Chapter 1: Heat and Hold: Trapped in Ecstasy
Lou woke up gasping.
One moment she was dreaming of sunlight through dusty bookstore windows, and the next, a scalding tide was pulling her under. It rolled from the center of her outwards, a flush that prickled her skin and made the sheets stick to her thighs. She shuddered, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with the cool morning air seeping through their loft.
“Oh, no,” she whispered into the quiet. “Not now.”
The heat came on fast, a sucker-punch to her system. It wasn’t scheduled. It was never scheduled. It was a car alarm going off in the middle of a silent street—jarring, insistent, impossible to ignore. Her thoughts, usually a tangled mess of book invoices and weekend plans, narrowed to a single, blazing point.
Rye.
He was a solid, warm mountain beside her, still asleep, his back a landscape of faded ink and muscle under the thin sheet. The smell of him—motor oil, soap, and just him—hit her like a physical force. It was all she wanted. All she needed.
“Rye,” she breathed, her voice already ragged.
She didn’t think. Instinct, older than reason, took over. Her trembling hands found his shoulder, her body moving of its own volition. She clambered over him, the world reduced to the feel of his sleep-warm skin under her palms, the coarse hair on his chest against her inner thighs. She was slick, desperate, her mind hazing over with a need so profound it felt like panic.
He stirred with a low groan, the sound rumbling through her where she straddled him. His kind blue eyes blinked open, fogged with sleep and then sharpening with instant, drowsy arousal as he registered her position, her scent, the fever-heat radiating from her skin.
“Lou?” His voice was gravel. One big hand came up to cradle her hip, his thumb stroking automatic, comforting circles. “Hey, baby. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
He shifted beneath her, a movement meant to welcome her, to take control of the slow, careful morning pace they usually managed. But the movement jostled something else. A wince, sharp and sudden, cracked his affectionate expression.
“Ah, shit.”
It wasn’t a groan of pleasure. It was pure, strained agony. His body tensed, not with passion, but with a clenching, urgent pain. His other hand flew to his lower abdomen, pressing hard.
Lou whimpered, the sound torn between her own driving need and the dawning horror on his face. The fog in her brain parted, just for a second. “Rye? What’s wrong?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw working. A fine sweat bloomed on his temple. “It’s the UTI. The damn antibiotic hasn’t kicked in yet.” He sucked a breath through his teeth. “I have to piss. Like, right now. I’ve been holding it since three AM trying not to wake you.”
The reality of their situation crashed down, absurd and terrible. She was mounted on him, her body screaming for completion. He was rigid beneath her, but for all the wrong reasons—a different, painful kind of tension locking his muscles.
“Can you… just for a second?” she pleaded, the words messy and thick. She rocked against him, a shallow, frantic motion. She was so close. The relief, even a fragment of it, was a shimmering mirage just out of reach.
He groaned again, a complex sound of desire and acute distress. His hips twitched, an involuntary response to her movement, and fresh pain lanced across his features. “Lou, honey, I can’t. If I move… even a little… I’m not gonna make it to the bathroom. It’s a physical impossibility.”
The bathroom. The door was ajar, maybe ten feet away. It might as well have been ten miles. The lock was a cheap, rattling thing. The sunlight through the skylight was too bright, too revealing.
Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. “What do we do?” It was a wail, childish and helpless.
“Okay. Okay, just… don’t move.” His voice was strained, a study in forced calm. His hands on her hips were anchors, holding her utterly still. “Think unsexy thoughts. Cold showers. Tax forms. My uncle’s fungal foot.”
A hysterical little sob escaped her. “It’s not working.”
“Yeah,” he gritted out. “No kidding.” He was breathing in short, controlled puffs. The conflict in him was palpable: the alpha urge to claim, to satisfy, warring with the most basic, miserable human biology. “This is the least sexy medical emergency of all time.”
