Eli left his ex-wife/campaign manager/whatever and strode over. “You okay?” he asked, his voice intimate.

“Fine,” Alex muttered, suddenly shy. Probably for the best, because shy girls didn’t jump hot guys as if they stood between them and the buffet. Which, incidentally, he did.

“Give me your coat so Whitney can hang it.”

“Oh—oh, sure.” She made a move on the zipper of her parka, but her clumsy frozen fingers refused to cooperate.

He placed his hand over hers. Warmth zinged through her, snaking up her arm and radiating through her veins to the only destination that seemed to matter right now: the juncture of her thighs.

“Pretty chilly out there, huh?”

She nodded. Pretty warm in here, though. In her panties. Moving her hand aside, he pulled on the zipper. More puckering of the nipples. Nothing but heated silence from him. It was excruciating and unbearably arousing.

Say something , girl. Anything.

“Sorry I’m late. My dumb truck broke down and I had trouble finding a cab—fucking Uber—and then it wouldn’t drop me at the gate so I had to walk in the blizzard and . . . uh, I should shut up now.”

His intense expression broke into a smile that short-circuited her brain. How lucky a woman would be to be regularly pinned on the end of that smile. If only he’d smile and never speak, he would be perfect.

With the zipper finally down, he shrugged her parka off her shoulders. The action brought his hard, muscular self within extra-sinning distance. His warm breath glanced across her cheek.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You’d better,” she whispered, enjoying this intimacy before she recalled the true reason for her presence among the gods. “Have you talked to Sam Cochrane?”

“Not yet. But after tomorrow with a few pictures online, it won’t be necessary. It’ll be clear that you’re under my protection.”

My protection. Falling under a man’s shield was the one thing she had been fighting her whole life, but when Eli said it, she enjoyed an erotically forbidden thrill at the prospect.

“So how is this going to go down?”

“Go down?”

Did he have to repeat everything she said in a way that made it sound dirty? “The dating thing. Shouldn’t we discuss that?”

He leaned in close. Well, closer. “I was thinking we’d just do what came naturally.”

N to the O. If she did what “came naturally,” she’d be licking the stubble off that jaw in ten seconds. Ground rules needed, stat.

“I don’t think you should get too . . . handsy.”

“Define handsy. Two hands? One? How many fingers are considered beyond the pale?”

Two fingers would do nicely, thanks.

“Just n-no kissing, okay?” she hissed, irked with herself for letting every word he said filter through her imagination and emerge as an intoxicating brew of top-shelf filth. The fully stocked bar was starting to look very inviting.

“No kissing,” he murmured as he passed her parka off to Whitney, who had faded in like Ghost Assistant, doing her freakin’ job at last. “Where?”

“Anywhere!”

“Just checking.” He grinned, smug with getting a rise out of her. “You have to occasionally smile at what I say. That’s why you’re here, my sweet.”

“Try to be charming instead of your usual moronic self, and the pearly whites might make an appearance. So what’s happening tonight other than the game?”

“There’s press here to capture our burgeoning affair.” Said so casually that her pulse rate didn’t even spike. Maybe there was hope she could become immune to his masculine wiles. “We’ll take a few photos, visit with the players in the locker room after the game. Given where you work, I expect you can handle that.”

“Believe me, I’ve seen enough naked men on the job that I could sue the city and make out like a bandit for a hostile work environment.” At his look of concern, she clarified. “I can handle a little penis, Eli.”

He let loose a full-throated laugh that made her feel like she was wearing a sweater on the inside. So much for that masculine wiles immunity. If only he would smile and laugh, but never speak. Then he would be perfect.

“Hopefully you won’t have to handle a little penis, Alexandra.”

Their gazes locked for a long beat, too protracted for the risqué comments to be passed off as anything but flirting. And not the fake kind, either. At least twenty seconds went by, which was a really long time when a man this powerful and attractive and damn him, sexy, was keeping you in place under his commanding touch.

“Drink?” He pressed a large hand to the small of her back, and her body lit up again. This way, Alex, to a night of sensual torture.

Make hers a double.

Eli was having second thoughts. And third, fourth, and fifth ones. Pity he couldn’t say the same for Alexandra Dempsey, who seemed to be enjoying herself immensely with a man who was not him.

So he had temporarily abandoned her. He couldn’t stay joined at the hip with her, not when everyone was vying for his attention, and not when he wanted to join other parts of his body to hers and growl, “Mine.”

But she’d recovered from his absence with aplomb. She should have been bored stiff by Matt Cuddy, travel director for the Hawks. A former player, he liked to yammer on about how his knee blowout ruined his career five years ago. Not bad to look at, but otherwise the human equivalent of wet linguine. Like most hockey players.

Yet she was laughing at everything he said as though he were the funniest guy on the planet, in a way that she did not laugh with Eli. She had looked like a fiery vision when she’d exploded into the suite over an hour ago. Hair in a hullabaloo, gilded skin flushed like she’d fought a war to get here, her perfect breasts pulling fondly at the wool of her zipped sweater . . .

Those breasts were a menace. She was a menace.

This was what his life had devolved to: sneaking glances at a girl he liked from the back row of eighth-grade English while she flirted with the jock. Oh yeah, and he had lied to a woman to force her to spend time with him.

Two days ago at Engine Company 6, every argument he’d made to persuade her to cross over to the dark side had come up empty. He had not fired her brother. Nada. He had not fired her. Zilch. He had kept Cochrane off her back last summer. Who cares? Nothing made an impact, and as she waltzed out of that office, her body language singing an aria at having escaped his plans for her, he had panicked.

Eli never panicked. Not as a Marine. Not as an assistant state’s attorney. Not as the mayor. But the idea of her walking out that door and not being his had sent his brain into lockdown. And apparently, the only way to reboot it was to blurt out that lie.

Sam Cochrane is threatening to sue you, instead of the less adversarial and much more romantic Let me take you to dinner.

Asking Alexandra on a real date should have been his first option, but too much had passed between them. Basically, the woman despised him—well, not his body, if that blistering kiss in the city hall storeroom was anything to go by—but the top note in their relationship was loathing. So the date option was bumped for the “you’re about to be sued and made bankrupt” option. Because nothing spelled romance like the threat of legal proceedings.

Eli Cooper, you are one sick son of a bitch.

There was nothing for it now but to plow forward and make the best of it. All Alexandra needed to know was his imaginary protection from this imaginary lawsuit. And in the meantime, he would get to know her and watch the sparks between them ignite into a bonfire.

Time to get cracking on the kindling. Matt’s questionable charms appeared to be wearing off—Alexandra’s eyes kept wandering away from him to the buffet on the sideboard. Excellent. Eli had found his way in. After a moment loading up a plate for her, he approached just in time to overhear Matt bemoaning how hard it was to get 150 hotel rooms at short notice, especially in the postseason.