Page 103 of Burning For You

Fuck. Barely midnight.

They hadn’t been sleeping that long, but it sure the hell felt that way with the way she’d worn him out.

Crazy how what started out as a game turned into so much more for him.

He just hoped it was for her too.

He hit the light switch and the two of them blinked a few times while they got dressed.

“I’ve got to pee. Do I have time?”

“I’m not rushing,” he said. “There is no reason for it. Do what you need to. And we aren’t staying long. Not the whole time for you to get your story.”

“What if it’s the same person though? Wouldn’t he want that?”

“He’s not getting it,” he said. “I’m sorry. You want to do this, we have to play by the rules.”

She shut the bathroom door in his face. He supposed he deserved that.

When she came out, he went in and brushed his teeth, pissed, then went to the kitchen.

“Do you want one?”

She was making coffee and opening his cabinets.

“No. What are you looking for?”

“A travel mug.”

He moved over to the fridge where she wouldn’t be able to reach and pulled one down. “I don’t drink a lot of coffee and sure the hell never in a travel mug.”

“Then why do you have one?”

She dumped her cup into that and went to his fridge for the creamer he picked up a few weeks ago. They took turns staying at each other’s places.

“Isn’t it a rite of passage or something to own at least a few? Someone gave it to me as a gift.”

She slapped the top on, then set it down and went in search of her shoes, which were still in his room where he’d yanked them off her last night.

He’d much rather go back to doing that now than going out in the mid-November night air to chase a fire starter.

If that was even the case tonight.

He hoped to hell not.

When they arrived fifteen minutes later, the crowd was light. No gawkers. No sirens. Just neighbors with porch lights glowing, a few of them sitting on their steps watching in uneasy silence.

It wasn’t hard to spot the homeowners standing beside the police cruiser, their shoulders hunched and wrapped in blankets that did little to hide the shock etched across their faces.

“Tate’s working,” she said quietly.

“So I see.”

Her gaze stayed fixed on her brother. “Let’s see what he can—or won’t—say to me.”

Ash drew in a slow breath. Burnt wood and melted plastic filled his lungs, sharp and acrid. The kind of smell that clung to you long after everything else was gone.

Normally it was a scent he had after he’d battled the beast down, not when he was watching someone else do the work.