Free The Fire Still Burns by Crystal-Rain Love Page A

his.
    Memories invaded his senses, wiping away all thought of betrayal as he gave in to the need to kiss her, the need he'd been suffering from since she first walked into Chief Parker's office.  Even the kisses he'd forced on her before hadn't dissipated the need, instead seemed to fuel it further.  She didn't push him away this time so he allowed himself to soften his brutal assault on her mouth, remembering he was supposed to be giving her pleasure instead of just taking his own.
    But what she was feeling couldn't be pleasure, he realized as he felt the unmistakable track of tears traveling down her cheeks.  Warily, he broke the kiss and backed away just enough to look into her red, puffy eyes.  “What is it?”
    “Just stop it.”  Her words came out as a plea.
    “Stop what?”
    “Stop pretending to kiss me like you actually care, when you still look at me like I'm the backstabbing whore you obviously still think I am.”
    “Brynn…”  His thumb gently touched away the tears on her cheeks.
    A series of whistles and wolf calls stopped him from speaking.  He turned his head to discover the sounds were coming from a group of firemen who'd just pulled into the parking lot.  His rowdy co-workers egged him on with whistles and words of encouragement until he jerked fully away from Brynn, revealing just who he'd been kissing heavily.
    The shock on their faces was enough to remind him why he shouldn't have given in to temptation, and he instinctively stepped further away from the object of his forbidden desire.
    “Gee, Adam, you really know how to make a girl feel special,” Brynn said before turning her back on him.
    “Brynn.”  He whipped his head back toward her.
    She waved a hand in the air as she continued walking to her car as if to wave off whatever useless words he was about to say, and he knew they would be just that—useless words.
    No matter what his traitorous heart said, he knew what had happened.  She'd slept with his supposed-to-be-best friend behind his back and had left town, leaving him heartbroken and ashamed, a laughing stock.  If he allowed her to do it once more, how would he ever be able to hold his head up in public again?
    And if she didn't betray him, people would gawk at them every time they were seen together just as his crew had done.  They would hear whispers everywhere they went, and his mother…his mother would drop dead.
    The urge to tell the world to go to hell burned through him, his heart pounded with the need to keep her in his arms.  He’d give all he had to go back to the happiness he’d once shared with her, but he knew it was impossible.  He was wiser now, harder to fool, strengthened by pain she’d inflicted on him.  Never would he trade in his pride on a second chance with someone he couldn’t trust.
    “It can't be allowed,” he whispered to himself as he watched Brynn open her car door, and he let her drive away.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Brynn yawned as she simultaneously snapped her cell phone shut and walked through the automatic door of Davis's Drug Store.  It wasn't even noon and she neared exhaustion.  She'd tossed and turned the night before, remembering the feel of Adam's mouth melded against hers, the heat of him enveloping her, the bitter reminder she'd been slapped with when he'd practically jumped away from her once his crew arrived at the bar.  Adam Good would never forgive and forget what she'd done.
    After the few hours of sleep she'd managed, her stomach had been too unsettled for breakfast and she threw herself headfirst into her work, visiting the police station bright and early to discuss the case with the men who'd worked it from the homicide angle.
    She wasn't surprised to learn they didn't have much to go on.  Black Bear Gorge wasn't a stupid hick town by any means, but it was a small, normally peaceful community unused to the horrors of arson and murder.
    It also didn't help that the Goods were highly