“You seem kind of—rattled,” Peyton said, eyes searching my face for something she assumed I was hiding. I opened my mouth to hide it, deny it, and then closed it again. Peyton was my fiancé, my soon-to-be wife. Hiding things like this from her wouldn’t be a great start to this relationship.
“Amanda was here,” I said, ripping open my small bag of chips. “Just before you came. Paisley saw her sitting in the parking lot in her car. Just sitting there.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t talk to her, did you?”
“I had to,” I said. “I figured she was here to see me.”
“Wasn’t she?” asked Peyton, and I shrugged, taking a bite of my turkey sub.
“To be honest, it didn’t seem like she even realized she was here,” I said, wiping my mouth with a spare napkin. “She seemed kind of—out of it.”
“Like she was on drugs or something?” said Peyton. “Yeah, I remember. I still think about how strange that day was.” She hesitated, opening her own bag of chips. “Did she say anything? Anything weird, I mean.”
“Not really. She seemed to be pretty deep in whatever trance she was in. She did mention her husband, though.”
“Her husband? She was married?”
“I forgot to tell you.” With a head shake, I took a bite of my sub and chewed slowly. “We discovered that Amanda’s husband was killed in the line of duty many years ago. He was a Denver firefighter; we fought the same fire together. Only, I got out, and he didn’t.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah. It’s part of what makes us think she’s starting these fires.”
“Like revenge arson,” Peyton murmured. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does. But we still don’t have proof.”
Peyton pursed her lips and leaned back in the chair, pondering this. “The truth will prevail,” she finally said with a shrug. “Hopefully sooner rather than later.”
“Have you called Susan about it yet?”
“Not yet,” Peyton said with a sigh. “I’m afraid to set Amanda off.”
Both of us fell quiet for a moment, the silence weighing heavily on our minds. I couldn’t blame her, not really, but I worried anyway.
“How is work?” I asked with a wave of my hand, not wanting to ruin the short hour I had with her.
“Same patients, different day,” Peyton said with a smile. “It’s a good thing I love it.” She opened her sub sandwich and began to layer potato chips on top of the sandwich, smashing them together to make a crunch sub. “Oh, your mother called me,” she said, raising the sub to her lips to take a bite. “Ian and Isabella are in town and want to get together tonight for dinner.”
I groaned and dropped the sandwich from my hand, shaking my head. “Why didn’t anyone bother telling me?”
“Probably because they knew you’d avoid it if you could,” Peyton said with a small smile. “But I told Nina I wouldn’t let you skip out.”
“What are they doing here, anyway?”
“Apparently, they heard that you’d finally proposed,” she said with a shrug. “They want to give us their well-wishes.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “But we’re not going to stay long. I hate get-togethers.”
Still smiling, Peyton pushed her sub aside and stood up from the chair, crossing the floor to close the blinds to the window. When she turned back around, she was undoing the knot in her scrub pants, fingers working seductively as she smiled at me, running her tongue over her lips. I felt myself grow hard for her, stumbling to my feet to shove aside the contents of the big oak desk as Peyton dropped her scrub pants and panties, one hand reaching down to play with herself. I couldn’t get my damn pants off fast enough, and I grabbed Peyton, lying her down on the big desk as she wrapped her bare legs around my ass, pulling me into her, sliding my boxers down with the tips of her toes.
“Don’t forget to stay quiet,” she murmured, teasing me, slipping her tongue between my lips. She bit my lip hard, but this only drove my desperation for her to the brink. I shoved into her with a groan that didn’t sound human, and Peyton shrieked in ecstasy, her eyes rolling back in her head as I fucked her hard, making the desk rattle where it sat. I must have gasped too loudly because her hand fluttered up to cover my lips as she raised her hips to meet mine, embracing me fully. A second later, I picked her up from the desk and spun towards the wall, pushing her body against the brick wall, pants still down around my ankles as I fucked her there, near the window, not caring if anyone heard, saw, or suspected. The warmth of her pussy consumed me entirely, and a moment later, she came, her body collapsing like Jell-O into mine, permitting me to lose myself in her.
We stood against the wall, holding each other for a long and beautiful moment. Peyton’s fingers were tangled in my hair, and the skin on her neck and face was flushed with heat and desire. I kissed her lips and then her neck, and Peyton shivered as I gently lowered her feet to the ground so she could get her bearings.
