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