muscular thighs. The fabric of his boxer briefs felt silky thin, too thin to contain the power bristling behind it.

“Alexandra,” he grated as he rocked into her hand, eyelids falling to half-mast. Those two ideal fingers were still buried between her thighs like they had found home sweet home. Now they rubbed against her twanging flesh, mimicking the motion of her hand on his erection, earning their goddamn keep. It had never happened before, but it was starting to look like three times would be the charm—and this time, she wanted all his power inside her.

He grew huge under her touch, bigger than any of her furtive, filthy imaginings. All she could think of was the completion she would get from having this cock invade her, deep, as deep as she needed it. Two orgasms and her greedy inner slut demanded more. All of him.

An impossibility.

Because if this went any further, the wall between them would be destroyed—only to expose another one behind it. The one he insisted remain because he didn’t much care for her profession and he likely didn’t care for her. Using her for his campaign was his prime directive. She had joked that he was convenient, but it wasn’t a joke, not entirely. There was nothing between them but panty-melting attraction.

The sex would be spectacular, but she wanted more than a mind-blowing lay. She deserved more. And it would not—it could not—come at the hands of a man like Eli Cooper.

Her hand stilled. Dropped away. “We—we shouldn’t do this.”

He gave a low, pained laugh. “Worried I won’t respect you in the morning?”

“I’m worried you don’t respect me now.”

“I respect you plenty, honey, but no one said there needed to be boatloads of respect for two people to have a good time.”

“I’m not looking for a good time,” said the girl who had just enjoyed two—count ’em, two—screaming orgasms. “I don’t do one-night stands.” Not anymore.

His laugh sent sensual shivers bone deep. Her still-sensitive pussy, that brazen tramp, clamped down on the pleasurable invasion of his fingers. She moaned, both wanting and dreading further completion.

“At least forty nights to the election, Alexandra.”

Digging deep for the last crumbs of her self-respect, she splayed her hands on his chest and pushed. “Not. Happening.”

Immediately he stepped back, and she mourned both the loss of his heat and the fingers he dragged through her plump folds on withdrawal. Come back, her sex screamed. The void he left was near intolerable.

“Seems I can’t control myself when we get into tight spaces.” His mouth was harsh with lust but his words were surprisingly conciliatory considering what she had just done. Left the most powerful man in the city with balls bluer than a Chicago summer sky.

“You think this is going to be enough, Alexandra? For either of us?”

“It—it has to be.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but voices intruded, low and close. “I’m sure you’ve got it wrong,” she could hear Gage saying. Someone muttered in response, probably Eli’s security detail.

“Shit, that’s my brother,” she hissed, and then it was all systems go as Eli zipped up her hoodie—as if he’d done this many, many times before—leaving her bra just hanging there uselessly. Eager to be just as helpful, she pulled on his zipper, but it got stuck.

“You’re too”—hung, erect, hot for me—“oh, God, fix it!”

He grunted in pain as the zipper jammed against his not-deflating-anytime-soon erection. She had no time to be flattered.

“Alexandra, I can handle my own fucking cock.”

Stitch that on a pillow.

The door opened with Gage throwing out over his shoulder, “My sister and the mayor? Why, that’s impossible. They absolutely hate each other.”

Eli had tucked his shirttails into his now zipped-up jeans, though why he bothered she had no idea because it would be better to use it to cover his massive bulge. Meanwhile, Alex tried to telepathically direct her unhooked bra to travel several inches higher than where it sat now, not doing its job of keeping the girls in check. She shrink-wrapped herself against the wall as if removing her body from Eli’s orbit could minimize the damage.

“See, hate each other,” Gage announced, two steps away from laughing his head off.

Thing sniffed, seeking out evidence of hanky-panky. “Whole lot of hatin’ goin’ on, for sure.”

“What are you doing here?” Alex snapped at her brother.

Gage grabbed his chest in mock surprise. “You mean, in my home, where I live?”

“I thought you were staying over at Brady’s.”

“So we hate each other now,” murmured Eli, lazy and low.

