As usual, his intensity made her nervous, so she started babbling. “I still have the one you gave me the night of the fire.”

“Lucky jacket, draped all over this beautiful body.” He brushed his hands over her tattoos with something like reverence. She shivered. “Your ink does things to me, Alexandra.”

And you do things to me, Eli Cooper. Dangerous, yearning things. She blinked those treacherous thoughts away, scattering them to the four corners of the room. The clothes might be coming off, but the Kevlar would remain firmly in place around her heart.

He unzipped her dress, shrugged it from her shoulders, and peeled it down. She stepped out of it and he threw it over a chair. The fact that the last time they’d been in such close quarters he’d teased two orgasms from her within the span of three minutes should have created some semblance of self-confidence as she stood before him, yet she felt more exposed than ever in his towering presence.

“Not fair that I’m half naked and you’re fully dressed,” she pouted.

“It’s fair. It’s perfectly fair.”

He moved her hair aside and kissed her neck, tenderly, unfairly. His eyes never wavered from watching her in the mirror.

“Not fair,” she whispered.

Velvet kisses of worship trailed the top of her spine and followed a slow, sensual descent. With the back of his knuckled hand, he skimmed her flame-lit skin, leaving dancing sparks in the wake of every touch. The curve of her stomach, the side of her breast, the flare of her hip. The sensations were incredible.

“Not . . . fair.” She closed her desire-heavy eyelids and absorbed the unbearable eroticism of a man taking his time. The men she had been with before seemed so immature now compared to Eli.

But really, she didn’t want to miss a thing, so she dragged her eyes open. Avidly, she watched as he pulled his tie off and let it fall to the floor. Next his cuff links, which he placed on the dresser.

“May I?” She wanted to be the one to unbutton his shirt. Expose him like he had done to her. For a moment, she imagined they had just come home from a dinner party with friends. In her domestic fantasy, they’d had a good time with convivial company, but all night they had stolen needful glances at each other. Knowing that this moment would come, when they would strip each other slowly.

She kicked that ridiculousness to the curb. One-night stands didn’t do couples dinner parties.

He cupped her hips as she undid each shirt button. One, two, three . . . All the time, he burned her alive with an intense regard, while she kept her eyes at chest level. Meeting his stare felt too raw. Too real.

She got to the last button, spread his shirt, and pause for the national anthem because, daaamn, the man was heart-stopping in his perfection. The scars on what had to be painted-on abs, wounds he must have picked up during his time in the Marines, only added to his animal magnetism.

With greedy fingers, she traced the geography of his hero-ravaged skin, remembering his military accomplishments and what he must have faced over there, remembering his parents, and what had happened in this house. A sobering thought, but that was his pain, and it would be presumptuous of her to take it on. Shucking his shirt entirely, she ran riot over his chest with her hands. Touching, shaping, planning a course of attack for her hungry mouth. His beauty had shocked her into an awed silence.

“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he said quietly.

Her heart missed a beat. Then another. She swallowed and it started up again.

“You had a funny way of showing it. You were rude. Chauvinistic.”

“I was,” he conceded. “I saw you standing with Gage at the bar in Smith & Jones, wearing that Gandalf Hates the Yankees T-shirt, all hair and fire and attitude, and it stunned me that someone could crash through me like that.”

“Gage has that effect.”

He didn’t smile at her poor attempt at diminishing the moment. Because it felt like a moment. Too large for her to comprehend.

“You were rude,” she repeated, her voice unsteady, her hands shaky from the force of her feelings as she unsnapped his tuxedo pants.

“Pigtail pulling, honey. Inside every man struck clueless by a woman is a snotty little schoolboy on the playground.”

She battled a smile. Lost the fight. “You liked me.”

“To my horror.”

“And when I carved up Sam Cochrane’s car, did you still like me?”

“It was a stupid move, wild and crazy, but damn it if a part of me didn’t love that you stood up for your people and your comrades. For yourself. Not enough people do that.” He kissed her, long and sweet. “But officially I was pissed. Baby, I had to be.”

She drew down his zipper, taking note of a very impressive bulge. “I’ve been nothing but trouble for you, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have, and now I’m going to make you pay. You’re going to find out what happens when you poke the beast.” He pushed her onto the bed, and she watched with her mouth watering as he stripped to his boxer briefs. Magnificent, powerful, and tonight he was all hers.

“Now, turn over.”

The words were a low-voiced command, issued with Eli’s typical certainty that they would be obeyed. Still, she hesitated, partly to prolong the moment, but more so he wouldn’t think he was getting his own way.

He gentled her jaw. “Do you trust me to make you feel good?”

“You’ve always made me feel good. Even when you make me mad, piss me off, and drive me to distraction. Everything you do turns me on.”

“Just goes to prove orneriness is a natural part of your makeup.”

She hooked a finger in the band of his boxers. “I want to give you pleasure, Eli. It’s been much too one-sided.”

“There’s nothing I want more than to see those beautiful lips of yours wrapped around my cock, sucking me hard before I drive in deep. But first, I’ll be taking care of you. Making you come several times is my only goal tonight, Alexandra.”

“Is this the Chicago way? Come early and come often?”

His smile could end wars. “Knowing how responsive you are to my touch, that would be a yes. Now, turn over. Won’t tell you again.”

Yes, sir.

She rolled to her front and crawled about halfway up the bed. She knew her ass looked pret-ty fine in these panties, and his full-throated growl confirmed her confidence.

“Lie flat.”

He lay down beside her, propped on an elbow, and she turned her head so she could admire the view. Then it started.

At first, just the softest touch of his finger pads along the ladder of her spine. Teasing, igniting her skin to sun and flame. The sensory onslaught built and took hold as he trailed fingers down to the border of her panties.

“Eli, please.”

“What?” He sounded leisurely, unbothered by it all.

“Please don’t wait. I need you so badly.”

Her legs had started to shake with the anticipation, even before he parted them with those large, blunt hands. As though he worked for a living instead of sitting in his ivory tower, making decisions that affected millions. It was like this secret part of him that only she knew. How rough and brutish and filthy-minded he was under that golden facade.

He dragged on her panties, a slow, erotic rake down to her thighs.

“God, you are perfect. I could spend forever exploring this patch of skin right here.” With hot kisses, he christened the spot where the crease of her thigh met the round of her ass. Exquisite—and exquisitely frustrating.

“It’s been so long, Eli. If you don’t—ah!” He slipped a finger between her thighs. She bit back the scream of pleasure on her lips, refusing to give it to him.

He rubbed through her folds. “How do you want to come, honey?” Continuing to saw his fingers back and forth, he kissed every inch of her booty. Her body undulated, chasing the motion of his clever digits.