Dawn breaks slowly in front of us, a low glimmer of pink staining the rippling marble slab that is the sea.

I’m deeply, intensely uncomfortable right now: Delta fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, and so I’m sitting on the beach, my back against the retaining wall separating the beach from the boardwalk. I slid her down so her head was resting on my lap, which is where she is now, right on top of my screaming bladder. My legs are numb. I only managed to doze a little, seeing as I was sitting up, but I didn’t want to disturb her, and I still want to let her sleep as long as she can.

It’s truly bizarre, this situation.

I’ve known Delta for about seventy-two hours now, and the frenetic, driving pace of the rescue efforts thrust us into an unnaturally close bond. I’ve spent literally every moment of the last three days with Delta Martin, who was, until the tin boat dropped her off, a complete stranger. Now . . . it’s hard to remember what life was like before she showed up. That may be exhaustion speaking, of course, but she’s wormed her way into my head.

Normally, if a girl were to fall asleep on my shoulder on the beach, I’d slip out from under her and be on my way. But with Delta, I don’t think she’d think anything of it if I were to do so, slip out, hit the port-a-potty, and go back to digging out survivors and the deceased.

But for some reason, I don’t.

I stay put.

My bladder screams and aches, my back hurts from being in one position for so long, and I’m so exhausted I’m literally delirious. Yet something about Delta pins me in place. Not her, in a literal, physical sense, since she’s light as a feather, but something less tangible.

Something about the way she has her face on my thigh, her mouth slightly open, soft, feminine breaths sighing out, her hair a messy tangle across her face in inky-black strands. Something about the way she’s curled on her side, knees drawn up. Something about her vulnerability.

Something about the way she’s worked, the last few days, even after Ava was rescued. She never questioned it, just kept right on going beside me. We have taken a break, once per day, to go see Ava. I go with her, escorting her to the hospital and through the crowded halls, and I wait quietly while Ava and Delta murmur to each other in low tones, and then I escort her back.

Ava, while I’m there, avoids even looking at me.

I think she’s terrified of what I have to say about Christian. I understand that, and I’m willing to wait until she’s ready. I mean, as far as I know, all Ava really knows about me is that Christian is my friend and sailing partner, that we’ve known each other for several years, and that we’re pretty close. Which must be nervewracking, to her, to know I have the last item he ever touched, and that he gave it to me to give to her? What does that say? I can only imagine how that must feel to her.

I have the box, tucked away beside me. I’ve claimed this little spot on the beach as mine, leaving the box and a small collection of supplies I’ve stockpiled—bottles of water, an unopened bottle of rum I found floating down the street, a dirty and tattered blanket rescued from the rubble, and a dented and rusty but useable flashlight.

Honestly, living on the beach on burnt coffee and stale, flat sandwiches, my only belongings rescued from rubble, is a throwback to my teenage years. Living in tent cities, wandering from slum to slum, city to city, barely surviving, eating literal trash sometimes, everything I owned in a backpack, and those belongings were all dumpster-diving prizes. Not the most amazing memories to be reliving, truth be told, but it is what it is.

I’ve been homeless since I was thirteen. I haven’t had a permanent home—at least one that didn’t float—since then. My homes have been berths on boats, a hotel or motel or hostel occasionally, often the beach, and sometimes a woman’s bed for a week or two. That’s my life, my identity: I belong nowhere, to no one; home is wherever I lay my head; the world is my home.

This is different, though. Why, I’m not sure.

The fact is: Chris is gone, possibly dead, and I have no way of knowing for sure. I’m responsible for telling his wife, who won’t even look at me, so far.

And Delta.

She makes this different, too, in a distinctly intangible way.

She stirs, murmuring unintelligibly. Wiggles, brings her hand up to her face, rubs her nose, and then wiggles again, seeking a more comfortable position as she sleeps. In the process of seeking a new position, her hand rests near her face, palm down . . . directly on my cock.

She’s asleep, I remind myself. It’s not intentional. My body doesn’t seem to want to listen, though. All my body knows is that a hand that’s not mine is resting on—and almost clutching—my cock.

Which is responding according to nature.

I focus on breathing, staring at the sea and the sunrise turning the pink stain into a golden-crimson-peach glow on the horizon. I focus on having to piss, on the gulls hopping along the sand and wheeling overhead, keening occasionally. I focus on anything and everything except Delta, and the accidental, meaningless, totally coincidental positioning of her hand.

