Page 51 of Hottie on Her Shelf
It was gratifying to see that it took a couple of seconds for her eyes to refocus. “We can’t.”
“For God’s sake, woman. I want you. Let me know if I’m wrong, but it feels like you want me, too.”
“Well, yes. I do.” She licked her kiss-swollen lips. “Quite a bit, if truth be told.”
“There you go. Unless—are you secretly married?” Fitz pinched her ring finger. “If not, there’s nothing standing in our way. Aside from the whole being at your work right now. Let’s say there’s nothing standing in our way in about six hours.”
Hallie marched over to the bulletin board over the sink, snatched down the flyer with the list of campaign events and brandished it. Nearly gave his nose a paper cut. “We’re running against each other. The ballot box is standing in our way.”
He crumpled it up and—thank God—sank it in a beautiful airball in the furthest trash can. “I’m not planning on taking photos and turning them into campaign posters. We had this fight already. Candidates Montgomery and Scott can’t date. Hallie and Fitz can do whatever they want.”
It earned him another down-the-nose, prissy glare. Man, those turned him on. “That’s semantics.”
“Yep.” It was kind of fun going ten rounds with a word nerd. “Would you feel better if we kept it on the down-low?”
“Would you?”
Sneaking around? Yeah, that sounded sexy as hell. Plus, it’d halve the potential for daily lectures from his dad. “It’d make my life less complicated, I won’t lie, but I don’t want you to think I’m reluctant to be seen with you.”
“You are, though. And I share that reluctance.”
Deliberately, Fitz palmed her butt. “Do you share my longing to get my hands on you without any clothes in the way?”
“Perhaps.” After another tighten of her elastic, she added, “It’s something to be explored.”
She was so damn full of attitude, and it delighted him. “Okay. Secret fling, here we come.”
Grimacing, she said, “Nope. No labels, either.”
What man in his right mind would argue with that? “No problem. No strings. No witnesses. Just what feels good. Tomorrow night?”
“Not tomorrow. I need to prep for the next campaign event.”
It stung, a little, that Hallie could wait, when Fitz was raring to go right this minute. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he asked, “Got your competitive edge on, huh?”
He’d expected her to come off cocky. Instead, Hallie massaged her temples with a rueful squint. “Well, if I follow your advice and abandon my rational plan of sharing statistics and examples based on facts, I’m going to need time to come up with a new plan.”
Hell. Fitz wanted to help, but he didn’t want to be responsible for her choices. “Hallie. Don’t dive into a new strategy just on my say-so. You might regret it. Think about what I said. More importantly, think how it relates to you and how you could tweak your current plan to simply be less…ah…”
“Tedious?”
“Sure. We’ll go with that.” He’d been thinking boring AF. Good thing he hadn’t said it out loud, but the simple fact was that today’s society took in information in short bursts. Anything long and they tuned out. She deserved to at least have the attention of the voters.
“I can pivot, as you’ll see, Mr. Mayor.”
There was the expected cockiness. If Hallie thought she’d shut him up? Ha! With an unrepentant smirk, Fitz said, “I can’t wait to see you pivot. Preferably in lingerie. Or less.”
“If you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll see both.” Then she shimmiedas she walked across the room and out into the library.
Fitz couldn’t deny how very much he liked her blend of seriousness and sass. And sexiness.
Maybe she was right. Okay, very probably Hallie was right. The odds were stacked against them.
But who didn’t enjoy trying to beat the odds?
