Page 4 of Burn With Me

“I am serious. This is for your own good since you can’t seem to step away. Vi, for Christ’s sake, your dad and I were best friends, and I loved him like a brother. I’m telling you he wouldn’t want you obsessing like this over something that will never be solved. Now, I have a dinner meeting I’m running late for, so I will talk to you later. Maybe you should spend a little more time on the serial arsonist case I gave you. This guy has killed over three hundred people so far. Now that is a worthwhile use of your time.”

Mitch closed the car door, and just like that, he drove away, leaving me staring after his sedan.

My hand balled into a fist. Everyone assumed I was obsessive because I was investigating my parents’ death. No one was taking me seriously anymore because I’d hit a couple of dead ends. Yes, I may have a vested interest, but I remember that boy in the hoodie. I remembered how my dad couldn’t get his window open. I remembered how the house was fully engulfed, and I’d seen the pictures. I know I could find this guy if I could get full access to all the evidence collected. How did my parents not hear the blaring sounds of the brand-new fire alarm system installed only months earlier? It worked just fine because we could hear it outside. How come they hadn’t even tried to make it downstairs or to another room?

No matter what Mitch said, I wasn’t letting this go. I was the best fire investigator this state had, and my gut screamed that if given a little more time, I’d catch the guy that had watched while my parents burned to death.

Asher

I leaned back in the wide leather chair and felt like a damn guard dog as I sat outside the woman’s dressing room with a million bags of clothes.

“Who even needed this many clothes?” I stupidly mumbled aloud.

The answer I got was, “well, duh…it’s the season change.”

What the fuck did that mean? We lived in Florida, for fuck’s sake. The temperature ranged from warm, warmer, fucking hot, and so humid outside that you’d sweat your left nut off when you stepped out of the air-conditioning.

“Asher, sweetie, I can’t choose,” Brit said.

Not that I called her Brit to her face. It was Britnay with an ‘A,’ not an ‘E.’ Brit stuck her head out of the door and glared at me like I’d just committed a cardinal sin. “Well, aren’t you going to answer me?”

“I didn’t realize you’d asked a question in that statement.” Irritated, I stretched out my legs.

“Why are you always so sarcastic?”

I cocked a brow at my girlfriend…or, as Brit would say, “my intimate.” Labels and I were not friends and I never called Britnay my girlfriend to anyone, but she would make sure to introduce me as her full-time intimate partner every chance she got. It sounded like I was her fucking employee that was only here for for her servicing pleasure.

How we ended up together and how two seemingly opposite people became intimate had nothing to do with a real connection. She was new to one of the sites I frequented for those in the kink community, and Brit…well, Brit was going to get herself hurt. She was advertising that she wanted a Dom and saying it to all the wrong people.

On the other hand, I am not an asshole, well, not a complete asshole, anyway. As it turned out, Brit was looking for someone to show her the ropes and let her see if this was the life she wanted, and I was…well, looking for someone to fulfill my desires, but outside of the bedroom, we had nothing.

“Wasn’t sarcasm. It was a fact. You said, ‘I can’t choose.’ Where in that sentence is a question?”

She rolled her eyes at me before opening the door and stepping out into the sitting area in a sexy little black number. I immediately sat a little straighter. She tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder and batted her eyes at me as she proceeded to walk past like she was on a runway. I had to give it to her, she had the walk down, and I was enjoying the show of her ass swinging back and forth in the thin material.

Turning at the end in front of the mirror, she smiled that seductive little smirk she’d get whenever she was thinking of doing something dangerous or risqué.

“Fine, it wasn’t a question, but you should know by now that I want your opinion,” she said. Gripping the front of the dress, she pulled the material up a little higher, and my pants instantly became more confining.

“You tried on ten dresses, and they all looked great on you.” Brit did a little bit of modeling, but that wasn’t what gave her the money to spend twenty grand on a shopping trip. No, that was her social media platform and the millions of fans who thought she was so adorable.

“You’re so sweet.” She sucked the end of her finger before slipping it under the material of the dress. I could just see through the material enough that she’d left her underwear in the dressing room.

“What did I tell you earlier?” I sat aside the bag that I’d been holding.

Her cheeks flamed red as she giggled and continued to do exactly what I told her not to do. Such a brat.

“That I wasn’t allowed to touch myself,” she whispered.

My eyes glanced down at her hand as she continued to play with herself.

“You know I don’t like it when you disobey me,” I said and slowly stood from the chair. I could almost feel her nervous energy from where I was standing as my eyes narrowed into slits. Her eyes flicked down as her submissive side began to emerge.

“I know, but I really want to,” she said. “I’m so horny.”

She still didn’t remove her hand, and that meant she needed to be taught a lesson. Marching down the short hallway, her eyes darted from side to side, but she didn’t try to run as I reached her. Her breathing was fast, and her nipples were so hard that they looked like they may poke right through the front of the dress.

I didn’t hesitate and picked her up, tossing her over my shoulder as if this was one of my firefighter drills, and marched her ass right back to the dressing room. Slamming the door in place, I grabbed a sheer scarf hanging on the hook and dropped Brit to her feet.