“And Alexandra?”

“What?” she snapped.

He smiled over his shoulder, all wolf. “Happy New Year.”

 CHAPTER FOUR

Needing one more minute of the pulsing hot spray over his tired muscles, Eli fisted his hands against the tile in his shower and let the water do its holy work. Usually he used shower time to psych himself up for the rest of the day. But this morning, in the wake of last night’s misadventure, he had more than the usual crowding his packed-to-capacity brain. Coming close to taking a dirt nap will do that.

He hadn’t found God, or suddenly realized that his workaholic ways were standing in the way of a satisfying personal life—a brush with death wasn’t that revelatory—but it did clarify one thing.

Eli had to break Sam Cochrane’s hold over him.

As mayor of Chicago, it went without saying that he was beholden to a number of competing interests. A man in his position did not get to be in his position without making a Faustian bargain or two. He wanted to rule. Someone else inevitably wanted something that only the ruler could give: a favorable decision, a ringing endorsement, the chance to bask by association. The quid pro quo was the foundation of the political system.

Sam Cochrane had been a close friend of Eli’s father, their families’ connection solidified throughout the years of Eli’s idyllic childhood. Vacations at the Cooper cabin at Lake Culver in Indiana, barbecues at the Cochrane mansion in the Gold Coast. That all changed with his parents’ senseless murders when Eli was twelve years old. Targeted by a mob boss he was prosecuting, Weston Cooper and his wife, Sara, were brutally gunned down by an assassin’s .44 in their living room.

One floor below where Eli stood now. While his parents’ lifeblood ebbed away, Eli had pissed his pants in a closet.

Almost twenty years later, Sam Cochrane—media mogul, real estate baron, and kingmaker—had bankrolled Eli’s first election campaign. Once in power, Eli was careful to pay homage by making sure some of Cochrane’s real estate proposals were approved without fuss, but he refused to cave to corporate interests on tax rates and property development incentives. So began the push-pull, with Cochrane calling the mayor out in his newspapers whenever something went wrong at city hall. Such as a brawl between CFD and CPD in a firefighter-owned bar. Or a spat between a female firefighter and a raving, drunken lunatic. In the last three years, Cochrane had been a frenemy and, increasingly, a liability. Eli’s preference was to cut him loose, but he had a problem. Cochrane had leverage, an ace in his back pocket that he could produce at will. He could tank Eli’s campaign, but worse than that, a reputation would be destroyed. A legacy would be ground into dust.

Eli couldn’t let that happen, so for now he had to work with Cochrane and figure out a way to undermine his influence. Standing up to the man who pulled the strings would take guts, bravery Eli was unsure he possessed.

Bravery he was unsure he even wanted to possess—until last night, when he’d been faced with the pulse-pounding heroism of one Alexandra Dempsey. Who had also, coincidentally, stood up to Sam last summer and put her career on the line to defend her family and everything she stood for. If she could be brave, he sure as hell could—and should—be.

And that, children, is an example of what we call irony. Was he seriously considering taking life lessons from Ms. Impetuosity herself?

He turned up the temperature of the shower spray, needing the exorcising burn.

He had almost kissed her.

Almost.

Holding on to that precious word, the one that kept him on the right side of a sexual harassment suit, his brain rewound to the hospital room at Northwestern Memorial. She had looked so vulnerable in that gown, like she might collapse at any moment. Instinctually, he had held her face in his hands, let himself enjoy the softness of her skin. Inappropriate behavior on his part, he knew, but they had passed through something together. A connection forged in fire.

A connection he could use, the cynic in him latched on to. He’d milk the publicity for all it was worth and return to normal, or what passed for normal in his crazy life.

But . . .

She wore pink underwear.

How ridiculous that a sliver of satiny fabric could get him so jacked up. But it wasn’t just that he’d seen a glimpse of Alexandra Dempsey’s sexy underwear. It was what that bra strap told him about I-can-do-any-man’s-job, look-at-my-tough-girl-tattoos, call-me-Dempsey-Mr.-Mayor.

This woman had a feminine, sensual side under that armored exterior. He’d caught a hint of naughty pink that night in the restaurant, as well, the night Detective Martinez had dared to think those sweet lips of hers were his for the taking.

The water crashed over his aching shoulders, sluicing down his chest and falling away in miniwaves over his now very stiff cock.

Well, hello there.

He gripped it with a teasing stroke, let his imagination run riot. He liked it gentle to start with, and it might take her time to learn that, but the lesson would be worth teaching.

Alexandra Dempsey on her knees. That’s what her dud date had wanted. That’s what he couldn’t have because that pleasure, at least in Eli’s filthy fantasies, belonged to him.

She was a city employee, his subordinate. Off-limits. Which made the idea of dominating her all the more sweet. Commanding her to take him in her mouth, swirl her tongue around the fat, bulging head swollen and primed to please her. In the shower’s heat, rougher strokes followed as his hand mimicked what Alexandra’s would do. She would enjoy taking a firm grip. She’d enjoy making him beg for that erotic friction, thinking she had some power over him.

But he wouldn’t give it to her. Just as he was her boss, he was the boss of this fantasy. He controlled his release. All of it.

His balls tightened and heat built at the base of his spine. Alexandra’s mouth increased its suction, sucking the head back to graze her throat, and she hummed her pleasure. Those sage-green eyes, insolent as the day is long, met his, begged, and . . . he let go in ropy spurts against the tile, his reward for a hard night and months of pent-up sexual frustration.

Amazing how a fantasy orgasm with Alexandra Dempsey was better than any actual release he’d had inside a woman.

Stepping out of the shower a few minutes later, Eli was pruned, half-sated, and still clueless about how to move forward on the Cochrane question. He threw on sweats and socks and headed downstairs, checking his messages as he went. Twelve from Madison—wonder what those were about. A couple from Kenneth Dubois, his chief of staff. Setting them aside until later, he scrolled through his contacts until he found one particular entry.

Splinter.

With a few taps, he upgraded her to Thorn. Smiled to himself like a fool.

The smells assaulted him first, followed closely by the sound of clanking pots. Fucker did it to annoy him, no doubt. He’d seen Brady Smith in action in his kitchen at Smith & Jones and he never made as much noise there as he did when cooking breakfast at Eli’s house.

Shadow, his Lab-collie mix, ambushed Eli with a full-on lick attack before he’d made it to the kitchen island. His shiny black coat felt comforting under Eli’s hands, and he spent a few moments on extra ear rubs because Shadow liked it and Eli needed it.

“Hey, fella, would you even care if I was gone?” Shadow raised those sad puppy eyes that got him out of trouble constantly. If only Eli could use that one to appeal to the voters.