It doesn’t work.

I no longer have to pee, because I’m hard as a rock, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

I try to will it to go away, but it won’t.

I think of my mother, my sisters, of the hurricane that took Chris and The Hemingway, of nuns and puppies and stray cats and rats scurrying in the gutters . . .

I’m nearly successful at getting the hard-on to go away . . . it’s starting to subside a little, slowly and gradually.

But then Delta stirs again, makes a muzzy, sleepy sigh, and her head digs into my thigh, and her hand tightens. Squeezes. Flexes, releases, and squeezes again.

Intentionally.

As if she’s waking up but hasn’t opened her eyes yet and is attempting to discern exactly what it is she’s feeling.

I know the moment she truly wakes up, and the next moment, when she realizes . . . well, the rest of the situation.

Her eyes flutter, and her vivid ultramarine eyes flit from mine, to her hand, and back up to my eyes. She blinks and doesn’t remove her hand.

I do not blink, do not breathe. I remain utterly still, unsure now what this moment is, and what I’m supposed to do next.

Her hand squeezes again as her eyes remained fixed on mine. And then, with a deliberateness that leaves nothing to question, she traces the outline of my erection behind my shorts, from top to bottom, and ends up grasping me, her eyes on mine.

“Delta,” I murmur, and then I don’t know what else to say.

She blinks up at me. “Hi, Jonny.” A small, shy smile curves her lips.

I shift in the sand, flex my back, my buttocks, my shoulders, willing Delta to let go of me before I run the risk of indulging in curiosity. Which, as she said, is a bad idea for both of us. This situation is untenable, and the bond we feel is false, created by the closeness and the constant contact, and the intensity of the high-octane emotions that comes with digging out corpses and wounded survivors. It’s not real, this weird, intense, erotic moment.

I remember her chant from last night/early this morning—don’t sleep with Jonny, don’t sleep with Jonny, don’t sleep with Jonny—and I know she’s right to remind herself of that. Yeah, she’s attractive. Yeah, she may feel some stirrings of desire for me, as I do for her. But there are no real emotions in this. And if there were? What then? I’m a nomad, and I owe it to Chris to be there for his wife however I can, which, obviously, doesn’t include sleeping with her sister out of some misplaced chemistry born through a dramatic situation.

But Delta isn’t letting go. Nor is she looking away from my eyes. Nor is she making any move to alter this moment. If anything, she adjusts her grip on me to more fully and intimately cup me.

I let out a breath, wondering how the hell I’m going to navigate this. “You, um . . . fell asleep.” I hunt for something else to say. “Didn’t want to disturb you.”

She smiles up at me. “So you’ve been sitting here all night, letting me sleep?”

I shrug. “Yeah, sure. I can sleep anywhere.”

“That was very nice of you, Jonny.” Her smile shifts, and her gaze breaks mine, flits to her hand. “I feel like I should thank you. I slept better than I have in days.”

“Not a big deal.”

Her grip tightens. “I mean, Jonny, I should thank you.”

I stare down at her. Try to be a more virtuous man than I usually am. “Don’t need to. All I did was let you sleep a few hours.”

“You must have been uncomfortable, though.”

“Eh, not so bad.” That’s a lie: my back and butt are a mess of knots.

She slides her hand up and then down, tracing my erection with her touch. “You’re kind of hard to read, but for some reason I feel like that’s a lie.”

I force myself to stillness. “Maybe a little. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well, still, thank you.” She eyes her hand, and the thick bulge under it. “I’m . . . very grateful.”

I’m an honest man. I don’t play head games, I don’t worry about being polite, or tactful. I say and do whatever seems right and true and natural. In this moment, though, I don’t know what is right or true or natural. Part of me wants to let her thank me. I mean, her hand does feel good, and she is a gorgeous woman—I’m a man, and any excuse to be touched like this is hard to refuse. But then, she’s Christian’s sister-in-law. Christian is missing. Ava is in the hospital. Ft. Lauderdale is in ruins, hundreds if not thousands are dead, there are millions of dollars in damage, survivors to rescue, dead to bury. It’s not my city, not my home, but it’s in my nature to help, to pitch in with a will when someone is in need. It’s just how I am. And this is the utterly most inappropriate time for any kind of indulgence in desire.

I catch at her wrist, halting her movement. “Don’t need to thank me, Delta.”

Her eyes reflect confusion and disappointment. “No? What if I want to?”

