by Morgan Blaze
Adam’s blue eyes shone with emotion. “What happened?”
She wasn’t sure she could go on. But somehow, the words kept pouring out. “We lived in a second-floor apartment, in a building that was…not great. To the landlord, fire codes only applied to other people. I found all this out later.” She stared away for a moment, squeezed her eyes shut. “I was at a party that night, some stupid middle school thing,” she said. “Autumn had just started high school that year. I begged her to go with me, but she didn’t feel up to it. So I went alone. And while I was gone…”
When she didn’t continue, Adam reached across the table and took her hand. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“No. I want to finish this.” She took a deep breath. “The fire started in the wiring, in Autumn’s room. She must have been asleep. Our parents got out, but they thought she’d gone with me to the party. I got back when the fire department had just arrived, and…” A hard shudder gripped her. “I could see her in the window, burning,” she whispered. “I could hear her screaming.”
She was unaware of the tears until Adam reached across the table and caressed her face, wiped them away with his thumb. “You never should’ve seen that,” he said hoarsely. “Didn’t anyone keep you back? The firefighters, your parents…”
“They still didn’t know,” she said. “I pointed, and screamed, and they wouldn’t listen. I think they didn’t want to understand. And then she fell.” Speaking was suddenly a tremendous effort. “She broke the window and jumped out. Burning. Screaming the whole way down. They listened then.”
He didn’t speak, and she appreciated that. There was nothing anyone could say to change what happened. No going back. “Anyway, that’s why I work for the fire marshal’s office—for Teddy,” she said. “He’s known my parents for a long time. After we lost Autumn, I pretty much lost them. They stopped caring. But Teddy stepped in, and now here I am.”
After a long silence, Adam said, “Thank you. For telling me all that.”
“Just so you know, I didn’t mean to,” she said with a smirk. “But I’m glad I did.”
“So am I.”
The intensity of his gaze was getting to her again, heating her blood. She cleared her throat and drank some of the cooling coffee. It was still far too warm in here. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” she said.
“No problem.” He squeezed her hand briefly and stood, heading for the sink. When she heard the water running, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
It was going to be a very long night.
* * * *
Adam took his time getting the water so he could compose himself. He was furious, and he didn’t want Winter to think the anger was directed at her. Everyone involved in what she’d just told him—the landlord, the Greenway fire department, and especially her parents—had handled everything wrong. And Winter had suffered for it.
She was in middle school, so she couldn’t have been more than twelve. Someone in emergency services should have seen her, heard her screaming, and removed her from the scene. A firefighter, a paramedic, a cop. Anyone. Yet she’d watched her sister dive out a window, burning to death, and no one had done a damned thing.
He’d never met her parents, but he wanted to strangle them. What they’d done to her went far beyond negligence. Even before the tragedy with her sister, she’d obviously been the less wanted child. The way she described herself, compared herself to Autumn, made that painfully clear. It must’ve been so much worse after the fire.
She wasn’t cold at all. She just had no idea how amazing she was, because no one had ever told her. No one treated her like she mattered.
When he could trust himself to speak, he returned to the table and set the water glass in front of her. She smiled her thanks. He sat down, and when she’d taken a long drink, he said, “Doing all right?”
“Yes, thank you.” She held the glass for a moment, looking at him over the top. “So, how about you?”
“I’m okay.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Her genuine smile left him breathless. “I told you my sob story, and now it’s your turn. Why do you do what you do?”
“Oh. That.” He smirked and pushed his mug idly to the side. “Every little boy wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.”
“Uh-huh. So why are you one?”
“Guess I’m not getting off the hook, huh?”
“Not a chance.”
“Okay. I’ll talk.” He breathed in slowly, wondering where to start. His story wasn’t exactly straightforward. “My father was a cop,” he said. “Retired now, but he loved his job. And of course, I wanted to be like him. But I found out pretty early that I’d never be able to handle a gun. Firefighter was the next best thing to cop that didn’t involve firearms.”
“Any particular reason, or you just don’t like them?”
It was tempting to lie, to take the out she’d given him and say he didn’t like them. But she’d been honest with him. He wouldn’t betray that by lying to her now. “Being a cop, my father had guns,” he said. “Not a crazy stash or anything—just a few extras, besides his service piece. An old pistol, a handgun, a couple of rifles for hunting.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “Did someone get shot?”
“No, nothing like that.” He thought about that sometimes, the big what if. What if someone had been shot? In the long run, it might have been better—because it would be over. But what happened, kept happening. “My mother was a drug addict,” he said. “Mostly crack, sometimes heroin, always pot. She and my younger sister fought about everything, all the time. And sometimes when they’d really get into it, Mom would get the pistol and threaten to shoot my sister.”
Winter’s eyes widened. “That’s awful,” she said. “I can’t even imagine…why didn’t your father just lock up the guns, or get rid of them?”
