Holy. Wow.

She was saved from having to answer—as if she had any possible coherent response to those erotically charged words—when the entrées arrived. As the mayor’s plus one, she was served first, and she was glad of the chance to quell her thundering pulse and enjoy some sorely needed relief from his unrelenting potency.

“Now, savor every bite, Alexandra. I want to feel your enjoyment.”

Mmm. Time for a little payback in the tease department. Once assured that everyone else was occupied oohing and aahing over the beautiful presentation of the entrées—lamb, which Alex adored—she dipped her finger into the rich sauce drizzled over it and sucked. Slowly.

A touch obscene, she suspected.

A graveled growl sounded to her right. Definitely a touch obscene.

She faced him and bit down on her lip, all innocence. “Did you feel my enjoyment, Eli?”

“Acutely, you witch.” He placed his phone on the table, and her gaze was drawn to the bright screen’s message thread. Another smile gathered pace inside her.

“Thorn? What happened to Splinter?”

“You got an upgrade.” That devil mouth curved in faux resignation. “I suppose I’m still an anonymous string of digits in yours.”

“A girl’s gotta keep her secrets.” She popped her phone back into her clutch, ensuring she powered it off first so he wouldn’t see the nickname she’d given him. That gorgeous head was already big enough. “Now hush with the barely adequate flirting, and let me eat in peace.”

His laugh drew the stares of their dining companions, and her ovaries went kaboom. He tangled a finger in her curls, held it there for a beat, and let go on a sigh.

During the dessert course—a milk chocolate torte with hazelnut and violet (delish, but so tiny)—the police commissioner rapped a mic to begin his speech. Behind him, a large photograph of Weston Cooper faded in as if projected from the heavens. His image had been a prominent fixture during every news story about Eli at the last election. Now Cooper Senior—or Coop as the commissioner referred to him—stared out at the audience from beyond the grave, the spitting image of the man beside her.

“Coop was one of the finest men I knew,” the commissioner was saying. “Would give you the shirt off his back, the dime in his pocket, his last cigar.”

As he droned on about the sainted Coop, Alex’s gaze slid to Eli, or more accurately Eli’s right hand. As the commissioner’s speech ramped up, Eli’s grip on the steak knife handle he’d been holding tightened. To the point that she worried he might squeeze it into matchsticks.

She leaned in. “We okay?”

He turned, and what she saw pinned her back: undiluted disgust. His irises had darkened so much they swallowed all the blue. Blinking, he dropped the knife, its clatter against the plate enough to pull him back to being the charmer the world knew.

“Just fine.”

“And now to accept the first Weston Cooper Justice Award, Mayor Eli Cooper.”

Amid thunderous applause, Eli turned to Alex and gave her a brief wink before heading toward the podium, his progress slowed by the claps on his back and outstretched hands he shook on his way up. He was right—cops loved him. Once on the dais, he clasped hands with the commissioner and turned the glass trophy, shaped like a scale (for justice, Alex assumed) over in his hand. Clearly, a speech was expected, yet Eli merely stared at the award for several uncomfortable moments.

“A few words, perhaps, Mr. Mayor?” It took this interjection from the commish and nervous titters from the audience to drag Eli back from wherever he had gone. He let out a good-natured chuckle and seemed to compose himself as he began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a privilege and a pleasure to be here with you this evening. The Chicago Police Department is a stellar example of men and women protecting and serving our great city, and sacrificing their safety for the better good of our citizens.” He looked at the award again. “Unlike the brave Chicago police officers, as well as the other remarkable first responders who put their lives on the line every day . . .” His gaze sought out Alex when he said that. “My father didn’t go to work expecting that any particular day might be his last. Wearing a suit and making speeches for a living isn’t the noblest or most dangerous of professions, as I’m sure every lawyer—or politician—in this room will tell you.” The crowd laughed at the jibe. Eli’s smile was patient. Phony.

Something felt really off about this.

“But he got caught up in something beyond his control and he paid the price for it. He would be very pleased that his name is being carried on with this award. He was a great believer in justice.”

He arced his gaze over the room. “Thank you.”

The commissioner’s wife was a lovely woman, but if she didn’t stop talking very soon, Eli was going to fly into a murderous rage.

“. . . Your father was so generous with his time. It always amazed me considering the long hours he worked, but come Thanksgiving, he was the first to sign up for the homeless shelter lunch . . .”

His father had never been one to resist a photo opportunity, all credits he was storing away for that mayoral run he planned to make. Eli’s gaze wandered to the award on the table. Its glass glinted, the little sparks of light like shards in his eye.

“. . . Sara would have made a wonderful mayor’s wife. She was Bill and Elizabeth Cantor’s daughter, wasn’t she? Of the Lake Forest Cantors?”

His mother had been North Shore royalty who married down when she fell in love with an idealistic young law student at the University of Chicago. The tone was clear. Alexandra Dempsey was no Sara Cantor Cooper. With her unkempt curls, vibrant tattoos, and exotic skin tone (Is she Middle Eastern? Eli had overheard at the next table), his date was not mayoral wife material. She wasn’t even mayoral date material. But he wasn’t looking for anything beyond a mutually beneficial arrangement. Both in and out of bed.

She had left a few moments ago to visit the restroom and he was already antsy, his fingers itching to stroke her golden skin and twine her unruly hair. Just keep her near. It made no sense, but having this firecracker of a woman by his side tonight was about the only thing getting him through. During the speech, he had come close to smashing that award to the floor and screaming the truth about Weston Cooper. Letting the world know that his father wasn’t the hero everyone thought he was. Just the opposite, in fact.

A fraud. A criminal.

Seeing her out there, watching him with those big green eyes, had calmed him. Alexandra Dempsey as therapy. Go figure.

And he needed his next fix. Scanning the room, he found her standing over at the bar, talking to—Christ, that motherfucker Michael Martinez. Protectiveness lashed over Eli with such violence it shocked him to his core. He could tell from the change in her body language that she and the good detective weren’t merely shooting the breeze about the Hawks’ latest debacle on the ice.

Just as Eli was about to walk over and make a damn fool of himself, Alexandra left Martinez and headed his way. That she was pissed to all hell was as clear as the crystal chandeliers above their heads, and her ire added an extra tilt to the sexy switch of her hips.

She came to a stop, fists clenched, her entire body an ode to barely tethered control. Predictably, his cock jumped to attention. She refused to make it easy and he loved it.

“I’m leaving now.”

“We haven’t danced yet.” He stood and covered her fist with his hand.

“I don’t want to dance,” she grated.

“Just one, honey, then I’ll take you home.”

He led her to the dance floor and gathered her in his arms. Already a warship of a woman, in heels she stood almost as tall as him, yet her body slotted in perfectly with his. She rested her palm lightly on his shoulder, barely touching him, just the minimum necessary to get her through the next three minutes. She couldn’t avoid his chest, though. The heat of those breasts, the ones he had sucked deep and dreamed about for months, lit a fire inside him.