When she sat up fully and said, “Sawyer,” with such relief in her voice, his heart filled up. He’d thought of heartbreak, all these years, like an emptying. A draining away of some essential life force.

He had not stopped to think about the possibility of the reverse: a refilling.

If he had, he would have imagined it a more orderly process, like filling a water bottle from a tap.

It wasn’t like that at all. It was like the storm. Giant, powerful waves full of rocks and debris beat down on his insides, doubling him over with their fearsome, raw power. His breath came in short pants, and his vision started to blur as the blood rushed out of his head and headed south. His dick, it seemed, was as full as his heart. It wasn’t a very seemly thought, but nothing about what was happening to him right now was seemly. There was a natural disaster unfolding in his body. The emergency wasn’t over, it turned out. It had just moved inside him.

“Sawyer,” she said again, lower this time, more insistent. “Are you okay?”

He was not okay. Not even close. He knew she meant it in a more immediate way, though, that she was asking about the lake rescue. So he nodded.

He’d already been crouched over her, poised as he’d been to tuck her in, but the tsunami had made him curl in on himself, hunch forward instinctively in a protective crouch.

Which put him within grabbing distance of her.

And she grabbed.

Eve Abbott’s Last Three Semicoherent Thoughts As She Threw Herself at Sawyer Collins

1. She was exhausted. She probably looked like she was half-asleep. That was her out, when whatever was about to happen was over. It was like sleepwalking. Sleep groping.

2. Except…if she was coherent enough to have an excuse preloaded, she probably couldn’t claim anything but complete premeditation.

3. Well, whatever. Screw it.

And then she was beyond thinking, except as it related to the mechanics of getting what she wanted. Her hands landed on his chest, her palms flat at first, but then she made fists, grabbing handfuls of his sodden Moonflower PD shirt and using them to lever herself up so she was kneeling on the couch. He’d been bent over her, so he was right there, level with her, and his lake-blue eyes were wide, like he was shocked. Yes, it was shocking. This was shocking.