They were frozen in a grotesque tableau. Her heat pulsed, a frantic drumbeat. His need was a silent, screaming pressure. The loft smelled of her musk and his pain-sweat and the stale coffee from last night’s mugs.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, humiliation burning through the need. “I’m so sorry, Rye.”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” His eyes found hers, blue and fierce despite the pain. “Not your fault. Just… fate’s really shitty sense of humor.”
He tried a tentative, experimental shift, a suggestion of lifting her. A sharp, bitten-off curse was his reward. He went pale. “Nope. No. Abort. We’re stuck.”
“Stuck?” The word was terrifying.
“Until this wave passes for me. Or for you.” He managed a pained, lopsided smile. “We might be here a while, Red.”
Time stretched. Lou trembled, trying to minimize the smallest quiver. She focused on the details of his face—the scar through his eyebrow, the stubble on his jaw, the way his eyelashes were too long for such a tough-looking guy. She saw the exact moment the next, stronger spasm hit him. His whole body stiffened. A low, defeated sound left his throat.
“Rye?”
“It’s happening,” he said, his voice hollow with resignation. “I can’t stop it.”
The shame that washed over him was worse than the pain. She saw it flood his eyes, saw him try to turn his head away. His grip on her hips tightened, as if he could somehow contain the disaster through sheer will.
It was a quiet, helpless sound, profoundly undignified. The tension in his big frame dissolved into a shudder of utter relief and immediate, crushing embarrassment. He went completely still, breathing heavily, refusing to look at her.
Lou’s heat-addled brain processed it slowly. The crisis, his crisis, had passed. The frantic edge of her own need blunted, just for a moment, shoved aside by a surge of something else. Something clearer.
She leaned down, ignoring the mess, and pressed her forehead to his. Her curls formed a private, fiery curtain around their faces. “Hey,” she said softly.
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, the words raw.
“Shut up,” she whispered, her voice firm. She kissed his sweaty temple. “You were in pain. It’s just biology. And now you’re not.”
A shaky breath escaped him. He finally looked at her, his eyes wide with vulnerability she rarely saw. “This is so messed up.”
“A little,” she agreed, a genuine, giddy laugh bubbling up through the aftermath of panic. It was either laugh or cry. “We’re a mess, Rye Davies.”
A slow, reluctant smile touched his lips. “Our best mess.”
The relief for him was obvious. The pressing, stabbing agony was gone, leaving only a dull ache and a world of embarrassment. For her, the heat was still a live wire under her skin, but the sharpest peak had receded. The urgency was tempered now by a wash of pure, aching tenderness.
“Okay,” she said, practical suddenly. She carefully, slowly, pushed herself off him. “New plan. You are going to take a very long, very hot shower. I am going to strip this bed. And then…” She took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “We are going to the urgent care clinic. No arguments.”
He blinked. “For me? It’ll pass. The antibiotics—”
“For you, yes. But also for me.” She gestured vaguely at her own body. “This is hitting weird and early. I want… I need the suppressants. Now. Before the next wave. I can’t… we can’t do this again.”
He understood. He squeezed her hand, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles. The easygoing mechanic was back, peeking through the shame. “A date to the clinic. Romantic.”
“The most romantic,” she said, pulling him up. He moved slowly, tenderly, but without the seizing pain. The walk to the bathroom was a careful, shared negotiation.
Under the spray of the shower, he pulled her close, not with hunger, but with a quiet solidarity. The water beat down on them, washing away the physical evidence of the morning’s disaster. She tucked her head under his chin, listening to his steady heartbeat return to normal.
“You still smell amazing,” he murmured into her wet hair, a ghost of his usual teasing.
“You smell like antiseptic soap,” she retorted, pinching his side.
He laughed, a real one, and the sound echoed off the tiles, dissolving the last of the tension. They were okay. They were a mess, but they were a matched set. As they stepped out and began to towel off, the day waiting beyond the bathroom door felt less like a minefield and more like just another problem to fix—together. The first step was finding some clean jeans. The second was getting to the clinic before her body decided to betray them all over again.