Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (8 page)

“Who
is
this?”

He growled and her throaty laugh shivered in his ear. His cock reacted predictably.

“Mr. Almeida, I told you I was going to make you a star. Together, we’re going to raise lots of money for your charity—”

“At the expense of my reputation. People can see that billboard from space.” A newly horrific thought slashed through his haze. “How many of them are there?”

“Just a couple.” She paused. “No more than ten. Fifteen max.”

He slapped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

“Did you just hit something?”

“No.”

Her silence said she was unconvinced.

“Kinsey . . .”

“Don’t worry,” she said blithely. “Gage is featured on some of them. We’re all about equal opportunity at city hall. Now, I have a firehouse party to plan, Mr. Almeida—that bouncy house won’t erect itself.” She broke into a laugh. “Or maybe it will! I’ll have to look into that.”
Click.

Twenty minutes later, Luke dribbled a basketball past one, two, three of the defense and fired the shot. It hit the backboard, flirted with the rim, and popped off without screwing the basket. Story of his life these days.

Bending over, palms on his knees, he hauled air into his burning lungs. His watery gaze wandered to the cracked tarmac of the court so far west on Foster Avenue to be practically in the burbs. Weeds struggled through the crevices, stretching to the sun, making life where they could find it.

“Pussy,” a voice said behind him.

Straightening as he turned, Luke shot arrows of disproval at the fourteen-year-old punk kid with the trash mouth.

“That’s Mr. Pussy to you, Anton.”

Anton grinned that shy smile that was so at odds with the salty language that came out of his mouth with every other word. He liked being treated as an adult by the mentors, and letting some of his jokey disrespect slide was a calculated move on Luke’s part. All the kids at St. Carmen’s needed something different. Some wanted to be left alone, some wanted an assurance that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Some wanted love or what passed for it in this messed-up universe. What they all had in common was a need for respect and to not be treated like they were stupid.

“Saw that video of you in the bar,” Anton said, a cheeky twist to his mouth.

Shit.
Luke had been dreading the moment one of the kids brought it up.

“Yeah, about that . . .” How could he put this without sounding like an after-school special? “You know that was not the best way to handle it. That guy pissed me off, but I should have let it slide.”

“Turn the other cheek and shit?”

“Right.” Just like Our Lord Jesus.

Anton rolled his tongue around his mouth, which meant he was thinking. Never good.

“But you didn’t get into trouble. You still got your job, you still here with us, you showin’ off on the TV news.”

And that would be
double shit.

He needed to assert control here and assure the
kids that bad behavior truly had negative consequences. Though the way Kinsey Taylor’s mouth and body had responded to his kiss was about as far from negative as it could get.

“Hey, guys, listen up.”

The teens turned, wearing their usual impudent stares like armor.

“I know you’ve probably all seen that video of me going psycho on another guy. Well, this behavior got me into a lot of trouble at work. Sure, I still have my job, but if I don’t cooperate with my bosses, I could lose it. You understand what I’m saying here?”

“So if we want to have jobs, we shouldn’t get into fights,” Kevin said through his gum chewing.

“Yes—well, no.”

“Nah, man,” Denny chimed in, with a hitch of the low-slung shorts that showed half his underwear. “If we wanna fight, don’t go gettin’ caught on the
vee-dee-oh
.”

The kids busted their guts at that.

Luke crossed his arms and delivered a badass staredown before continuing. “What I’m saying is that violence is not the solution when you get mad at someone.” Even if that someone screwed
your
wife in
your
bed and then showed up at
your
bar during game seven of the Cup finals to smirk about it. McGinnis was lucky not to be pissing blood. “And just because I ended up on a billboard, looking like a pansy-assed model . . . well, believe me when I say that it’s not a reward.”

Except for the hot woman with the hot mouth and the hotter . . .
down, fella.

Nothing but squinty-eyed stares greeted that. After
a long, long beat, Mickey placed his hands on his hips. “You’re modelin’ on a billboard now?”

