Hudson Banks isn’t making up for a thing with this car.
I jump from my naughty daydream when his hand brushes my knee as he reaches for the shifter; “Easy there, hands-y,” I quip, shooting him a look.
“Oh, relax and put your seatbelt on, Senator.”
I’m about to respond when he roars away from the curb fast enough to take the breath from my lungs and send a surge of adrenaline right through my core as we tear off into the cold city night.
The place we end up going is way fancy; like, the kind of bar that’s got so much class you can hardly get away with just calling it a “bar” anymore. As we’re ushered in, I’m suddenly glad we’re dressed the way we are, with him in a tuxedo and me in my gown. Although something tells me when I see the hundred-dollar-bill that Hudson palms the maître-d that he’d be seated wearing nothing at all.
Images of Hudson’s chiseled, shirtless torso, and the big hint of what’s hidden lower flood my mind as we take a seat at the far end of the elegant bar-top.
“What are you drinking?”
“Huh?” I shake my head, feeling my cheeks burn as I try and clear my head of the dirty fantasies throbbing and undulating through my brain involving the man sitting next me. This is the man I need to loath and despise on pretty much every principal I have, not the man whose cock I should be fantasizing about. I don’t really drink much, and I can actually still feel the half-glass of champagne I had back at the fundraiser buzzing through me, but I shrug apologetically at the bartender anyways. “Oh, uh, wine I guess? Something white?”
He smiles and turns to Hudson with a curt nod before he moves down to the other end of the bar.
“He knows what I want,” Hudson says with a wink. He lets his eyes linger down the neck of my dress as he grins; the subtext that I should know what he wants too isn’t exactly lost on me. I clear my throat and look away.
I let my eyes wander around the demurely lit, sleek and modern-looking room that reeks of money, taking the place in. “Come here often?” The place is full of gorgeous women, all young and hot and digging - and Hudson looks like he’s made out of solid gold.
“Often enough, sure.”
Yeah I bet, I think, eyeing the trio of skanks giggling and batting their eyes in Hudson’s direction from the other end of the bar. The jealousy takes me by surprise and I find myself shaking my head, confused by it. Why on earth am I so heated about this? There is no ‘Hudson and I’. It was one night, five fucking years ago, and we basically just kissed.
Well, kissed with his shirt half undone and his hand on my skin, teasing across my hip and sliding down across the wetness at the front of my panties. I cough again to clear my throat and my thoughts as the bartender returns with my wine, and something that looks like it jumped off the kids menu at a chain restaurant that he sets down in front of Hudson.
“Uh, what the hell is that?”
Hudson shrugs as he takes a sip out of the straw. Well, after he pushes aside the ridiculous little bouquet of thin orange slices and maraschino cherries adorning the top of it. “It’s a Shirley Temple.” He says matter-of-factly.
I snort, a grin teasing my lips. “Are you serious?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course I am, they’re delicious.”
I grin in spite of myself, seeing the glimmer of his own in return as his blue eyes flash at me. “Right, if you’re seven years old.”
“I don’t really drink anymore.”
I laugh, and it comes out harsher than intended; “Since when?”
“Since-” He wags his head side to side as if weighing something. “I just don’t anymore.”
I stare at him and then the glass of wine I didn’t really want anyway. “Well why are we at a bar to talk then if you don’t drink?”
He turns and winks at me, that smug smile totally back and spread across his face. “Because you looked like you needed one.”
I take a big slug from my glass, certainly as an excuse to tear my eyes away from him, but also because the way he looks at me really does make me need a drink.
“You know you’re sunk without the money, right?” It’s hard to take the guy seriously - no matter how fucking sexy he looks in that tux with the tattoos peeking out - with that stupid straw in between his lips and the cherry stems tickling his nose, but his words jolt me back to our reason for being here just the same.
“Fine.”
He looks surprised. “Fine?”
“I said fine, OK?” As much as I hate to admit it, I know he’s right. I know the whole run is over without the campaign money from Archer Holdings, I just hate giving him the satisfaction of hearing me tell him he’s right. He looks impressed with himself. Like he’s “won” and I’m submitting to him, and not in the way that just won’t get out of my thoughts being this close to him. “I just don’t see why you had to be here though,” I glare at him. “Don’t you have interns, or fucking servants or whatever to do this sort of thing for you?”