“I’m far too evolved to hate anyone,” she said defensively. “You annoy me and I hate your politics, but I can separate the sin from the sinner.” Annoyance and hate were very different things, though neither seemed to be a barrier to her getting it on in the hallway of her home.

“Mr. Mayor,” Thing said patiently.

Eli looked torn, so she helped him along by extending her hand.

“Thanks for dinner and for seeing me home.”

He stared at her outstretched hand before lifting that stony gaze with a look of, Really? After a long beat, he clasped her in his strong grip. But if she expected that to be the end of it, she was a fool. He gathered her close to him and with his other hand, circled her waist possessively. Her knees melted.

His breath was hotly seductive against her ear. “Anytime you want to sin with this sinner, honey, you just let me know.”

Then he released her and strode past Gage and Thing into the night.

 CHAPTER TEN

Look who was spotted cozying up together at a late supper after the Hawks-Wings game last night. Our embattled mayor obviously needed a little time away from the campaign trail, and who better than Sexy Lexi, America’s Favorite Firefighter. The two were clearly having fun discussing the menu at DeLuca’s . . . and maybe more?

—Chicago Tattler

Alex liked to spend the mornings of her days off easing into the world with coffee and a cinnamon-raisin English muffin. Checking in with Matt and Savannah on Today. Thinking about whether she should go for a run. Deciding that she should not.

She did not like to spend that time reading about herself online. Neither did she like to spend it getting the third degree from her brothers and their better halves. She just knew she shouldn’t have opened the door when she heard that dull pounding. Nothing good ever followed a dull pounding.

“Where’s the fire?” she snapped.

Thunderous rage stormed across Luke’s brow. Before he could speak, Kinsey stepped out gingerly from behind him. “Please forgive him though he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

Oh, brother.

“What the hell were you doing at a Hawks game and an Italian restaurant with Eli fucking Cooper?”

“It’s freakin’ freezing. Would you like to come in or would you prefer to scream at me in the street like a fishwife?” She waved at Mrs. Gish, her nosy next-door neighbor with eyes currently on stalks, and strutted back to the kitchen, singing, “Oh, the weather outside can bite me.”

“I just made coffee,” she threw over her shoulder, “but it sounds like you might have had too much already.”

“Alex, I want an explanation.”

Kinsey walked over to the Mr. Coffee and helped herself. “He’s just worried. We both are.”

Her insides shriveled at being dishonest with her family, but none of them would take the threat of Sam Cochrane lying down. Kinsey would whip up some PR campaign and Luke would employ his usual MO—fists first, questions not necessary. They would back her to the hilt, physically, emotionally, and financially. She was tired of being the taker.

“It’s a publicity thing.” Best not to use the highly charged word dating. “I figure I’ll get a couple of decent meals out of it. Might even meet a higher quality man.”

Gage strolled in, wearing a tee with the excellent advice to “Save gas. Ride a firefighter.” He was splitting his time between here and Brady’s, so his entrances and exits were impossible to predict. Like last night.

“Hey, don’t say you started picking on our girl without me.” He winked at her and grabbed a coffee mug.

Luke was still rocking the death glare of doom. “Is he making you do this?”

“Nobody’s making anyone do anything.” Though the thought of Eli “making” her do things—to him, to herself—ignited a flame in her core at the raft of deliciously forbidden images that presented. “I’m just doing him a favor. After all, he saved my life.”

Kinsey scoffed. “You were fine in that stairwell. That wily bastard dragged you out of there for the photo op. He was saving his campaign, and now you’re playing right into his messed-up games.”

Alex’s phone rang and Darcy’s smiling face lit up the screen. Needing a break from the visual dissection of the interfering family members present, she answered. “Good timing, D, the inquisition is here.”

“Ooh, put me on speaker.”

Alex rolled her eyes and obeyed.

“To get you all caught up,” Gage said as he took a seat at the kitchen table, stirred his coffee, and grabbed one half of Alex’s buttered English muffin, “Luke’s jaw muscle tic is going loco, Kinsey thinks Eli’s playing some messed-up reindeer games, and Alex claims she owes him for saving her life.”