The rest of them shook their heads in pity.

So it would seem this billboard business was not yet common knowledge.

K
insey was trying her best not to act like a complete country bumpkin, but the view from the Signature Room on the ninety-fifth floor of the Hancock was nothing short of spectacular. Seated at a south-facing window with the magnitude of nocturnal Chicago spread out before her, she could only stare at the blur of bright lights and tall buildings testifying to the city’s beauty and progress. And yet again she was faced with the chilling fear that as stunning as it was, it meant little without the right person to share it with.

She smashed that gem of self-pity with a mental karate chop.

“How long since your relationship ended?”

Kinsey snapped her eyes away from the stellar sights, surprised at her dining companion’s question.
Really?
She had been careful to keep her personal business to herself, so how Madison Maitland had come by that gossipy tidbit made her curious. Owner of M Squared, Chicago’s largest public relations firm, this woman had managed countless political campaigns and corporate rebrandings. Ethics and finance rules prohibited the mayor from using city employees like Kinsey for his reelection, so Madison’s outside firm was brought on board to keep Eli’s ass on the mayoral throne.

“I’ve no doubt you have your finger on the pulse,
Ms. Maitland, but I’m surprised you’d be interested in me enough to check my background.”

Madison sipped on her Glenfiddich eighteen-year-old and speared Kinsey from beneath dark lashes. Effortlessly put together with an ebony Anna Wintour–esque bob and a white Marc Jacobs suit, the woman looked no older than thirty-five, though Kinsey knew for a fact her real age was ten years higher. An endorsement for switching to top-shelf whiskey, perhaps.

“That ring of paler skin on your third finger is all the background check I need.”

Under the ambient lighting, Kinsey would have thought that slight discoloration would be barely visible, but then that was Madison Maitland’s job: notice the unnoticeable.

She gave a resigned sigh. “Just over a month.”

“Moved to Chicago to get away?”

“I wish.”

“Ah, you moved for him? Even worse. Now you’re working for a man who thinks you shouldn’t be left alone in the sandbox.”

Kinsey took a sip of her dirty Grey Goose martini and let the moment sit. This wouldn’t have been the first time a woman issued a camaraderie vibe only to later stab her in the back—and use the knife to get a handhold on her climb to the next rung.

“The mayor’s being careful,” she said diplomatically. “I work for the city, you work for him. It’s important we coordinate our efforts and no doubt I have a lot to learn.” A shot of humility, the perfect chaser to diplomacy.

“Well, your firefighter did look good on the ten
o’clock news, not to mention those billboards. I’ll admit it was a good move, Kinsey. We just have to be careful it doesn’t trivialize the issues.”

“I think it provides a healthy distraction from idiots going at it in a bar.” Though the reason behind the bad blood between Luke and Detective McGinnis had put a different color on it, for sure. Every time she tried to relegate Mr. Almeida to nothing more than brainless beefcake, a niggling thought warned her against it.

Madison narrowed her eyes. “There’s something to be said for the bait and switch, I suppose.” Touching the rim of her almost empty glass, she arched a sultry eyebrow at their handsome waiter before he reached the table. He immediately about-faced and made work for his idle hands. “My job is to make sure Eli gets reelected. Your job is to make sure the city of Chicago’s reputation as a dirty, corrupt, pay-for-play cesspit is turned around.”

Kinsey laughed heartily. Good as she was, that was expecting a bit too much. “Right now, I’d be happy with changing minds about one particular firefighter at one particular firehouse.”

“One rock-hard ab at a time?”

“Exactly.”

Both women
hmmed
as they savored a few X-rated visuals. The moment ticked over, not unpleasantly.

“This all seems a little”—Madison carved the air, seeking whatever word she was no doubt already prepared to use—“lowbrow for a woman of your talents. I’ve seen some of the work you did in San Francisco. The recycling campaign, the breast cancer one. I know your specialty is city government, but you’re better than hot firemen and kitten pics.”

