Page 1 of Things We Burn

One

“Can we leave yet?”

My best friend side-eyed me. “We only just arrived.”

“Yes, I came, I saw.” I waved my hand at the crowd.

“You’re also supposed to conquer.”

“I haven’t got the energy to conquer,” I whined. “I worked more than I slept this week.”

Exhaustion had settled deep into my bones, making moving my limbs, talking, and worst of all, socializing, seem torturous. I was already fantasizing about my bed and the six hours of sleep I’d be able to grab if I left at that instant.

“Then it’s all the more important for you to be here right now.” Kiera reached forward to a waiter with a tray of champagne, taking two glasses. “You are in dire need of a life.” She handed me a glass.

I took it on reflex more than anything else. Champagne was the last thing I wanted right then. What I really wanted was a warm cup of tea and my bed.

“Thisisn’t the kind of life I want.” I gestured around the room with my glass.

The room was full of very impressive looking people. People in expensive outfits with glossy hairstyles—both the men and the women—and glowing skin, who were laughing and generally looking fabulous.

I doubted I looked fabulous. Kiera had tried to get me into one of her short, tight, sparkly dresses. Though my best friend was a force of nature, I was not a short, sparkly dress kind of woman. She knew this, yet she pushed me to wear some scrap of fabric I doubted would cover enough of my body to keep me out of a police car for indecent exposure.

Instead, I’d worn a pair of black, low-waisted slacks and a black halter, relenting by wearing a pair of Kiera’s shoes. They were much too high and uncomfortable for someone who had already been on her feet for at least twelve hours today.

I had no idea what I was thinking. About the shoes or letting her drag me to the party.

Oh yeah, I knew what I was thinking. I hadn’t been laid in months, and I was looking for some real human contact and an orgasm that didn’t come from my vibrator.

This party was really the wrong place to go for that.

Sure, the men here were handsome. If you liked them with fake tans, perfect hairstyles, sculpted muscles and a mouth full of teeth too white and straight to be anything but veneers.

I liked my men a little more … rugged. The kind of men who wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t had a haircut or color in months. That my eyebrows weren’t groomed and I was neither tanned nor flawless. That I was not a size zero nor even a size six. The kind of man who didn’t notice all that stuff and really only cared about whether I was borderline attractive—which I thought I was—and consenting—which I also was. Almost every man here had a supermodel type on his arm or was ogling one of the many supermodel types who filled the room.

It was not my night.

At least there was wine.

I sipped it. Expensive wine too.

I wasn’t a big drinker, mostly because I didn’t have time nor the inclination. But some of the perks of my job gave me access to some of the most expensive booze on the planet. Sure, it was good. I enjoyed the ritual of it. The history. The way it paired impeccably with food. But I wasn’t about to spend a thousand bucks on something I was going to pee out later.

Just when I was about to write this party off as a fail, my eyes found silvery-blue ones.

The most striking color I’d seen on a man. Or a person, for that matter.

And they were looking at me.

Me.

In a sea of gorgeous people.

Standing beside Kiera—the tall, stunning woman who had made men walk into walls from staring at her before.

He took my breath away.

And not just because of his eyes.

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