“Smize?”

“Smiles with his eyes. Tough guy, but not afraid to show his vulnerable side.”

Disgust crossed his disruptively handsome face. Eli Cooper wouldn’t know a smize if it struck him with a puck. “Of course he’s not afraid to show his vulnerable side. He plays hockey, which is for pussies.”

She laughed. “This is so weird.”

“What is?”

She gestured between them, unwilling or perhaps just unable to verbalize how much fun she was having. He was so charmingly sure, even when his assurance was invested in ridiculously incorrect opinions. And he liked Firefly.

“So what about you?” she asked. “The press never stops talking about your constant stream of marriage proposals. How many today?”

“Five. No, six. The fire has increased my stock.” His long fingers strummed the table. “Dating’s not so easy in my position. Fake dating is more my style.”

“Tough with all those women chasing you on your morning jog.”

He gave a self-deprecating smile. It undid her a little.

“When every moment is carved up and captured for public consumption, it can put a real crimp in your sex life. I have to be careful about how I approach that.”

Hmm. She had never thought it might be difficult for him, but she’d had a little taste of life in the public eye in the last few months, and hand to God, she’d rather have a root canal with a rusty nail. She especially didn’t enjoy how Finance Guy, aka Mr. Two-Pump-Chump, had set out for conquest in her bar so he could say he’d banged America’s Favorite Firefighter. Multiplying that by a factor of ten thousand and extending it for years as the most eligible bachelor this side of the Mississippi? Well, she would not enjoy that at all.

“You took the plunge once.”

“Never again.”

“Madison or marriage?”

“Both. She’s a wonderful woman, but it was a huge mistake, which we both recognized immediately. Your typical Vegas cliché. I was twenty-four, on leave from the Marines, and very drunk. We got it annulled a few weeks later.”

The hitch of relief she felt in her chest that he didn’t seem to have anything but a cordial relationship with his ex really bugged her. “You’re disappointing women the world over. Having a nice, loving wife at your side, maybe even a couple of cherubic offspring, would play better for your image.”

He considered this. “That’s the problem. Marriage is all about image. People marry for money, power, family, society, or just so they can have someone to sit on the couch with and watch Law & Order reruns. It’s for those who don’t have the inner resources to be happy alone. If you have to rely on someone else to be content, then it doesn’t say much about you.”

She refused to take offense because this was Eli, who offended with every other word. “So the fact I’m looking for something meaningful makes me desperate and incapable of tapping into my poverty-stricken interior life?”

“Different strokes, Alexandra. I can’t speak for you, but allowing someone that much control over my happiness sounds like a recipe for disaster. If I subscribe to that way of thinking . . .” He hesitated, as though seeking a way to reframe what he was saying. Not because he worried about insulting her, but because he wanted to get it right. “Putting all your trust into the hands of another person is dangerous. What if it’s the wrong person?”

It was a chance she was willing to take. “Hopefully, you’ll find out before any real damage is done.”

His expression turned stark. “Years can go by before you find out a person’s true colors. People always hide things, play parts.”

That was a very bleak view. She leaned in because this smacked of a weird significance, the why of which she’d examine later. “Politicians, perhaps. But that’s just an image you have to craft for your public, Eli. In your real life, you don’t have to hide. With the right person, that is.”

A flicker of what looked like pain in his eyes startled her. Maybe Madison had done more of a number on him than he let on, but her intuition told her there was more to it.

“Well, this has gotten very serious all of a sudden.” With a slight shake of his head, he picked up the menu and skimmed it. “Let’s start with the burrata, then the gnocchi with brown butter and sage, and—”

“You plan to order for me?”

He peeked up, and the light caught the blue-black of his hair and the shine in those shark’s eyes. In that carnal gaze, she felt hooked by the sensual lure of a man who knew what he wanted—and it wasn’t on the menu.

The mayor’s eye-fucking game? A-plus.

“A lot of women like when a man orders for them.”

“I think they like watching how your face lights up when you’re acting all omnipotent.”

“That’s a big word.”

“I’m a big girl.” Damn, that sounded flirty, but the atmosphere was conspiring to tear down every inhibition she usually had around him. Which, of late, wasn’t much. “Order away,” she added dismissively. “I live to serve you, sire.”

He looked pleased at her faux obeisance, and hell if she didn’t actually like the flutter of pleasure in her stomach at the thought of gratifying him. At the notion of obeying every wicked command that tumbled from his sensuous mouth.

She needed to remember all the stunts he had pulled and how much she disliked him. That underneath the quips, flirting, and enough sexual tension to set off the restaurant’s smoke alarms, they were actually at war.

“Two days later and I was still plucking bugs out of my bra!”

One bottle of Montalcino in, and Eli had learned three new things about Alexandra Dempsey. She was absolutely fearless: her tales of motorbiking solo around Vietnam after college (cue the bugs-in-her-bra story) had him alternately clutching his wineglass and suppressing concerned gasps. She despised the White Sox in a way he considered unhealthy. And she had collarbones that did strange things to his brain. He would never have considered himself a clavicle man, yet here he was.

This woman rocked the curves of Marilyn Monroe, the no-filter mouth of Chelsea Handler, and the spirit of Amelia Earhart. She was the real deal.

Aided by the wine and the stellar creations from Tony DeLuca’s kitchen, she had loosened up. Watching her eat had been one of the most pleasurable things to strike him in a very long time. She attacked her food with gusto, making nom-nom noises in the back of her throat that had him wondering how she would sound if she was to eat or lick or suck . . .

He hauled his mind out of the gutter. Long way to travel. “How did your family feel about you traipsing all over the world on your wild adventures?”

She made a face, suddenly someone’s younger sister. “Luke shouted at me for a month before I left and then a month after I returned because I contracted a teensy bout of malaria. He’s such an old woman sometimes. I thought it best not to mention that one time I was mugged in an alley behind my hostel in Hanoi.”

He buried his face in his hands. “Jesus.”

“Hey, the guy came out of that alley clutching the family jewels and wishing he’d never met me.” She grinned, and he had no idea if she was teasing him or if she had truly kicked the ass of some Vietnamese mugger.

“Never thought I’d empathize with Luke. I should hire you for security.”

The grin cooled. “Cute, Cooper, but you don’t really believe that, do you? You think the differences between the sexes make my gender a liability in my job.”

“You’re strong, quick, and clever, Alexandra,” he said honestly. “But I don’t think all women are as resourceful or as competent as you. Ask most anyone, man or woman, who they’d prefer carry them out of a fire and they’re not going to choose a female firefighter.”

An indignant crimp furrowed the spot between her eyes. “Men will always be threatened by a strong woman, and as for women, apparently it’s a female fantasy to have a big, burly fireman rescue them.” Her sigh signaled her annoyance at such sisterly treachery.