A year ago, Kinsey had crafted a breast cancer screening campaign for San Francisco’s health department—Check Your Boobs—that saw a 32 percent increase in self-reported breast exams over six months, along with more women visiting their doctors and getting mammograms. Her recycling campaign may have preached to the choir in the earthy-crunchy, granola-imbibing Bay Area, but she had posted gains there, too.

Again, the shrewd Madison had hit it on the head: stuck in Chicago on the equivalent of the entertainment beat was not the plan. “I won’t be doing this forever. I was headed somewhere different and I took a left turn, thinking it might fix things with my fiancé. I compromised because I thought it would create a work-life balance and make me happy.” She had hoped kowtowing to David’s needs would give her some Zen-like insight into how the game was supposed to work. Please her man, please herself. Or maybe that the job wouldn’t matter because she had nabbed the real prize: a guy who checked all the boxes. Career, wealth, prestige.

Being single and alone was still a frightening fate for a woman in a way it was not for a man. A universal truth, and one she hated.

Kinsey took a generous swig of her drink. “I’ll admit I’d rather be dealing with more important issues like education, health care, links with the nonprofit sector, than whether a guy with a force-ten temper and a penchant for the fists-first solution can be brought to heel.”

The waiter switched out Madison’s empty glass for a fresh one. She studiously ignored him. “From
time immemorial we’ve been cleaning up after male messes. When a man does it for a woman, it’s called being rescued. When a woman does it for a man, it’s housework.” She looked out the window, a pensive expression softening her sharp features. “I moved for a man once.”

Kinsey started at this abrupt move from the woe-is-a-woman’s-lot to the personal.

“My second husband took a job with a prestigious law firm in New York. I had just gotten M Squared off the ground and we tried the every-other-weekend solution for a few months but—”

“Soon it became all your weekends there and none of his here?”

Madison nodded. “My career was never going to be as important as his. I saw how all the other wives at the law firm acted. They were expected to entertain, support, stay back. I’ve worked at male-centric companies where mentioning previous successes in a job interview looked like bragging. Where success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. Where women end up compromising because they want to be liked.”

“And not just by men.”

Madison’s smile was grim. “Yes, we do it with other women, too. We play down our strengths in case we’re seen as uppity. Like we’ve failed some marker of womanhood.” She leaned in. “Well-behaved women don’t make history, though, do they?”

“What about Mother Teresa?”

Madison coughed as if her drink had gone down the wrong way. “Self-sacrificing saint? That’s my only option? No, thanks. When my husband asked, I
moved to New York, found a job I sort of liked, but he was less interested in me once I had capitulated. He was attracted to me for my strength, and trying to please him made me weak in his eyes. We divorced after six months and I came back here.”

Capitulated.
That word set off a vibration of resentment in Kinsey’s body at the memory of how she had sacrificed for David. Never would she allow a man to rule her emotions like that again. “And you’re happy with how things turned out?”

The older woman’s lips twitched with disappointment, not at how her life had turned out but that Kinsey had asked the wrong question. Happiness was too abstract for a woman like Madison Maitland. Kinsey was starting to wonder if it was too abstract for her. Perhaps it was impossible for both life and career contentment to coexist for ambitious women.

“I haven’t met a man yet who can handle what I bring.” Madison hesitated, her eyes misting over with memory. “There was my first husband, but he was too unformed, too young to get it. These days I put food on my table. I’m responsible for my own orgasms.” Her gaze drifted to the waiter. Guess someone was getting lucky tonight. “Eli put us together because he thought you couldn’t handle this assignment.”

“What do you think?”

“There’s only one opinion that matters here. At least, publicly. The ego management is a full-time job, but I think between us, we can ensure that opinion is crafted to everyone’s best interests.”

With a sly smile, Madison picked up the dinner menu. “The food here’s not so good, but the views, both inside and out, are amazing. Another round?”