“She only did it when he wasn’t home.” He closed his eyes briefly as the ghosts of arguments past rippled through his mind. “She’d chase Janie all over the house, screaming and waving that gun, swearing to kill her. I had to physically step in and stand between them to get her to stop.”
“Did she stop?”
“Eventually.” Adam’s jaw clenched hard. “The pistol was old. It was the only one loaded. Dad swore all the bullets were duds, empty shells with no powder, and he didn’t want to remove them because it was an antique,” he said. “My mother would stand there and scream at me to move so she could shoot Janie. When I didn’t, she’d start pulling the trigger with the gun point blank at my chest. Over and over, until she finally forgot what the problem was in the first place.” He shuddered, remembering the dry clicks, the awful cotton taste in his mouth as he waited for death. “I was terrified someday she’d hit a bullet that wasn’t a dud. And if she dropped me, she’d keep going and take out Janie.”
“Adam, I’m so sorry.” Winter reached out and laid a hand over his. “Did your mother get help? Is she still an addict?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “No, she’s cured now,” he said. “Death cures everything.”
“Oh, no. When did she…”
“She overdosed. Last summer.” He couldn’t look at her as he said, “Her and Janie finally found something in common—drugs. They moved to a little ocean town a few years back and did them together. Then Janie disappeared, and Mom died not two weeks later.” Finally, he made himself meet her eyes. “I was there for her funeral when I met you.”
Winter clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before a startled sob escaped.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You didn’t know.”
She lowered her hand slowly. “Because I didn’t ask,” she said. “I didn’t want to know anything about you, and that was wrong. Selfish. I just…” She let out a shaking breath. “I have no idea what I was doing. I guess I…wanted to be someone who wasn’t me, for once. Someone who wasn’t awkward and boring and hopeless. I should’ve thought about what you wanted.�
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“Winter. You’re not any of those things,” he said. “And do you know what I wanted?”
“What?” she whispered.
“You.”
“No, you didn’t.” She pushed the chair back, stood and turned away from him. “I’m such an idiot,” she said. “For God’s sake, you were there for your mother’s funeral. And I jumped on you with that stupid no-names routine, and…”
He went to her, took her hand and turned her gently around. “I wanted you,” he said. “From the moment I saw you, I wanted you, specifically. Don’t you know how beautiful you are? How smart, and funny, and fascinating?”
He felt her shiver. “I’m not your type,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to be…involved with me.”
“Yes, I would. I do.”
Before he could stop himself, he kissed her.
Chapter 11
This, Winter thought with helpless abandon. This is what I wanted.
She’d wanted him. Then. Now. Always.
It was an effort to pull away, to stop the kiss. But she had to say something. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “About your mother, and…not telling you anything. I thought if you knew me, we never would’ve done that.” She touched his arm, pulled back. “I figured you’d forget me in a day or two, anyway.”
“Forget you?” he said. “Let me show you something.”
She frowned slightly as he pulled out his wallet, extracted a folded piece of paper and handed it to her. “What’s this?”
“Just read it.”
“Okay…”
She opened the paper slowly. It was a sheet of scratch paper from the Ocean Vista Resort, the kind from the pads they left on desks or besides phones in rooms and rental units. There was a single handwritten sentence below the letterhead—her handwriting.
Thanks for a great night.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You kept this?”
“It hasn’t left my wallet since that night. Well, morning,” he said. “That’s when I found it. I asked everyone at the resort about you, but no one knew who you were.”
“I didn’t exactly talk to anyone there,” she murmured, handing the note back. “You tried to find me?”
He nodded. “I never stopped. Even when I left, I called down there every few weeks hoping you’d go back and someone would see you. I don’t think I’m allowed at Ocean Vista anymore,” he said with a laugh. “They’re kind of annoyed with me. And I spent a lot of time on Facebook, hoping to run across a picture of you.”
“I’m…er, not on Facebook.”
“I noticed.”
She stared at him, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you were looking for me all this time,” she said. “You had nothing to go on. If I hadn’t shown up here, you never would have found me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. But I don’t give up easy.”
“I noticed.”
“And I’m not giving up on you,” he said. “The more I know about you, the more I want you. Besides, I know where you live now.”
“Isn’t that strange?” She smiled and looked around the kitchen for emphasis. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
She wasn’t sure when she’d lost the battle, but all of her resistance was gone. She reached for him without hesitation, slipped an arm around his waist. When he pulled her close, she let herself experience the feeling of being held, his hands on her.
She wanted to kiss him. So she did.
He responded with a groan, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. He tasted like fire and sin, wonderful things, and the feel of his tongue in her mouth kindled a delicious ache in parts she’d ignored for too long. It was time to rectify that.
“Adam,” she murmured against his lips. “We’re in the kitchen.”
“And?”
“Don’t you have a bed?”
