Having Sarah in my arms again was like realizing I’d been asleep for the past ten years, and what I thought had been reality was in fact a dream. But now I was awake and I remembered what it felt like to be truly alive again. To breathe and laugh and feel. Now that I’d found that feeling again, now that I’d woken up, I didn’t want to fall back asleep. There were a million reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this, and a million and one reasons why it would never work…but there was also one huge reason why I didn’t give a damn.

It was Sarah. It was always Sarah.

I thrust inside her, holding onto her tightly as I kissed her with every ounce of need I’d been feeling since the moment she walked back into my life, hating me because she thought I could have cheated on her. Her body closed around me, squeezing me, and I moved inside her at a steady rhythm, letting instinct take over. Every muscle inside me tensed, demanding release, but I refused to get there until I brought her to orgasm at least one more time.

As I moved inside her, I slipped my hand between us, rolling my fingers over her. Memories of her fucking my mouth with wild abandon hit me, doing nothing to calm my demanding body down, but there was no shutting those images down even if I wanted to—which I, of course, didn’t. I’d be replaying that memory in my mind for the rest of my life.

I deepened the kiss as I thrust inside her again, groaning when she writhed against me, her walls clenching down on me even tighter than before. She tasted as good as I remembered. Like happiness and heaven, all mixed into one. That didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t give a damn.

As my fingers moved over her wet skin, she cried my name into my mouth, digging her nails into my back so hard it hurt, just the way I liked it. Her body closed around mine, squeezing me in all the right places, bringing me dangerously close as she tumbled head over heels down the edge of pleasure. Growling, I finally let myself go, fucking her without a hint of self-control or calmness. I thrust inside her sweet body—faster, harder—and she cried out again, her body tensing around mine as she strained to reach orgasm one more time. When she got too loud, I silenced her cries with my mouth, holding my own pleasure back until she came again.

Pressing my fingers against her already sensitive core, I thrust inside her once, twice—bam, she came. This time, I was right there with her, blackness washing over me as I came so hard I forgot who I was and where I was for a brief second, but never who I was with.

Sarah. My Sarah.

Resting my forehead on hers, I kissed her sweetly one more time before pulling back to survey her face. I’d gotten a little rough at the end there, and couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been a little too rough. I searched her face for any signs of pain or regret, but her dark brown eyes were glowing with happiness, and her skin flushed with pleasure.

Pleasure I’d put there.

“Wow,” she breathed, smiling shyly at me, which was a little absurd considering I was still buried inside her body, but whatever. “That was amazing.”

“Agreed,” I managed to say, my voice still raspy. I touched her cheek, pushing her dampened hair off her sweaty skin. That simple movement, and the way she leaned into my touch with her eyes shut, hit my chest like a fist. It somehow felt even more intimate than what we’d just done. “I know this is a mess of complications we didn’t need, but I don’t regret a damn second of it. I refuse to pretend otherwise.”

“Me, too.” Her lids drifted up. “I don’t regret it either.”

I hesitated to ruin the mood, but shit had to be said. “But we—”

“I know. No one can know.”

I swallowed hard. “I can’t lose you as a partner. Not now.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” she practically whispered, not meeting my eyes.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to say. We couldn’t be together, but we didn’t want to be apart. There was no happy ending to this. No easy out. No obvious answers. What the hell were we supposed to do? “I need to be with you to watch your back. I don’t trust anyone else.”

“I know. This… It won’t happen ever again.” She licked her lips. “It can be a one-time thing, a goodbye of sorts.”

Hesitating, I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again, shifting my weight slightly as I debated my response very carefully. I didn’t want this to be a one-time thing, not at all, but aside from sneaking around behind everyone’s back at the precinct, including my father’s, was there really another option? “Is that what you want this to be? A goodbye?” I asked, my throat thick.

She bit her lip. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you won’t like the answer,” she said, holding onto my biceps. “I care about you, Ben. I do. But I’ve been down this road before, and your dad kind of has it right. Dating your partner is never a good idea. It…complicates things.”

I swallowed back my protests about not liking her answer, and focused on the one I should voice out loud. “I’m not him. Don’t fucking compare me to him.”

“I’m not,” she assured me quickly. “I never would.”

I said nothing, because it sure as hell sounded like she just had.

“But despite how much we like one another, despite our past feelings, we can’t risk everything, right?” She studied me closely. Too closely. “We can’t lose our jobs because we used to have feelings for one another, once upon a time.”

What else was I supposed to say to that? That I still had feelings for her? That I’d give up anything for her, if she gave me the slightest clue that she wanted me to? It didn’t matter if that was true, because for us to work, she needed to want me as badly as I wanted her, and that just wasn’t going to happen. If it was, she wouldn’t be pushing me away right now. “Right.”

For a second, she looked upset. As if maybe she wanted me to go ahead and lay it all on the line, but she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and anything I may or may not have seen was gone when she looked at me again. For all I knew, it had been a figment of my imagination. More than likely, it was. “So, then, this is goodbye.”

“Well, not completely. We’re still par—”

“But it is.” She framed my cheeks with her hands, locking gazes with me, and my heart twisted in my chest painfully. “This is the moment when we move from what we were, what we could have been all those years ago if things had been different, and now we have to become…partners who have one another’s backs, no matter what.”

If that was what she wanted, if that was what she needed from me, then I’d give it to her. I’d sworn to myself, and to her, on that football field in junior year, that anything she needed, I’d give to her. She’d needed space to think, and go to college across the country? I’d given it to her. She’d needed a partner when she came back, running from a crazy ex, and caring for her mother? I’d given her that, too. Closure? Sure, I’d take my clothes off and give her that.

Now…she was asking me to give her a partner, and nothing else, so guess what? I’d make sure she got what she needed. It’s what I did. Took care of her.

Swallowing hard, I stepped back from her, pulling out of her body for the last time. Guess it was my turn to walk away now. To deny myself of the only thing I’d ever wanted in my life—her. Holding my hand out, I forced a calm smile I didn’t feel as we stood in her living room, naked and covered in one another’s sweat. “To being platonic partners?”

She eyed my hand, then slid hers into it. “To being partners.”

God help us both.