Heat of the Moment by Robin Kaye

week, she’d slept with him once, and the free fall she’d experienced was one she never wanted to repeat. In the span of a few seconds she went from the stratospheric pinnacle of elation and feeling connected to someone like she’d never imagined possible, to the depths of despair that left her stomach in her throat, her mind reeling, and her heart shattered. The landing was a bitch.
    Fear that she was one of a long line of women who had made that same free fall had overtaken her. At first she thought being together had been as meaningful and special for him as it had been for her, but then, what did she know? She didn’t have much experience when it came to sex, but what little she did have couldn’t be compared to her experience with Cam. She’d slept with two men. Neither had looked into her eyes and seen her, connected with her, touched her mind, her body, and her soul. No man before Cam had ever satisfied her, but then no man had ever hurt her before either.
    Telling Cam to release her and pulling away from him both physically and emotionally had taken all her strength.
    â€œErin.” Janie’s impatient tone broke through the brain fog the coffee had yet to burn off.
    The coffee might do the trick if she were to actually drink it; she’d been staring at her mug, which wasn’t much help. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
    Janie just shook her head as if resigned. “Dad’s been acting the same way you are now. Maybe you need to say you’re sorry too.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œFor whatever you did or said that’s making you sad.”
    â€œSometimes it’s the situation, and nothing you say or do can change that.”
    â€œThere’s always a way to change things.” Janie sounded so much older than her years; it was hard to remember she wasn’t even eight yet.
    Could she change the situation? Yes, she could leave, but that wouldn’t change the fact that she was miserable. If she left, she’d also be leaving Janie, whom she’d had grown to care for more over the last week than she’d ever expected to. And leaving Janie would make her even more miserable than she was already. Plus, Erin had never walked out on a job for personal reasons. She was a professional as well as a woman of her word, and she’d told Cam she’d stay. She just needed to get past this uncomfortable made-a-mistake-and-fell-into-bed-together stage. She was sure she could, if only Cam would stop touching her and looking at her like he wanted to pick her up and drag her off to bed again. That so wasn’t going to happen.
Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.
    Erin ran a hand over the peach fuzz on Janie’s head. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, kiddo. I’m very happy to be here with you, and that’s all that matters. The rest of it will work out too.”
    Janie didn’t look as if she believed it, even if it was the God’s honest truth. And unfortunately, there was nothing Erin could do to speed up the process.
    ***
    Cam had come home late off a bad job. The cause of the fire was arson—no question. The only thing left to discover was whether the poor sucker who’d been in the building had been murdered on purpose or if he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Cam’s mind, it didn’t much matter—dead was dead.
    Instead of heading home and finishing up the report the next morning like he normally would, he’d called Erin and told her he’d be late. He’d have much rather eaten dinner with Erin and Janie, but the Boston PD had a case to work, and his report would become part of a homicide investigation, and in his mind, that took precedence over going home. He wanted to do everything he could to make sure the guilty party got good and nailed. So he’d sucked it up, finished his work, and turned it all over to the detective in