“Those are different things, doing something to thank me, and doing it because you want to.”

“True. Ends up the same, though, for both of us.” She squeezes, and short of physically removing her hand from me, I can’t stop that, and dammit, but I don’t want to. “Doesn’t it?”

I make a sound that’s a cross between a growl and a hiss. “Not necessarily.”

The corners of her mouth tip up, amused and aroused, and her eyes betray the humor she finds in my discomfort. “No?”

I shake my head. “You do somethin’ like this because you feel like you should thank me, then it’s . . .” I shrug, a roll of one shoulder. “It’d feel kind of like a transaction, to me. You doin’ somethin’ out of . . . obligation.”

Her smile becomes even more amused. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Sounded like it to me, though.” I hold her wrist, but she’s still squeezing me, a gentle throb of pressure that’s definitely getting to me, and I fight to hold the thread of why I’m not supposed to let this happen. “You doing something like what you seem to be inclined to do because it’s what you want to do . . . now that might be a different story.”

“I like the sound of that story,” Delta says. “I just meant the whole thank you thing as . . .” She laughs, a bright, amused, self-aware, slightly embarrassed sound. “I was being coy, Jonny, that’s all.”

“Ain’t into coy, Delta.”

“What are you into, then, Jonny?”

We’re saying each other’s names a lot, for some reason, and she still has her head resting on my thigh, which is a lot more intimate now that she’s awake than it was when she was asleep. She’s still squeezing my cock, applying pressure gently, rhythmically, insistently, and it’s maddening and arousing at the same time.

“Saying things like they are.”

“That happens to be my speciality. I can’t really help saying things like they are. Drives most people crazy.” She shifts, and her face is a few inches closer to my torso and her hand. A simple shift in position, but it’s laced with promise, and I’m having a hell of a time ignoring that unspoken promise.

“That so?” I swallow hard and have to remember to breathe and to keep still and to leave my hands where they are, one on her wrist and one in the sand beside my hips. “You? Drive people crazy? Nah.” I smile, so she knows I’m teasing her.

“Right? What a wild thought, that I would drive anyone crazy.” She bites her lower lip, tugging at the corner with her upper teeth, and then her tongue peeks out and slides along that plump lower lip, and it’s not my face she’s eyeing as she does this.

“You being coy again, Delta?”

She shakes her head. “Me? Never.”

“Then what exactly is going on here?” I tighten my grip on her wrist in indication of my meaning.

A shrug of a lithe shoulder. “I don’t know.” She bites that lip again, which shouldn’t make my heart thump, but it does. “I just woke up like this.”

“I think this situation has kind of gotten away from us, Delta.”

She nods. “Out of hand, you might say.”

“Well, no. If anything, it’s well in hand.”

She snorts softly. “Now who’s being coy?”

I laugh wryly. “Just making a joke.”

The humor bleeds out of Delta’s eyes as she tests my grip on her wrist. “Am I making you uncomfortable, Jonny? For real.”

“I’m just . . .” I shrug. “You said it last night, this isn’t really the best time for . . .” I squeeze her wrist and then let go. “This kind of thing.”

“I know what I said last night.”

I rest my hand on her shoulder. “But?”

“But . . . that was before I woke up with my hand on your dick, Jonny.”

“I didn’t put it there,” I say, maybe a little too quickly and insistently. “You moved, and your hand landed there, and I didn’t want to wake you up. And . . . well, some things are an automatic instinct. You woke up before I could figure out what the right thing to do was.”

She smiles. “You getting hard was nothing but an instinctive reaction, huh?”

“I . . . um. Well, yeah. I mean, a beautiful woman has her head on my lap, and then she puts her hand on my dick, yeah, it’s instinct to get hard.”

“A beautiful woman, huh?” She rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t oversell it, buddy.”

“Not an oversell. An undersell, if anything.”

“I was hot as hell twenty years ago. I was beautiful ten years ago. Now? I’m striking at best.”

I stare her down. “Not how I see it.” I let my hand rest on the back of hers, and our fingers tangle, mine sliding between hers. “And that has nothing to do with where your hand is. Just my honest opinion.”

“Just your honest opinion, huh?” She smiles, too quickly, too casually. “You wanna say things like they are? How’s this for you, then? I like you, Jonny. And I’m attracted to you. And yeah, this is a weird, intense, crazy situation we’re in, and things could definitely get weird and messy, but . . . I may have woken up with my hand on your dick by accident, but it’s been staying there because that’s where I want it to be.”

