Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing fine after yesterday's promo of episode 2, because let me tell you I'm already suffering.

Hopefully this update will comfort out Burzek hearts.

Thanks for reading and reviewing! Love to read your comments!

Happy reading!

Xoxo,

Nina

My apartment was empty and dark, and even though it was a bit depressing, I was glad I didn't have to face anyone or say anything. I guess I was a bit depressed, too.

I threw myself on the couch and took a deep breath. What the hell was I doing with my life? Why was I letting Willis pull all this crap on me? I needed to take control of my life, no matter what the consequences were. This has to stop.

I kicked off my boots and shot a quick message to Hailey before jumping to the shower. Hopefully the warm water pouring down my head would help me ease down a bit and focus on what really mattered, my happiness.

I sat there reading Hailey's text, something within me told me I was right and her reply confirmed it. My hair was still wet, reaching my final destination required to put into practice my investigating skills and didn't take me all that long to get there, but I was so anxious that it felt like I had been driving for three days.

I killed the engine off and grabbed my bag from the passenger's seat before getting out of the car, smiling to hear Ditta's distant barking followed by Adam's deep voice.

"Ditta! Hold up!" His voice was a bit agitated. I could tell he was running after her and laughed to myself at the memory of the night that Adam came to find me after the whole Meghan thing at the club. "Kim's gonna kill me if you get lost."

Ditta came full speed and almost knocked me over when she jumped on top of me.

"Here's my girl." I looked down to face her and pet her between the ears. My playful voice invited Ditta to wag her tail even faster.

"Here's my girl." He said as he finally caught up with my dog. "What are you doing here?"

"That's the welcome I get? At least Ditta is happy to see me."

"You want me to jump on you right now? I can do that, but I was leaving that for later." He joked as he walked closer to me. "I love the fact that you are here, you just took me by surprise. Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine, relax. I missed you and I realized this was the place where I had to be, where I truly wanted to be." He held me in his arms and kissed the top of my head before lightly pressing his lips against mine, only to bite my lower lip later. I wrapped my arms around him and held on to him so tight, as if I was trying to absorb him through my pores. "This feels so good."

"Extremely." He kissed me one more time sending sparks all over my body. "Let's go so you can say hello to everyone and we can put your things away in our room."

"Sounds like a plan."

We walked hand in hand with Ditta right next to us until we ran into the rest of the crew sitting around a bonfire.

"What?" Hailey was so surprised she almost screamed. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" She asked as she stood up and came to hug me.

"What kind of surprise would that be?"

"I'm so happy you made it!"

"Me too." I answered with a smile, hugging her back.

"Burgess! It's so good to see you. Adam's finally gonna stop whining about you not being here." Kevin added just before he came to hug me.

"Oh, come on. It can't be that bad!"

"Believe him, it was!" Jay agreed with Kevin as he came to say hello to me.

"Kim, this is Vanessa. I believe you haven't officially met." Kevin added.

"Hey, I'm Kim. Nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you, too. Especially after hearing so much about you."

Vanessa pulled me into a sweet hug. She seemed nice, I mean she had to be if she'd won Kevin's heart.

"Ok, ok. I think you can all cut it out already." Adam said pretending to be mad. "I'm gonna take Kim inside to leave her stuff."

"Take your time, stud." Kevin joked, making all of us laugh.

Adam took my hand again and guided me to our room. It was small but cozy, perfect for a weekend at the beach. I left my bag on the bed and looked at Adam whose eyes were fixed on me.

"What?"

"Nothing. I can't believe you're here." He said with a smile, looking like a child with candy.

"How could I miss it considering how important it is to you?" He looked at me with big eyes. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Why did I have to find out about you battling between life and death from your boss and Hailey?" My voice was soft and tender as I stepped closer to him and slid my hand under his shirt to run my thumb over his scar.

"It wasn't that bad."

"Voight said something different."

"When did you talk to Voight?"

"Today. There were a bunch of people there, but don't change the subject, will you?"

"It wasn't going to change anything if I told you and I didn't want to add any more pressure to the whole situation."

"I appreciate it, but I would have liked to know. You're important to me, Adam. I want to be involved in your life, if you want to and if you let me, I'm ready for that."

"Of course I want to. You already know how I feel about that." He said softly with his lips almost brushing mine. The proximity of our bodies was doing nothing but increasing my desire to attack his mouth, but I didn't have to do any of that because he was the one to act first and pulling me into a bruising kiss as one of his hands was firm on my hip and the other one raking the wet hair on the side of my head. "So, what time do you have to leave tomorrow?" He finally asked once he slightly moved his head back.

"I don't know. What time are you leaving?"

"Wait. You don't have to go back to work?" He was a bit confused.

"Whether I have to or not is not quite clear to me yet. What is certain, though, is the fact that I am not going back until Monday."

"What happened? What did he do?"

"It was brought to my attention That I wasn't officially required to be in today's case. Willis volunteered to help and just dragged me along. So if I don't show up tomorrow, I won't have any official consequences."

I cupped his cheek while I waited for him to give me some type of answer that was taking too long to come out of his mouth. There was certainly something being cooked up in the hot head of his.

"Kim, you do realize he still likes you, right?" The bitterness in his voice gave away his feelings. "I mean, I don't blame him, but I do not like this at all."

"Babe."

"You know I'm right." I looked down and said nothing. Denying it would be lying to him and telling him everything that had gone on today was just going to ignite a huge fire. "And the fact that you're not telling me anything is not really helping."

