Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (25 page)

“Your pal Cooper.” The mayor stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Brady, talking up a storm with no visible response. How the hell were those two friends?

“Good old Eli,” Darcy mused. “Not sure I would have thought of the two of you together, but hey, if it works.” At whatever she saw on Gage’s face, her lips thinned in concern. “So which one of you is being the dumbass here?”

“No one. I dunno, maybe me.” Gage had pushed too hard, come off as too desperate. No surprises there. “I thought he was interested but I had it wrong. He’s wound so tight I don’t want to be around when he blows.”

“Coward,” Beck muttered.

Irritation ignited in Gage’s chest. “I am
so
glad you’re back from your travels, Becky. We’ve been missing all that Puerto Rican charm.”

Beck scoffed. “You’re so used to getting all the dick you want that at the first sign of resistance, you turn tail.”

Gage lasered his best glare at his brother, who he’d probably admit to being his favorite Dempsey. After Alex, anyway. Right now? Even Wy was beating out this jagoff with a smart mouth.

“I don’t have time to chase the reluctant.”

“Why? You on a deadline to tap as much ass as possible before you’re twenty-five?” Beck’s gaze turned measuring. “I wouldn’t have pegged you two for a couple, either. But if you saw something there, then it had to be for a reason.”

Beck had a point. There had been something there, and Gage intended to find out exactly what it was.

 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

D
uring the mayor’s speech, Brady had disappeared, and Gage guessed he had finally decided to leave his station to take a leak. Inside, he found the man himself in the house kitchen, offloading bottles of barbecue sauce onto the counter.

“Hey, great food,” Gage said.

Brady raised his head, every move of his bull’s neck like it was doing him an injury. “Thanks,” he responded after a lengthy silence. “Figured your crew might like the leftover sauce. Should keep for a while.”

Gage grabbed two containers, and together they loaded that and a few tubs of slaw into the cool confines of the communal fridge.

“Nice paint job,” Brady muttered on closing the fridge door.

Having stopped itching awhile back, Gage had forgotten he was wearing the mask of Peter Parker’s alter ego. “Spidey was always my favorite.”

“Mine, too.”

Well, howdy-fucking-do. This felt strangely like progress, the air suddenly alive with promise. How far could Gage push it?

“We appreciate you giving your time today,
though I guess when the mayor issues an order, you hop to it.” Gage leaned against the counter and folded his arms, his bones buckling with the effort to stay casual. “Was he your CO in Afghanistan?”

Brady dipped his head, but not before Gage caught the barest hint of a smile. The way it transformed that ground-up face sent Gage’s heart into a pitter-patter.

“I was his. The team was mine.”

Brady bossing Cooper around? Gage would’ve paid good money to see that. Hell, he’d pay good money to have Brady bossing
him
around.

“You ever wish you were back in the Marines?”

“Never. The structure is good, but it starts to wear on you after a while. I prefer where I am now.” Again, that look of visceral pain marred his face, like the night he’d told Gage he was unfixable.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Prefer where you are now?” ‘Cause as far as Gage could tell, this man was living a half life.

The impact of Gage’s question seemed to hit Brady like a two-by-four, but just then they were interrupted by a couple of the C shift making a noisy entrance into the kitchen. Shit.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” Brady grunted.

“Come with me.” No way was Gage passing up a chance to have Brady open up to him. He walked them back to the locker room, opened the door to the bunk room, and held it ajar, like he was trying to woo a puppy for a walk. Brady cast a suspicious glance around the room and stepped inside. Gage turned the lock on the door.

“This is the most private area of the firehouse.”

The oversized chef was already scoping out the bunks with one hand, testing for comfort or lack thereof. “You sleep here?”

“Sometimes. Getting shut-eye is hard because we’re one of the busiest houses, but I can usually sleep anywhere. I’m pretty adaptable.”

Brady’s shoulders lifted on a labored inhale and a few moments passed before he spoke. “Listen, I’m sorry about how I insulted you the last time we talked. I was accusing you of stuff and . . . I don’t know you well enough to talk to you like that. I don’t know you well enough to assume your fuck patterns and how often you need it.”

Gage was so stunned by Brady’s apology that for a moment he was rendered speechless. First time for everything.