“Some truth back at ya, then: I’m having real trouble figuring out what to do, right now. I know what I want, but I also know what my conscience is telling me.”

“Same here.” She lifts our hands, and transfers mine to her shoulder. She withdraws her hand, and returns it to where it was, gently squeezing my aching erection. “I’ve never really been very good at listening to my conscience, though, Jonny.”

“Me neither.” I let my hand drift into the silky black mess of her hair and down to curl around her waist. “This seems a little different, though.”

“How?”

I gesture around us. “Nowhere to go to be alone.” I let that statement hang, for a moment. “Not here, in Ft. Lauderdale, and not for me. We want this to be more than something quick on the beach, I wouldn’t know how to work that out. Things are a mess.”

She sighs. “I hadn’t thought about that. It feels pretty solitary, here on the beach at sunrise.”

“And there’s also . . .” I trail off, not sure how to phrase it.

“There’s also what?”

“Ava. And Christian.”

Another sigh. “Dammit.” And then her eyes, so dark blue they’re almost indigo, piercing, intense, cut up to mine. “What if it’s not anything more than something quick on the beach?”

“I have to stay, I have to help. I have to talk to Ava, when she’s ready.”

“And I’m not going anywhere, because she’s my sister. She’s going to need me.”

“Right.”

She lets out a long, slow breath. “You suck, Jonny.”

“I feel pretty stupid, talking you out of what you were about to do.”

She laughs. “Yeah, not your best move.”

I glance to where her hand is still in place, cupping me, squeezing. “Didn’t seem to change much, though.”

She shakes her head and traces the outline. “You said it first: I’m not very good at listening to my conscience. I know this is probably a bad idea, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

She shrugs. “Either one of us is going to actually stop this, or it’s going to happen.”

“What is?”

She reaches up and opens the button of my shorts, lowers the zipper. “This.”

“Delta . . .” I murmur, knowing I should stop her.

“Jonny?”

“Why?” I ask.

“I want to.”

Shit. I had whole long string of logical, convincing reasons why I have to put a stop to this, but I can’t remember any of them now, because it feels like I’ve been hard and aching for so long I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to not ache with need and pressure. And now she’s staring up at me as she hooks her fingers into my underwear and tugs them away from my body and down, baring me.

She sucks in a breath. “Holy shit, Jonny.”

I frown. “What?”

She wraps a hand around me, and it’s my turn to hiss an inhalation through my teeth. “You’re fucking beautiful, Jonny.”

“I am?” My brain isn’t working, due to lack of blood flow, which has, obviously, been diverted elsewhere.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Been called a lot of shit in my life, never been called beautiful, though.”

She laughs, squeezing me. “I mean this.” Her hand is soft and small, pale against my darker flesh, sliding downward slowly. “The rest of you is pretty nice, too, don’t get me wrong, but this . . . is fucking gorgeous.” At the emphasized repetition, she squeezes me again.

“Oh.”

She laughs again, and the sound of her laugh . . . it’s music. The slow sweep of her hand on me is a sensual glide, unhurried. The sunrise is in full bloom now, bathing us in an orange glow. It’s a moment that sticks in the mind, one of those moments you want to slow down and savor. For just a while, there’s nothing else but her and me and the crash of the surf and the caw of the gulls and the touch of her hand, the burn of her eyes on me.

It’s a sequence of stolen time. This doesn’t belong to us. This moment belongs to the city that’s in ruins, to the man who’s like a brother to me, who deep down in my gut I feel is still alive despite the odds, and to his wife, to whom I’ve promised to deliver letters and the news of his disappearance. This moment belongs to the hurricane, to sorrow and destruction and loss.

Yet, I feel none of that. Not in this instant. All I feel is her, the warmth of her breath on my skin, the delicate glide of her hand on my cock, the sunrise bathing us, the cool air and the gentle wind. The promise of the moment. In the back of my head, I feel the wrongness of it, too. Too soon, too . . . not forbidden—we’re nothing to each other, not in any way, so it’s not forbidden in that sense. But still, somehow, this feels . . . like we shouldn’t. But we are, and that makes it all the more exhilarating.

So far, there’s not a lot of we in the moment, more just her doing the touching and me letting her. But if I let her, if this happens, I’m going to touch her. Because I’ve been suppressing my own desire, trying to keep a handle on it. Delta is damn beautiful, and so goddamn sensual.