The sound he made—part surprise, part impatience, and all desire—vibrated through her, down to her toes. Her feet left the ground, and it took her a moment to realize she wasn’t floating metaphorically. He’d scooped her up without breaking the kiss.
She abandoned all sensation save him. The rest of the world returned briefly, when he laid her on a soft surface that her mind registered as bed, good enough, and then there was only him again. His hand slid under her shirt, and she tugged it off with an impatient huff. A year without him suddenly seemed far too long, and she wondered how she’d survived it. Why she’d deprived herself of this, without daring to hope she could have it again.
He kissed her lips, her throat, the swell of her breast. With wordless urging, she slipped her arms around him, stroking his skin, tugging until he removed his own shirt and she could look at him. Perfection, every inch.
Her fingers skimmed his firm flesh, tracing the outline of muscle, finding their way to his waistband. He gasped and caught her wrist, smiling into her eyes. “Ladies first,” he whispered, reaching for the front clasp of her bra.
He freed it in a single motion. She shivered as he stroked a thumb across sensitive skin, brushed her nipple and drew a moan from her. Somehow she managed to kick free of her pants. His came off seconds later. Damp panties followed, and then briefs straining to hold his rock-hard erection.
Waiting was out of the question. She wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking gently as he replaced fingers with tongue, tasting a nipple, then suckling her into breathless cries. She arched against him, her free hand plunging into thick, dark hair to hold his head in place—there, yes—and when his cock twitched in her hand, she gripped harder, pumped faster, until he let out a coarse shout.
She needed him inside her. Now.
As though he’d read her thoughts, he raised up and ran a hand along the inside of her thigh. Sweet shivers raced through her. Throbbing with anticipation, she guided him closer and teased his swollen head against her slick opening.
The moment she released him, he plunged in with a groan.
She lifted her hips to meet his thrust, clenching his cock as he drew back slowly and set the pace—a sweet, rocking rhythm that made her hum with pleasure. The world was him filling her, his comforting weight against her, and she explored his body with a freedom of discovery she’d never known before.
Attentive and with near reverence, he pleasured her as thoroughly as she gave to him, with soft kisses and skilled tongue, stroking and touching in all the right places. Sheer enjoyment replaced urgency, and they might have spent forever in that space of suspended bliss.
Eventually her breath came sharper, his thrusts faster. The sweet ache swelled, approaching unbearable. She clung to him and squeezed, twisting her hips to take the hard length of him deeper, her nails raking his shoulders as she cried out at the crest of a full-body climax.
He let out a rasping cry and shuddered against her, breaking in the same moment.
The mutual orgasm brought a second wave of powerful sensation, and she came again as his mouth descended on hers. The kiss eased into a gentle caress. He sank down next to her, breathing hard, one arm curled around her waist and holding her close.
She didn’t want to move. But she turned her head slowly to face him, and found him smiling. “That settles it,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Again.” He stroked damp hair from her face, kissed her tenderly. “I didn’t give up on you because I knew you’d be worth it,” he said. “And I was right.”
She returned the smile. “Thank you for not giving up.”
“I never will. And that’s a promise.”
“Mmm.” She snuggled against him, sleepy and content. “Neither will I.”
Safe in his arms, she drifted into dreams.
Chapter 12
Though Winter still didn’t have much in the way of leads, she felt better about the investigation. Everything seemed better after last night.
She wasn’t even going to let the antiquated computer system at the fire station bother her. Much.
“Do you kn
ow how old this software is?” she said as she waited for the incident reporting module to open. The computer itself was so out of date, she’d barely recognized it was a computer when she’d been in the records room before. “This machine looks like it’s running on Windows 95.”
Adam, seated next to her, shrugged. “Budget problems,” he said. “The electronic system’s never been a priority.”
“Obviously.” She smiled as she said it. “Maybe someday you’ll catch up to the digital age.”
He laughed. “Not if the chief has anything to say about it.”
“That reminds me. I have to talk to him again today.”
“The chief?”
She nodded. “My interview with him was cut short yesterday. I never really got to the important questions.”
Just then, the door to the records room opened. She couldn’t see it around the bulky monitor, but she felt Adam tense—and then relax as he recognized whoever it was.
“Thought I’d find you in here.”
The voice belonged to Dom. She pushed back from the workstation just in time to catch him glaring at her. “Miss Solomon,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind if I borrow Adam for a minute. It’s business.”
She winced inwardly. Before she could decide how to respond, Adam stood and moved toward him. “Lay off, man,” he said. “She’s on our side.”
“Uh-huh.” Dom folded his arms. “You go ahead and play nice for corporate,” he said, and looked straight at Winter. “But I’m never going to like anyone who treats my friend like shit.”
Adam sighed. “Winter, can you come here a minute?”
She hesitated, then stood and approached him. “What…”
“I’m sorry about this,” he murmured. “It’s the only way he’ll stop being a prick.”
He answered the question in her eyes with a heated kiss.