 CHAPTER EIGHT

T
he scene of the crime—the original crime that got her this assignment and put Luke Almeida on her radar—was already hopping by the time Kinsey walked in at close to eight on Friday of the July Fourth weekend. Dempsey’s on Damen was your typical Irish bar. High tables, low lighting, Bono wailing about how he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. As befitted an establishment owned by firefighters, there were also plenty of nods to the service. Sepia photos of Chicago firehouses and crews. A brass bell that sounded the alarm back in the day.

And then there was the gorgeous streak of heat behind the bar in the form of Gage.

He grinned wide as she approached and hopped onto a stool. Baby Thor was looking particularly fine tonight, wearing a T-shirt announcing: I’m a Firefighter—It’s Kind of a Big Deal.

“You are
sooo
lucky,” he said. “He’s not here.”

“Who?”

“Mr. July.”

Her smile covered nicely her disappointment that Luke was not in the house. “You think I’m scared of your brother?”

“I think you ought to be.” He leaned over the bar
and tapped his phone. “My favorite is the one of Luke where they Photoshopped in the glistening sweat. He was so pissed about that little detail.”

Swiping at the screen, Gage zeroed in on what Kinsey had to admit was also her favorite pic. Luke’s oh-my-God abs and that sexy V of his hip indents screamed sex, and on a sky-tall billboard, were damn near unmissable by every driver heading into the city this morning on the I-90.

“Can’t believe the city sprung for those billboards,” a female voice chimed in to her right. Alex took up residence on the next stool and nodded at Gage, who passed her a Goose Island summer ale and raised a questioning brow at Kinsey.

“I’ll have the same,” she said, then turned back to Alex. “The billboards were donated. Once I explained that they were for a good cause, they were more than happy to provide them. I only need them for a month to drive up orders for the calendar.”

“You mean people are actually going to buy that shit?” Alex asked.

“People are already buying that shit,” Kinsey said with a laugh. “The 311 city services line was inundated with calls today, and the website we’re selling it on crashed for thirty minutes this morning.” She might
have ordered the boys in IT to take it offline for a while to fuel the frenzy. Threats to the hunky firefighter calendar supply chain could only help the effort.

Alex clinked her beer bottle companionably against Kinsey’s. “Damn, woman, you are taking names. Between those smut boards and the local news, it’s the perfect FU to that ass at the
Trib
. He called Gage a pretty boy!”

They both looked at Gage, who shrugged his shoulders. While most people seemed to enjoy the calendar, there had been a backlash fronted by the
Tribune
about the unorthodox use of taxpayers’ money, especially on something so “deviant.” Though the tone of the op-eds made it clear that the deviance was not half-naked men per se, but half-naked gay men.

“When Darcy and Beck get back from their vacay in Thailand, I’m going to tell our girl she needs to keep Ogre Dad in check,” Alex said. “We’re practically related to the dude. You’d think he’d be less of a dick.”

Gage shook his head. “That’s exactly why he’s being a dick, Scooby-Doo. He hates that Beck sullied his darling daughter.”

“Sounds more like he’s feeling threatened by hot, half-naked firemen,” Alex said. “Speaking of . . . Did you tell her?”

Kinsey eyed Gage. “Tell me what?”

A sexy grin bloomed on his handsome face. “I had a call from a modeling agency this morning. They saw the billboard on Western and want me to come in for a test.”

“As if you need more help keeping your bed warm,” Alex muttered. “Puppy Eyes has it bad over there. Probably wants you to autograph his hard-on.”

In unison, the trio swiveled to take in a cute frat boy with sun-kissed hair and a hopeful smile. Gage assessed him with a coolness Kinsey wouldn’t have thought was part of his repertoire.

“That’s awesome news, right?” She assumed most
guys would be totally on board with an offer to play part-time model, though the thought that Luke might have received a similar request dragged a shot of bile up her throat.

And it was no concern of hers. A few blazing looks and one smoking kiss, and now she was worried that the man’s options to connect with women not named Kinsey Taylor had suddenly opened up wide. She had no claim on him—and no desire to make one.

Then why was she here?