Darcy hummed. “Those pics of you laughing together at DeLuca’s looked very, uh, intimate, I have to say.”

“Exactly,” gritted out Luke. He held up his phone, the screen showing a picture of Eli’s head inclined toward her over their butter-and-sage gnocchi. Probably snapped while he was torturing her with his ridiculous views on cows or marriage or Canadians. Thank God no one had captured the moment she reached for his hand, comforting him as he silently recalled his parents. It was too private to be shared with the world.

“While your definition of romance, Luke, might be a bunch of scruffy-jawed, overpaid a-holes picking fights on an ice rink followed by you stuffing your face with ravioli, it’s certainly not mine. We took in a game and grabbed some dinner. End of story.”

“His poll numbers have been climbing since the fire,” Kinsey said.

“Not just his poll numbers,” Gage murmured with a pointed look at Alex.

Darcy chimed in. “It’s okay to admit you want to spend time with him, babe. No one’s going to hold it against you because you want him to hold it against you.”

Gage chuckled. Luke did not.

“No fucking way,” he snarled. “You’d better not be thinking about that, sis. I cut him some slack because I thought he took care of you the night of the fire, but now I see what his real game is. Guy’s a gangster.”

Wyatt walked into the kitchen, sporting a Hawks jersey and no trace of surprise at the impromptu family meeting. He opened the fridge, rooted around, and emerged with a box of moo shu pork leftovers that only someone with an iron constitution or a death wish would tackle. Their oldest brother lived in the duplex next door, and since Luke had moved out to set up house with Kinsey, he had been ambling in every morning doing the zombie-hunting-for-brains impression rather than heading to Mariano’s and buying his own damn groceries.

“Come on in, Wy, and join the cavalcade of ‘Let’s blast Alex’s very bad choices.’ All we’re missing is Beck.”

“I’m here, niña,” Beck said over the speakerphone. “Silently judging.”

Mother of God, who the hell was putting out fires in Chicago?

“Not that I should have to explain this to anyone”—she arced a glare over the lot of them, including Wy and her phone—“but I am going to a couple of events with Eli Cooper because apparently the public loves living vicariously through the lives of other people. It’s a publicity thing. He’s my boss. I am not interested in him.” Her voice had climbed a couple of octaves higher than usual, driven in part by the nuclear heat of Gage’s knowing stare.

“Better not be,” muttered Luke.

“He’s such a tool that every time I see him I want to do serious violence to his body,” she added unnecessarily.

“Uh-huh.” Gage gave a wise nod. “Wouldn’t have pegged him for the submissive type in the bedroom, but maybe he likes that. Gives him a chance to relax at the end of a long day playing at being king.”

She shot her baby brother a look. “Violence that involves nut twisting and penis scrunching.”

“God, Alex,” Luke said. “There are sensitive men-children here.”

Wy sniffed the moo shu pork. Satisfied it wouldn’t give him food poisoning, he dove in. “You meet Bastian Durand at the game?”

“Yeah, we got a tour of the locker room. He has a teeny-tiny dick.”

“My next question,” Wy commented drily.

Darcy cleared her throat. “Look, I know this family feels hard done by Eli because of certain events for which no one seems prepared to accept their share of blame. Luke did punch out a CPD detective on camera last summer. Alex did destroy my assholic father’s car, also on camera. Kinsey did go behind her boss’s back and release that video—”

“Your point, D?” Kinsey cut in.

“None of you are giving him a fair shake,” Darcy finished.

Darcy’s and Eli’s families went back to the Mayflower, so she was clearly biased. Still, Alex felt herself inclining forward, waiting for something that might make her feel better about her mind-melting attraction to him. It couldn’t be merely hormones running riot. Surely her subconscious detected something beneath the man’s one-dimensional plastic surface.

Kinsey was wearing her most skeptical expression. “Oh, puh-lease enlighten us about St. Eli. Tell us about all those secret donations he’s giving to the puppy shelter and his incognito soup kitchen shifts.”

