“I came by on official city business,” she replied, shaking me off and heading toward the sidewalk. I loped in front of her.
She stopped and crossed her arms. “Are you waiting on me to congratulate you?”
“If you’re offering for a super-special congratulations, I’m not going to say no!” I gave her my sexiest smoldering gaze.
“Hm,” Meg said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t want to steal Karen’s thunder. She’s all dressed up for you. And besides, since you’re buying her outfits and places to live, then I’m sure she’s practically dripping with the desire to make it up to you.”
A grin slowly spread across my face. “You’re jealous of Karen.”
“Hardly.” Meg rolled her eyes.
“You are. You hate the thought of her being with me.”
“I don’t think about it at all,” Meg said, not looking at me. “If you want to waste your time with someone like Karen, I will have a glass of wine and watch the nuclear fallout from afar.”
“You can’t fool me.” My hand came up to rest on her waist. “You’re all hot and bothered because you lost the election.”
“I didn’t lose. I just didn’t win.”
“I know,” I purred, “but it’s such a demanding endeavor; don’t you want a little stress relief?”
Her body was just like I remembered it. My hand crept up slowly, waiting for her to pull away, but she didn’t. “You deserve a consolation prize,” I continued, breathing in her scent.
“You’re right,” she said, one hand gliding up my chest. Her finger trailed up my collar to my jaw. I turned my head to press my mouth to her palm.
“I think I do deserve a little consolation prize,” she said in a husky voice.
Fuck. Yeah. I grew hard just thinking about fucking her.
“In fact,” she said, her other hand snaking around my waist to my hip, “I think I’ll give Walter a call. Thanks for the inspiration, Hunter.” She slapped my ass and winked at me.
Fuck.
29
Meghan
Idid not call Walter. Instead, I went home, gorged myself on cured meats and cheese with Kate and Susie, then worked after they left.
I was concerned about my job. Not just that Hunter was going to win the election, but my to-do list was growing longer by the minute. While Barry had been pretty useless as mayor, he hadn’t been completely helpless. And now all his tasks had fallen to me.
After working through the night, I showered, bought a cup of coffee and a bagel on the way to the campaign office, then worked on the agenda for the next community town hall meeting while simultaneously sitting on a conference call with the governor and his cabinet about some sort of initiative that Barry had been trying to win funding for. It was difficult to concentrate because Kate was gesturing at me that Ida and the Harrogate Girls Club were there wanting to get footage of me for some sort of video they were making. They were trying to assure me that it was absolutely not for anything related to the super PAC, which, by the way, they had decided to name Move on Top of Him.
One of the state senators cursed then apologized. “That’s not Ida, is it?” he asked in a whisper over the phone. “You need to tell her she can’t keep sending suggestive photos to my work email.”
I didn’t even want to know what was going on. “I will relay the message. Thank you for your time this morning, everyone.”
I signed the form Kate had shoved in front of me then turned to solve my next problem.
Bettina waved a video camera in my face. “Our esteemed deputy mayor working hard at work. See the cream cheese stain from her breakfast on her blazer.”
“Oh shoot!” I said, taking off the jacket and dumping my bag out for a Tide pen. A box of condoms bounced out. “What the—why are those in there?” I scrambled to hide the box.
“Had some extra inventory left,” Ida said cheerfully as Bettina turned off the camera.
“I want to add my healthy Harrogate initiative to the agenda.”
“I don’t know…”