“You didn’t insult me. I just want to know why you’re blowing hot and cold.”

Brady smiled again and
yowza
, Gage almost jackknifed to his knees right there and then. “Guess I like you some.”

Gage took a step closer. “No take-backs, Brady.”

“I’m not gonna take it back, but it doesn’t mean anything. This . . . this can’t work.”

“Aw, shit, you didn’t lose it in A-stan, did you?”

“Lose what?”

“Your sex drive? Your dick? Your southern-fried mind?”

Brady glowered. Bring on the sex-ay. “No, I didn’t lose it, you little shit. I—I’m just not comfortable with anyone touching me. Not yet.”

So Darcy had that much right, but that’s not what struck Gage hard. It was those two little words. They
stayed suspended on wings, kept aloft by the raw need thickening the air.

Not yet.

Gage sat on the nearest bunk and had to psychologically restrain himself from patting the space beside him. “So how are we going to work this out? Because this no-touching thing is sort of harshing the vibe.”

“I know a guy like you won’t want to wait.”

“There you go making assumptions about me again.”

The blush staining Brady’s cheeks drew Gage’s smile. So fucking cute. “Gage, I want to touch you, but—”

“You’d be okay with touching me?”

The big man nodded.

“But I couldn’t touch you back.”

Another nod.

“You’re describing the fantasy of every guy, gay or straight. Getting off without giving back. But while the old me would be fine with letting someone blow me without having to return the favor, that’s not who I am anymore.”

Since when,
Simpson?
Since about a month ago when he strutted into this guy’s kitchen and just about doubled over with lust and want and other scary shit his dumb gray cells refused to examine this minute. Stellar timing on the sex-life-changing epiphany.

Why couldn’t he have picked someone easy? Guys with layers were not his thing, but man, he wanted this guy and all his messed-up layers. “Some of the stuff I’ve done, Brady, I could do with dialing it back, know what I mean?”

Brady shook his head, adorably confused.

“I’m young and I’m hot. Maybe it’s time I took it a bit slower in my old age.”

“You’re twenty-four years old, asshole!”

Brady getting agitated was about the sexiest thing Gage had ever seen. Oh man, this was going to be fun.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret.” Gage gave a faux shifty look, left-right, and leaned forward. “I’m a bit of a ho. Just sayin’ I’d be cool with taking it easy, seeing how it pans out.” He cocked his head. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

Older than he thought, and even more of a turn-on. But then, Brady turned Gage on by merely breathing. “So. Even though you don’t want me to run my hot hands all over your hard body just yet, you still have fantasies about me, right? You touch yourself and think of me and my billboards?”

Brady mumbled something.

“What’s that, Chef Smith?”

The barest of smiles snuck up on his lips. “You know it, Golden.”

Feeling smug, Gage leaned back on his elbows, which had the deliberate, and very fortunate, effect of lifting his tee enough to show a sliver of tanned skin at his abs. Brady’s eyes darkened to almost black.

“I need you to touch me, Brady. Now.”

Brady swallowed, his Adam’s apple so pronounced it made his thick neck bulge. But then he backed up a few steps, hurtling Gage’s heart into a free fall. What the hell?

He checked the lock on the door. “I’ve already scared half the kids out there. Don’t want to scare the other half by getting caught at this.”

Gage’s heart clenched at that, but the discomfort fled the moment Brady walked over—stalked, really—with surprising animal grace for one so mountainous. Kneeling down, he moved a big bear paw to Gage’s thigh, and that simple touch set Gage to shaking. Up, up, up he slid his hand to the zipper of Gage’s jeans. His dick bucked liked a bronco in anticipation of being let out of the gate.

“Remember what I said, Gage. Hands to yourself.”

The guy had barely touched him and he was ready to blow his wad. As Gage fisted the bunk bed coverlet, he could hardly push the words out. “That’s going to be . . . really . . . really . . . difficult.”

Brady chuckled and rubbed over the denim at the crease of Gage’s thigh and groin, hard but not hard enough.

“I’m about to go down on Spider-Man. This is mighty fucked up.”

