“Still working fires, huh?” she said, calm like she didn’t give a damn. But I knew that voice. Knew what brewed beneath it.
“Still showing up to mine,” I shot back.
Her eyes dipped—chest, zipper, dick. The same one she used to own and eat like it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
A flicker moved across her face. Barely. But I caught it. She looked away like it didn’t mean shit. Liar.
“You’re not supposed to be on scene,” I told her.
“I’m here for my client. What burned wasn’t just wood and wallpaper.”
I stepped in closer. Not to check her. I just… needed her to feel me.
“I remember when you used to call me before you walked into a fire.”
Sanaa’s eyes didn’t shift, but her mouth curved. Barely.
“I remember when you used to answer.”
That hit. But I didn’t blink.
Six years. Not a text. Not a whisper. And now here she was, standing in front of me like nothing ever cracked between us.
I should’ve walked away. Pulled her off the scene. Shut down whatever she thought she was doing. But I didn’t. I just stood there. Dick hard. Pulse loud. Staring at the only woman I’ve never been able to get out of my system.
She turned slightly, glancing toward the burned-out shell behind me. Then back.
“I won’t be long,” she said. “I just need to document what I can perceive is lost for my client.”
“What exactly are you here to document?” I asked, eyes crawling over her like they had clearance.
Her hair was shorter now. Not quite a fade, but cropped close. Wavy. Platinum blond. Sharp enough to tell you she didn’t play with softness unless it served her. Designs shaved into it—clean, bold lines that only emphasized what was already the most perfect face I’d ever seen.
She hesitated. “Art. A lot of it. My client was building quite a collection. The house was going to be used as a gallery for private events.”
“No one lives here?”
Her gaze flickered. “To my knowledge, it’s just one of his properties. Not his primary residence.”
“That’s good to know.” I logged it mentally. Would help with my report.
“Is it okay if I look around now, Tariq?” she asked, eyes dancing like she knew I was caught.
That’s when I realized I had practically hemmed her in. My body on instinct. I exhaled through my nose, stepped back, gave her room.
She always had me at sixes and nines. And this time it wasn’t the pleasure kind.
“Be quick. And stay outside the tape.”
She walked off without another word. I watched the sway of her hips and hated myself for still feeling everything I did the night I met her.
The second she was out of earshot, I dragged a hand down my beard, heart thumping harder than it should’ve been. And then it all came rushing back. She still walked like she owned the ground under her feet.
That was the first thing.
Didn’t matter how many years passed. Didn’t matter that we were standing in the middle of a fire scene, smoke still curling off the wreckage like the house was mourning out loud. Sanaa stepped through it all like her heels didn’t care. Like I didn’t matter.
But her posture. Her mouth. Hereyes—they all said she remembered.
