Chapter 1
Ismelled the smoke before I saw it.
What was left of the house looked like a ribcage cracked open. Blackened bones. Ash everywhere. This fire had a purpose. You could feel it in the ground.
I was about to step past the tape when I heard a sound so familiar, my dick was programmed to it—heels. Not the loud kind. The expensive kind.
I didn’t have to turn around. I knew it was her. I felt her before I saw her. That tight pull in my gut. Blood rushing down to my dick so fast, I had to shift my stance just to survive each click-clack.
Then I turned—and there she was. Sanaa Ellison. The only woman to own every part of me.
She had the same soft, pouty mouth that used to unravel me. The same stare that could bring me to my knees so that I could taste whatever she wanted to offer me.
She was finer than I remembered.
Wearing a black dress that hugged every place I used to touch. Fabric smooth. No logos. But it screamed money. Heels had to be four inches easy—probably custom. Diamonds on her wrist, understated and surgical. The kind of quiet flex only seen by people who knew what they were looking at.
She looked taller than she was. That was one of her tricks. Always knew how to take up space. But it didn’t matter how tall she walked. I’d had her folded into nothingness. Into me. Years ago, yeah—but my body still remembered.
And would never forget.
She met my eyes without flinching. Looked at me like I was a problem she’d already solved.
“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. Her eyes—they all said she remembered.
I kept my face still. Professional. Whatever the fuck that meant with my dick pressed against my trousers just from the smell of her skin.
Her voice. Because my body still remembered how it felt the first time I slid inside her—tight, wet, warm as sin.
Like she’d been waiting for me. That night, she didn’t ask questions.
Just handed me her wine glass and walked into the dark like she already knew what we were about to become.
And we were something. For a while.
Until life started piling up and I didn’t know how to be what she needed. Until I made silence feel like rejection. Until she took her things and left—and I let her.
Now we were here.
I crossed the scene, stepping around what used to be the front porch. Jaw tight. Trying not to look at her walk—but fuck, she still had that sway. Hips like punctuation. Back straight like she was carrying legacy and daring the world to say something.
“Tariq,” one of the techs called from the edge of the site, snapping me out of it.
“Yeah?” I dragged my eyes off her ass—bent over now as she examined a pile of charred frames.
“Pulled the security cam from across the street. No movement until early morning. Looks like the system had a blackout window.”
“On purpose?”
“Could be. We’re digging.”
I nodded. But my focus was already gone. Back on Sanaa—near the edge of the tape, arms crossed, jaw set. She was dressed to be seen, not touched. Same as always.
The wind lifted her dress just slightly. Her legs looked the same—smooth, toned, perfect. Like the last time I had them locked around my waist. That night in our old apartment. Lights off. Me buried deep, thumb pressing into her ass while she whispered things that fried my goddamn brain—
“Tariq… you’re so thick. So perfect. Fuck me, Daddy.”
Shit.
My dick pulsed. I had to breathe. Focus. Get her out of here before I lost the thread entirely.
I turned back toward the wreckage. Fire. Debris. Paintings gone. Insurance mess. That’s why she was here. Not for me, maybe.
But she was here. And the second she showed up, my body betrayed every lie I’d told myself since the day she walked away.
I remembered the taste of her. The way she bit her lip when she rode me slow. The way she looked me dead in the eye and came so hard she forgot her name.
And I was still that man—still in love with her power. Still wrecked by her passion. Still one breath away from falling if she ever looked at me the way she used to…
Like I was hers.