Because Gage had suggested she stop by, no other reason. She was single, friendless in a strange city, living in a cookie-cutter corporate suite with her furniture in storage and nothing but Chinese food in her fridge. There were only so many Friday nights she could spend tooling around Whole Foods, trying to cobble a full meal together out of Cabernet and asiago cheese samples.

Turning away from the college hottie, Gage smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, it’s all good. I’ll never say no to more opportunities to get laid.”

“What gives? Are you coming down with something?” Alex’s eyes flew wide. “Or going down on someone?” Standing on the foot rail, she leaned over the bar and grabbed her brother violently by the shoulders. “Who is it? Deets. Now, Simpson.”

“It’s no one. It’s not even a thing.” As he pulled out of Alex’s grasp, he flicked a glance to Kinsey, and an uncanny awareness struck her.

“Oh my God, it’s the chef. The mayor’s pal.” On Eli’s return from the kitchen that night at Smith &
Jones, he had boasted about his matchmaking skills. The scary chef and the budding male model seemed like an oddball pairing, but what did she know?

Gage rolled his eyes as if Kinsey had disappointed him greatly.

“Sorry, I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“It’s not,” he said quickly, putting her at ease. “Like I said, it’s nothing. Not yet. It’s just . . .” His smile lit him from inside as secret thoughts, the ones you held on to at the beginning of something special, fueled his grin. “It’s nothing. Guy’s playing hard to get, anyway.”

“I know he served with Eli in Afghanistan. I could get some more details about him,” Kinsey said mischievously before turning to Alex. “And if you need to know anything about our fearless leader, by the way, feel free to ask. Boxers or briefs. PJs or nude. Ribbed or flavored. There’s a list doing the rounds at city hall.”

“Why would I want to know anything about him?” Alex asked, suddenly fascinated by the label of her beer bottle.

Gage and Kinsey shared a knowing glance. In the face of their scorn, Alex colored, but quickly surrendered her pretended ignorance. “Mayor Eli Cooper is an arrogant, chauvinistic jerk who probably calls his own name when he comes.”

“
Eliiii . . .
”
Gage threw back his head and moaned orgasmically, an impression that sent Alex and Kinsey into peals of laughter.

Alex pointed her bottle at Kinsey. “Your boss is a dick, I live with dicks, and I work with dicks. So, up to my neck in dick, thanks very much.”

“Can never have enough dick,” Gage said wisely.

Kinsey lifted her beer. “I’ll drink to that.”

L
uke jerked awake, scrubbing at imaginary eight-legged visitors crawling over his face. When he was in his own place next door, the cockroach-filled crack house nightmares usually stayed buried deep in his dream conscious. But on his siblings’ sofa, where he had dozed off waiting up for Gage and Alex to return home, comfort and safety eluded him. Not even the two glasses of Jack he downed when he came home from his shift at the bar could send him into a deep enough sleep.

Luke loved that damn bar, even though he knew that owning it—or keeping up its legacy—was probably one of the reasons his marriage had failed. There were times he’d needed space, and surrounding himself with a bunch of drunks was the best way to get it. Lisa had hated it there. Just one more manacle to his family.

Sean had opened Dempsey’s on Damen with Weston Cooper and Sam Cochrane before Luke was even a twinkle in his meth-addicted mother’s eye. A firefighter, a lawyer, and a businessman walked into a bar—and bought it. It sure made for an unlikely partnership, but by all accounts it had been a successful one until Cochrane fell out with Sean, reasons unknown. Then Cooper—or “Coop,” as he was known around the Cook County court system—sold off his share a few years later in preparation for a bid to become state’s attorney.

Prosecuting lowlifes and mob bosses had put him
in the crosshairs of some pretty nasty elements, one of whom murdered him along with his wife. All for doing his job as a public servant. Now his son, Eli Cooper, Mr. Fucking Mayor, was choosing to ride Luke’s ass so hard that he wondered how much more shit he could take—or if Cooper even knew that their fathers had once been partners. Even friends.

