Chapter 16
Isat in my office, jacket tossed over the back of my chair, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The blinds were drawn halfway, letting in just enough of the gray light to remind me winter hadn’t finished with us yet. Spring couldn’t come quickly enough.
It was quiet. Too quiet. No perfume. No flirty banter from the front. No Maliah.
Marquez passed by, caught me glancing toward her desk.
“She ain’t coming in,” he said without slowing. “Quit.”
I blinked. “She quit?”
He stopped, gave a slight shrug. “Said the energy was off. Whatever that means.”
I snorted. “She quit a city job over a dick she never even had?”
Marquez chuckled, the kind of laugh that came from a place too old to care. “Now that’s a riddle for the gods.”
I didn’t bother responding. My thoughts were already pulling me back to what I’d been trying to leave alone.
Two fires. One in the Hill. The other on the North Side. On paper, quiet. Nobody injured. No one even home. But quiet doesn’t mean clean. And Smoke’s warning to leave it be only made it louder in my head.
The Hill District property had been under Elijah Lewis’s name—some kind of community art house he’d been working on.
Unoccupied. Renovations in progress. Supposedly untouched for weeks.
But one of the neighbors said they saw a woman out front days before it burned— carrying something wrapped in canvas.
The North Side fire was different. Smaller house. Residential. Belonged to Franklin Harris, known to most as Butch. Him and his wife had been out of town when it caught. Lucky timing, or maybe not. No witnesses. No camera footage. Just ashes and silence.
Both fires had burned hot and fast. No accelerant trails. No visible device signatures. But I knew what I was looking at.
I opened the reports again, jaw clenching. Something didn’t add up.
I grabbed my coat and walked past Marquez.
“You headed out?”
“Yeah. Field call.”
“You coming back?”
I paused. “Not sure.”
“Be safe, Tariq.”
The Hill District ruins were colder than I remembered.
The wind whipped through the broken slats of what used to be a porch. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air, stale and bitter like burnt upholstery. I stepped over caution tape, flashlight in hand, boots crunching against the brittle remains of a life no one had claimed.
I moved slow, scanning the corners, crouching near the foundation. Something glinted near the back door frame—barely visible beneath the collapsed edge of the wall.
I crouched, moved debris with gloved hands until I found it.
A ceramic housing. Split, blackened, but still intact enough for me to know what I was looking at—a modified incendiary timer. Old-school tech. Something repurposed from an HVAC unit, rigged to heat coils once the electrical circuit completed itself.
Someone had been smart. No obvious accelerants. No open flame. Just enough heat, delayed long enough to walk away clean.
I turned it over in my palm.
“Well damn,” I muttered. “There you are.”
Less than half an hour later, I stepped inside the Northside house, the floor groaning under my weight. Same layout, different story.
I headed straight for the kitchen, where the blaze had supposedly started.
And there it was again—tucked behind the false panel of a lower cabinet, half-melted but still recognizable. A twin to the first device. Whoever did this was methodical. Clean. And practiced.
I stood in the dark, flashlight beam casting long shadows, and felt a slow burn rise in my chest.
Whoever this was wouldn’t stop here. There was more coming.
I went home, showered before leaving back out, and drove straight to Sanaa’s building, used the key she gave me the other night, without a second thought. Her place was warm, the scent of something sweet lingering in the air—candles, maybe, or her skin.
Light spilled from the living room. I followed it like instinct.
She was on the couch, laptop open, her voice low and professional.
“Yes, I’ll take it,” she was saying, nodding at something on her screen. “Place a hold and confirm the provenance.”
I leaned against the doorframe, watching her—barefoot, legs tucked beneath her, silk robe clinging to her glistening thighs. She hadn’t noticed me yet.
I undressed quietly. Jacket. Shirt. Belt. Pants. Boxers. All of it.
The light from her screen lit my bare chest, and then she turned her head.
Her lips parted—but not in shock. Just… heat. Like her body already knew mine was here.
She didn’t say a word—just reached forward, tapped her keyboard to mute the call and cut the video, and whispered, “You are a menace… do you know that?”
Then she rose from the couch like a woman possessed and sank into a squat right in front of me. Her knees spread wide, her heels planted. She wasn’t on them—she was on me. Claiming the space between us like she owned it.
I looked down and nearly lost my breath.
Her pussy was glistening—folds slick, lips swollen and needy, that pretty little clit peeking out like it was begging to be touched.
