Copyright © Aliyah Burke, McKenna Jeffries 2013. All Rights Reserved, Total-E-Ntwined Limited, T/A Totally Bound Publishing. Dimitri Wright rolled the cold bottle between his fingers, his thoughts not fully on what he was doing. He swore he was in the middle of an epidemic of relationships leading to marriage—all his siblings had paired off, one after the other, and their parents were happily planning the weddings. His mother had that gleam in her eye that put dread into every man who was single and enjoyed being so. Dimitri hoped she’d turn her attention to one of the cousins next—the Wright family was large, and they should keep her busy for a while. He was one of those men who liked his life the way it was. He didn’t need a woman to change that—the thought of having to discuss feelings and all the other crap that came with being in a relationship made him want to lock himself in his house until people regained their senses. Hell, even the tentative, trying to figure out if you were even interested in each other was something he hated. Give him an honest, blunt, straightforward woman and maybe he’d change his mind. The women who approached him were anything but that. They came at him with some excuse trying to capture his eye. But what they didn’t realise was that he enjoyed the chase. The woman he wanted could be blunt, but he was old-fashioned and enjoyed being the one to make the first move. After that he didn’t have a problem with her holding her own with him—he wanted her to. But he wanted to make the initial approach. Then if they discovered they had common interests, it was important for him to know she could share his silences as well as his conversations. He enjoyed those moments of being silent more than anything else. With his profession, he saw some of the most horrible things and just needed time to chill and be. Dimitri rubbed the back of his neck as his thoughts turned to the fire he’d been sent to investigate earlier. There was no doubt that it was arson. The family in the home had died, all of them including the children—six, four, two and a baby. It was always so damn disheartening when there were kids involved. It was his job to find out who had eradicated the family from the face of the earth. Fire was a nasty business that didn’t differentiate based on race, ethnicity or any other demographic. Once a fire was started, its hunger took all that was in its path. Arsonists lit them for many reasons, but sometimes it was someone who didn’t even think, not knowing that fire isn’t to be played with. These cases were the ones that made his gut burn. He loved his job—investigating fires, tracking down the source, gathering evidence and finding who did it. He didn’t manage the last part all the time, but he damn well tried his best. He thought of the open case of the serial arsonist he’d been trying to catch for the last few months. It had started with a fire in the science building at the university. There had been no fatalities, but there had been many other fires since then and in some of those, people had died. The fires seemed to be random—there was no pattern—which was making it harder to track him. Lately they had been quiet and there had been no fires with the signature Dimitri had found. Others in the community had assumed and even hoped that maybe the arsonist had stopped, but Dimitri felt in his gut they hadn’t—there was something big coming. There was something about all the cases that bugged him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. That piece eluding him might be the one to solve the case. The fire today hadn’t been one of the serial fires. Dimitri lifted the bottle to his lips then drank his beer. He returned it to the top of the bar, rolling his shoulders. He’d been gathering evidence and was tight around his lower neck and back, but he hadn’t felt like going home. Absently, he glanced around the bar. It was frequented by cops, fire fighters and those like him who d