Between this calendar crap, his probation, and Kinsey Taylor, Luke was half a spark away from igniting like a powder keg. Probably not the best night to be serving a bunch of sloppy frat boys. Gage and Alex usually worked Friday nights pulling brewskis, but it was the start of the holiday weekend and Luke had said he’d cover while they went clubbing. Let the kids have their fun shakin’ their asses at the other kids.

Wyatt said he worried too much, that he needed to let them make their own mistakes. Luke agreed, for the most part, but tonight he had still taken up residence on the sofa in the home he had grown up in so he could play overbearing father figure to his youngest sibs. As soon as they came home safely, he’d go back to his place next door and shoot for a dreamless couple of hours. Not in his bed, though. Not since . . .

A familiar scraping sound told him his trip to Nod would be starting blessedly soon. Someone was having trouble getting the key in the door.

“Gage, give it here, you cabbage,” he heard his sister slur. Gage with motor coordination issues. Alex ten sheets to the wind. And Wyatt said he worried too much.

He headed out to the hallway and yanked open the door with Gage still attached. Clumsily, he fell into Luke’s arms.

“Bro! Don’t say you waited up again. You need to get a life.” Straightening, Gage dusted off Luke’s shoulders as if he was the one who had picked up his older brother instead of the other way around. “And speaking of getting a life, we brought you a present.”

Over Gage’s shoulder, Luke found his very drunk, very unsteady sister clutching the arm of—huh—Kinsey Taylor.

“Surprise! K’s staying over,” Alex said before collapsing in a fit of tequila giggles. She only broke out the chuckles when she’d downed too much Jose C. “God, I would give my left tit for a burrito.”

Lurching forward, she abandoned Kinsey to head to the kitchen.

“Let’s make popcorn,” Gage said, following her.

Luke took a long, hard look at Kinsey, who took a long, hard look back. The expected wear and tear of a night out seemed to have no impact on her, though her eyes were overbright from alcohol.

“Don’t worry, Almeida, I’m not staying.”

Maybe not, but she made no move to leave. Just stood there looking so good that tearing his eyes away would be a sin of the highest magnitude. The jeans she wore molded to her slender form like snakeskin. Red heels below, a red tee up top with sparkly bits around the V-shaped neckline. The swell of her breasts pulled at the clingy material in a way that made him pleasantly warm.

“I just wanted to make sure they got home safely,” she said with the deliberate diction of someone trying not to be drunk. “Now, could you please point me in the direction of the closest cab . . . um, place?”

He pulled her inside and shut the door. “You’re not going anywhere. How much did you drink?”

Insolence plucked at the corner of her mouth, a cheeky little smile he would like to kiss off. Repeatedly.

“Not enough to let you have your wicked way with me, Mr. Almeida.” She snort-giggled and cupped her mouth as if she’d made a naughty sound—or revealed too much. With both hands flat on his chest, she said in a stage whisper, “
Mr. Almeida.
I like that thing we do,
Mr. Almeida.
It’s sexy as hell. You’re sexy as hell with all these hard muscles.”

She moved her hands over the planes of his chest, assessing, groping. Claiming, to be honest, and his world was a million times better for it. His arms locked naturally around her slender waist and held her in place for his viewing pleasure. Her gold gaze fastened on to him. Those beautiful eyes. Those beautiful, drunken eyes.

“Stop that,” she hissed.

“Stop what?”

“That dark, disapproving, smoldering thing. It’s illegal in Europe, you know. Genetically modified eyes, that’s what you’ve got.” She squinted up at him. “They have to be fake. All that blue, like the Pacific Ocean out at Baker Beach.”

Her forehead fell to his chest. “God, I miss it. Fucking David. Stupid fucking David.” She punctuated each word about “stupid fucking David” with a bump of her head against his pec. Felt kind of nice to hold her and listen to her unravel. Cool, unflappable Kinsey letting go of that well-crafted image she went to such pains to maintain.

“Who’s stupid fucking David?”