She reached between her thighs with those manicured fingers, stiletto red nails gleaming, and circled slow…
rubbed herself right in front of me like it was foreplay for us both.
“You watching, Tariq?” she murmured, voice low and wrecked. “You see what you do to me?”
My eyes crossed. I damn near folded. I couldn’t even answer.
She smirked, then leaned in, her hand still between her thighs as her mouth found the tip of my dick. Kissed it. Sucked me slow, inch by inch, never looking away.
I hissed.
“Fuck…”
The voice on her laptop—still droning in the background—kept talking about art sales and international bids. I couldn’t hear a damn thing. Not with her mouth wet and warm around me. Not with her fingers gliding over her clit while she sucked me like she needed it to breathe.
She moaned. The vibration dragged through my spine.
“Sanaa…”
She took me deep then. All of me. Her eyes fluttered as her throat relaxed. Her mouth was still greedy, still messy, her saliva slicking my shaft while she used her tongue like a woman trying to wreck me on purpose.
My hips jerked.
She pulled back and stroked me, wet and shiny. Still squatting. Still touching herself.
I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t do shit but grunt through my teeth while she sucked the soul out of me and rubbed her clit like she was daring us both to finish at the same time.
“Goddamn,” I growled. “You tryna kill me?”
Her only answer was another moan—and the sound of her wet fingers working harder beneath her palm.
I didn’t stand a chance.
I felt it coming before she did. That tightening low in my back. The tremble in my thighs. The fire gathering behind my eyes. The way her jaw softened to take more. Her tongue dragged along the underside of my shaft with aching precision.
She never rushed it. Sanaa knew how to keep a man trembling on the brink.
The auctioneer called another bid—$200,000 to Los Angeles.
Sanaa hollowed her cheeks.
That did it.
My hand finally found her head—pulling her back and forth on my dick while I came into her pretty mouth, hard and deep, her throat working around me, warm, tight and relentless. She swallowed every drop. Swallowed me.
And when she looked up, she did it like she hadn’t just ruined me completely.
She wiped her mouth with the edge of her thumb, stood without wobbling once, and turned back to the screen. Unbothered. Undone and still completely composed. Her robe open. Her thighs still slick. Her pussy still clenching air.
“Yes,” she said calmly into the mic after unmuting. “Confirm the piece. And notify the Geneva buyer that we’re out.”
I stared at her. This woman.
Sanaa didn’t look back right away. She stayed in her lane—controlled, precise, brilliant. Still tasting me on her tongue while she handled million-dollar bids like nothing happened.
I’d run into burning buildings for this woman. And she could still take me apart squatting between calls.
When she finally closed the laptop, she leaned back against the couch and looked at me.
“You’re early,” she said softly.
“Baby, after what you just did to me, I’ll be home early every night.”
Something flickered across her face at that.
I stepped toward her.
The robe had slipped again—one shoulder bare, one nipple peeking through silk like it was begging to be sucked. I didn’t hesitate.
I slid behind her, my hands finding her waist, my mouth pressing to her neck. She tilted her head without thinking, already surrendering more.
“You taste like me,” I murmured.
She smiled faintly. “You sound pleased about that.”
“I am.”
I turned her slowly and walked her backward toward the kitchen. Two steps. Three. Her thighs hit the edge of the small table and she braced her hands behind her.
She knew what was coming.
I removed her robe and touched the part of her weeping for me. I dragged a finger through it, watched her body twitch. I reached around and let my palm fall against her ass.
The slap echoed.
“Tariq,” she gasped.
I did it again.
She arched. Pushed back into me like she wanted more.
“You like that?” I leaned down and breathed into her ear.
“Don’t stop.”
That’s all I needed.
I bent her forward over the table. A candle tipped and rolled. Something ceramic shattered on the tile. Neither of us cared.
I bent my body to position myself perfectly and pushed into her in one slow, hungry stroke.
She moaned—deep, guttural, almost broken.
Her body welcomed me like it always did. Tight and wet. Familiar and new. I gripped her hips and pulled out, then thrust back in harder. The table scraped against the floor. The sounds of our bodies collided—slap, slide, gasp, moan.
I watched her take every inch. Watched my dick vanish into her again and again, gleaming with her arousal.
“Look at you,” I muttered. “Taking me like you missed me.”
“I did,” she cried, voice shaking.
I spanked her again and she bounced back on me, matching my rhythm, chasing it. Rougher. Faster. The table slammed against the wall. Another glass fell and cracked.