I’ve been focusing, so far, on reasons and logic, and I’ve been fighting myself, my mind, my body: a war between wanting to let her do this and knowing it’s not right, in this moment, for reasons I can’t pin down in my head.

But as she touches me, I lose all that. All of it.

I’m giving in. I can’t help it. The way she’s touching me is . . . there’s only one word for it: sensual. Slow and soft, each movement graceful, delicate, and sure. I’m giving in to my baser feelings, my instinctive need, my body rather than my logic or my emotions.

And my body says to let this happen. To hold still and let Delta do whatever she wants, and then discover what her skin feels like. Find out if it’s as soft as it looks. Find out if her tits are as big and soft and lush as they look, if her ass is as firm as it looks. If she’s as responsive as she seems like she’d be, in tune with her body and what she wants and eager to get it. Neither of us are kids; neither of us are new to this.

She’d be incredible, I bet.

And I want to find out. I’ve been so caught up in the whole effort to dig people out that I’ve not allowed myself to even think about Delta like this, because there hasn’t been time. But we’ve stolen this moment, carved it out for ourselves as dawn rises. And now that we’ve stolen this moment, I don’t think I can go back. Now that my attraction to Delta is out of its bottle, I’m not sure I can put it back in.

There’s a scuff of a footstep on the boardwalk nearby and the crackle of a radio. “No sign of him on the beach, but I know this is near where he’s been camping out,” a deep, rough, male voice says.

Delta freezes. Her eyes meet mine, and she’s suppressing laughter, still gripping me in her fist, lip caught in her teeth, eyes twinkling.

“Keep looking then, Mike,” the voice on the other end of the radio says. “Jonny’s a workhorse, and he knows what he’s doing. We need to get back to whoever is banging in that corner of the building. We need Jonny ASAP.”

They’re looking for me.

Reality douses the situation like a bucket of ice water. Delta, reluctantly and unhappily, fits me back into my shorts—a difficult thing, considering my state of arousal—zips me up, shifts upright so we’re sitting side by side with our backs to the retaining wall, and covers our legs with the blanket. And now, just like that, we’re two people just sitting together.

“Down here,” I call out, after taking a few breaths to steady my mind.

The footsteps scuff closer, and then a pair of heavy-duty work boots appear, hanging off the edge of the retaining wall, and a uniformed police officer hops down beside me. I know him, he’s Seargent Mike Harley, who’s been helping coordinate and organize the efforts at Ava’s building and the one next to it. Big, burly, a little overweight, just past thirty, friendly, with a blond buzz cut and the beginnings of a beard, Mike is a good man and dedicated to the relief work.

“Hey, Mike,” I say, as he crouches beside me. “What’s up?”

“Jonny, Delta.” Mike thumbs the radio clipped to his shoulder. “Found him, Dan.” To me then: “Some of the guys on the midnight shift were digging near the back corner of the next building over; that corner is pretty well caved in. They started hearing thumping, but the guys have been there for something like eighteen hours, and they’re done in for the day. We were hoping you would help out. You seem to know your way around this sorta thing.”

I nod. “Grew up off the coast of Nicaragua, and I’ve spent most of my life out there.” I jut my chin at the ocean. “Seen my share of storm damage.”

“So you’ll help?”

I nod again. “Of course. Lead the way, Mike.”

“Thank God,” Mike breathes, keying his radio again. “On our way, Dan.” To me, again: “Two of the guys on the midnight shift are from that building, and they say the location of the banging makes it likely it’s a family they know. Mom, Dad, two little kiddies.”

“It’s been near on a week, Mike,” I say, rising to my feet. “Doesn’t seem likely.”

“Rubble falls in just right, there’re pockets of air, and if they have water, well . . . it’s not likely, but it’s possible.”

“But a fucking week?” I shake my head. “It was blind luck we found Ava alive when we did.”

“Could be nothing, could be rubble settling, or the like.”

“But we gotta find out for sure,” I say.

“Right,” Mike says, hauling himself, with great effort, onto the boardwalk.

Delta catches at me as I turn away, glancing meaningfully at my groin. “You okay?”

I nod. “I’ll live.”

She tries a smile, which wobbles a little. “Rain check?”

I nod. “Bet on it.”

But can the moment be repeated? I don’t know.

And should it be?

Another answer I don’t have.