"What do you want me to say? Does it really matter what he wants?"

"Yes. He's manipulating you to have you next to his side."

"Tough luck for him. Your side is the only place I want to be at." Adam sighed and looked down, but never stepped away from me. "Baby, I am here, aren't I? Don't you think what I want counts more?"

"It's not that, Kim. I don't doubt you for a second; but this guy, I don't trust him, I don't want him around you, I just want to break his jaw."

"You're not going to do any of that. What you and I are going to do is stop talking about him and enjoy being together, ok?" He nodded, not too convinced to leave the subject behind. "Besides, I have a little gift for you." I added with a mischievous smile in an attempt to brighten up his mood. I moved the collar of my shirt to the side to let him see a little portion of my black and red lace bra.

"That's for me?" The smile I was longing to see was finally plastered on his face.

"All of it." I wiggled my eyebrows making him chuckle. "How thick do you think these walls are?"

"Hmmm, let's just say that we don't have to worry about being quiet tonight."

We went back to meet the others and found only Jay and Hailey, since Kev and Vanessa had decided to go for a walk before the food was ready.

Jay was standing by the grill and my friend was close to him with two beers in her hands and as soon as she saw me walk out she came to me handing me one of the beers.

"I know you want to be with her, but Jay needs you by the grill." She said to Adam.

"Yeah, I'll let you two catch up." He replied instantly understanding what Hailey really wanted before starting to go over to Jay. I pulled on his hand that was still entwined with mine and pecked his lips before letting him go.

Hailey waited for him to be far enough to start talking. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"Matt's an ass. That's what happened."

"Care to expand?"

"He's nuts Hailey. I mean, he's kind of scaring me. I wasn't supposed to be there today, a bunch of people

volunteered to help, he was one of those and just dragged me along with him. He keeps talking about when we were together and it just grosses me out. I need to leave that place Hailey and if you get the chance to, you should do the same. It'll be easier for you anyway."

"I'm not leaving you there."

"Hails, promise me you will take the chance to transfer if you get a better opportunity. Willis won't let us grow."

"Kim."

"Hailey, this is what I get for making stupid choices. You should not be paying for that."

"No Kim, this is what happens when a man abuses his position and power to take advantage of a woman in love."

I appreciated the fact that she was trying to make me feel better, but there was a part of this was my fault, too. "I don't want to talk about it, ok?"

"Fine, but at some point we'll have to finish this conversation."

"Yes, but not right now."

"I did have a pretty interesting conversation with your boyfriend." I felt my cheeks get warmer at that comment. Sure Adam and I had already talked about the status of our relationship, but hearing it from someone else's lips made it so much real.

"Do I want to know?" I joked.

"The guy is totally into you." Hailey confessed and I just sighed.

"That's a relief."

"The way he talks about you. It's so easy to see how much he cares."

"I care about him too." I took a sip of my drink and started to loosen up a bit. "I really do."

"Then why do you sound so concerned?"

"The last time I felt like this I screwed up big time."

"Kim, you can't compare him to Willis."

"Oh, I know that. Willis will never be the man Adam is, ever. I guess I'm just scared of that vulnerability, you know?"

"Yeah, I know that feeling. That's exactly what I feel when I'm around Jay. But, dont you think it's a bit stupid to hold that back when you are already up to your neck with Ruzek. Don't you think embracing what you feel is going to be the best you can do?"

"I'm totally in love with him." I took another pull of my beer and gazed over at him, that was laughing at some stupid joke they were making as they took care of our food. "I mean, look at him."

"I know and you know what? I'm proof us. We finally made a good choice." We both laughed.

"To us and our smarter choices." I raised my bottle and Hailey instantly clicked her bottle against mine.

"Kim."

"What?"

"Don't be stupid. Tell him what you feel."

"Don't you think it's too soon for that?"

"And don't you think you'll regret it if you're not true to yourself?"

I looked at my friend's blue eyes and nodded. There was no need to say anything else.

We kept chatting until Kevin and Vanessa came back. He went over with the boys to finish up dinner and she came with us.

It was nice to get to know her. Adam was right, she was fun and down to earth, and eventhough her relationship with Atwater was new, it was clear how into him she was.

We had dinner around the bonfire, the guys mocked Kevin all night long telling him how he had left with Vanessa just to avoid standing by the grill.

Everyone was going back into the cabin, but Adam and I stayed outside sitting in front of the fire while Ditta was laying down right next to us.

"Thanks for taking care of her and for all the pictures you sent me."

"Thank you for trusting me with her."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I trust you with her." I looked into his eye and said the test without really thinking about it. "I trust you with my heart as well."

"Yeah?" He asked smiling.

"Mm hmm."

"That's funny because, although this is very recent, for some reason you have a pretty strong grip on my heart as well. I'll be honest with you, after Meghan the least I wanted was a relationship with anyone, but then I met you and it was so different. I mean yeah, I thought you were gorgeous and I really wanted to have sex with you." His confession made me chuckle causing him to smile back at me and look down. "But the more I got to know you, with all your mystery and all the walls you built around you, the more I wanted to be next to you, take care of you and I don't know, protect you."

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"For putting up with my shit, because honestly Adam, crossing paths with you in that plane was the best thing that happened to me in a long time." I leant closer and grabbed the collar of his unbuttoned shirt pulling him closer to me, only to be able to capture his lips in mine.