That was the least of it. Gage had no idea which was weirder: that he was about to be blown by an ex-Marine, five-star chef with hard-core intimacy issues or that for the first time in his life, he was not in charge of a sexual encounter.

Brady pulled down Gage’s zipper and glanced his knuckles over the rampant bulge straining against his boxer briefs. Just a tease, to let Gage know he was in control.

But then the bastard had been running the show since day one.

O
ut in the Engine 6 forecourt, the party was kicking into high gear. Finally finished with his voter
schmoozing, the mayor strode over to Kinsey and Madison.

“Nice speech, Mr. Mayor,” Madison said.

Without acknowledging her compliment, the mayor said, “Mind if I have a word with Kinsey in private, Mads?”

“Sure,” she said, a wrinkle in her usually smooth brow as she split a look between Eli and Kinsey. “I think there’s a slice of cake with my name on it.”

Eli watched his ex-wife walk away—Kinsey was still reeling from that shocker—but even when Madison was out of earshot, he remained silent. Quiet built like a fortress between them, almost bruising, and her stomach turned queasy. Every time Kinsey had stopped by Eli’s office over the last week to confess her sins, he’d been out on official business or in meetings. Now it was time to welcome those dang chickens home to roost.

“I was hoping to talk to you about some of the campaigns I think we could tackle next, but first, I have a confession—”

“You can have a week to clear out your office, Kinsey, but I imagine you’d prefer to wrap things up sooner.”

Oh. Her dumb heart plummeted to the tarmac, where it flopped around like a landed fish.
Fired.
One of the most powerful and influential men in the country had just fired her.

“How long have you known?”

His expression said she was an idiot, naive, or both. So that’s how it was. The bastard had been playing dirty pool all along.

“You’re not the only one with an insider at NBC,
Kinsey. I suspected immediately, then had it confirmed about ten seconds after it aired.” He shook his head. “You could have let the Dempseys go it alone, but the petition, the management of it all . . . well, I can see why you would want to craft that yourself. Even when you’re disobeying a direct order, you do it in the most professional way possible.”

Hadn’t she suspected he knew the moment she hung up the phone with him after the release? For the video to be sourced directly to the mayor would have been an open declaration of war on Cochrane. Much better if Eli could plead ignorance when it went viral. This way, he kept Cochrane’s backing, the city safe from a debilitating lawsuit, and Alex Dempsey’s job intact. Kinsey’s position? Collateral damage.

Indignation rose up, swift and certain.

“The minute I brought in that video, you knew it was the way to save Alex, but you didn’t want its release traced back to you. I was relying on your sense of justice, but you were banking on mine. I played your game, did your dirty work, and I’m still out of a job?”

Inclining his head, he spoke in a voice underlined with steel. “I told you to kill that video, and instead you ran a shadow campaign that resulted in me almost losing a top donor and an important endorsement. Don’t pretend you didn’t understand the risks here. There was no guarantee it would have such a positive end, but the means . . .” A spark of something softened those piercing blue eyes. “We would have made a great team, you and I. But I can’t abide disloyalty, even when it works out for the best.”

True, she had gambled, and she’d known her job
might be the casualty. But Eli had strung her along, let her think she was safe. Let her fall deeper into this new life she was crafting. This new love she was embracing.

What a penis.

Her head spun as she tried to wrap it around the labyrinth of this man’s mind. “Why didn’t you fire me the minute you found out I had ordered the release?”

He moved his gaze over the crowd in the forecourt. “Given your special relationship with Almeida, I didn’t want to put this event in jeopardy. Christ knows how far off the rails he’ll fly when he finds out I’ve canned you.”

Nice to know she had her uses, even if it was merely as lion tamer for a roaring beast. Shame on her. She had underestimated Eli, a common mistake when dealing with people possessed of stunning good looks.

“That’s not what this was about,” she said, back to his jibe about Luke even as she acknowledged the truth of Eli’s statement. Desperation to hold on to her core values of dedication and professionalism compelled her to defend yet another decision made with a man as the engine.

“Ah yes. You were making a stand for the sisterhood and defending the rights of our pink citizenry.”

He was right. She had moved cross-country for one man, and now she had sacrificed her job for another.

She was a fool—and she had no one but herself to blame.