“I’m just saying that he’s not the villain people make him out to be,” Darcy went on. “He’s a Medal of Honor recipient. Went through all that horror as a kid. He donated his inheritance and he doesn’t even take a salary.”

Kinsey snorted. “Spare us the Batman sob story. Madison worked that angle so well during the first election that the voting ballots were damp with tears.” At Darcy’s shocked gasp, she rolled her eyes. “Okay, it’s sad. I get it. But we all have sad stuff. It doesn’t give someone a pass on using it to manipulate people into dating them.”

“No one is dating anyone. It’s just a few public appearances,” Alex insisted. “I think I’m enough of my own person to not feel pressured to”—give him a blow job that would rearrange his brain circuitry—“do something I wouldn’t be comfortable with.”

“I know how Madison’s mind works,” Kinsey said, still stuck on the publicity angle. “The poll numbers are finally going in the right direction and she thinks the two of you together are the golden egg. It gets him in good with the unions and detracts from the real issues.” She stared at Alex in a way that made her want to confess all her sins, then offer up a decade of the Rosary. “I can see how he benefits. I just don’t see why you’d agree to be a part of it.”

“Like I said, I’m doing him a favor. And I know what I’m doing.” Most of the time. As long as they ran, not walked, by all closets and avoided being alone together. Last night, she’d made herself clear: casual sex was out. Keeping the sizzle to subzero should be easy at public events where she’d be too nervous to even think about the things she’d like done to her by that talented devil-mouth. “If there’s nothing else?”

Barely mollified, Luke turned to Kinsey. “Come on, sweetheart, we’ve got to meet the housing inspector. Last check before we close.”

Kinsey looked positively giddy. “As long as you let me do all the talking. Not always your strong suit, babe.”

“Cosigned,” Alex said, steering them out the door. “Later, D and B,” she called out to Darcy and Beck before hanging up.

On her return to the kitchen, she found Gage trashing the moo shu and shoving Wy to the table, all while muttering about how he’d cook breakfast. Again. Wy smiled slyly like that was his plan all along because let’s face it, Gage made a mean Denver omelet.

Gage’s mouth was grim with concern. “You are going to be careful, Alex? Luke might be going about this all wrong, but he has a point. Eli’s sort of twisted.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just some stuff Brady said. He’s got ice water in his veins and winning is all he cares about. We don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I can handle Cooper.”

“More like he wants to handle you,” Wy muttered over the lip of his coffee mug. “Last summer, when you were over at his house getting your ass chewed out, it was as clear as fuckin’ day. Guy likes you.”

A delicious thrill ran through her. “He likes to piss me off.”

Wy delivered his gunfighter squint. He looked tired, and not for the first time, she wondered what was so important it took him away once a week and kept his lips sealed tighter than a nun’s knickers. Luke claimed it wasn’t a woman, but speculation about their oldest brother’s mysterious overnighters was rife.

“Fun night, brother mine?” she asked pointedly.

“Not as fun as yours,” he quipped back in a very un-Wy-like manner.

She shot a glare at Gage, who must have been telling tales while she shoved Luke and Kinsey out into the street. “I wish you’d take that big blabbermouth of yours and move in with Brady for good.”

“Damn, you’re awful cranky for a gal who got some action last night,” Gage said with that brazen grin that got him both into and out of trouble. “I had to tell someone how my poor innocent eyes were scandalized. And talking to Wy is like confessing to a priest. Without the judgment. Or the need to say penance.”

Admittedly, Wy was pretty top notch in the “live and let live” department, unlike the rest of the Dempsey nosey parkers. Now he stared at her, concern in his usually unflappable expression. “If there was somethin’ you needed, Alex, you’d tell us, right?”

Guilt pinched her chest. Lying did not come naturally to her, though if she spent more time with the mayor, the man’s deflection and dishonesty might rub off her. Or other things, that craven voice in her head whispered.

“I’ve got this.”

But she had the unsettling, yet oddly pleasurable feeling that Eli Cooper had her—exactly where he wanted her.