Nothing but a stream of regrets and relief I’d figured it out sooner rather than later.

I pulled the hand towel from the metal ring, sliding the bottom drawer of his bathroom sink open. I didn’t have to fumble around the mass of male hygiene products to find what I was looking for. It was right on top.

Rushing out of the bathroom, I went to his desk and grabbed a pen and a sticky note and wrote my parting words. I wasn’t even trying to stifle my smile. I rolled up the towel before laying it down on the center of his bed, then propped the lubricant next to it, and stuck the note over the almost empty bottle. I stepped back, admiring my handiwork.

Sawyer was going to lose it whenever he sobered up enough to read words again. I wished I could see the look on his face.

I was turning to leave the room, for good, when I heard it whisper open almost as quickly as it closed. Spinning around, I found Sawyer, dripping wet with key in hand, looking at me like I’d just tripped his trap.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, locking the door behind him.

Other than being a horny bastard, Sawyer had never done anything to make me feel threatened or unsafe or scared. I felt all of those things now.

“What’s this?” he asked, crossing the room towards his bed. “A present?”

I didn’t reply—every instinct in my body was firing, telling me to get out of this room. I slowly started side-stepping my way for the door.

Peeling the note from the bottle, Sawyer’s eyes squinted. “Have fun releasing yourself,” he read, a slow smile stretching over his mouth. Dropping the note onto the bed, his head whipped to where I was making my way towards the door. “Oh, baby, I plan to.”

It was right then, the look on his face even more than his words, that kicked my adrenaline into high gear. I gave up on slow and sprinted towards the door. I wasn’t fast enough.

“Where are you going?” Sawyer said, grabbing me from behind. Damn, he was strong for a stumbling drunk. The icy swim in the water must have sobered him up. “You just got here.”

“Let me go, Sawyer,” I warned, trying to free my arms where he’d pinned them at my sides.

“Or what?” he taunted, dragging me back to his bed. “You going to cry to your could-care-less bitch of a mother, or maybe your wouldn’t-know-if-the-room-was-burning-down father? Or maybe all your friends that were mine before they were yours?” Reaching the side of the bed, he threw me down on the mattress, hovering over me. “Be a good little bitch and behave.” He looked purposefully at his nightstand where I knew he kept some kind of handgun. He’d explained it was to ward off intruders, but apparently it was also handy to threaten a girl into doing whatever he wanted. “Or I’ll have to make you.”

“God, Sawyer. Who the hell are you?” I said, grabbing the bottle rolling on the mattress and lobbing it at him. “You really had everyone fooled, didn’t you?”

“Not quite everyone,” he said, stretching his wet shirt above his head and tossing it into the corner. “Holly and Jude pretty much have my number, but look what that knowledge did to their reputations. If I were you, after tonight, I wouldn’t go crying in the streets to the townsfolk I’m some kind of monster.” He grinned down at me, his eyes wide with excitement. “Because, sweetie, they ain’t going to believe your story over mine.”

I scooted to the side of the bed, calculating how much time it would take me to get to the door, wondering if I could get there faster than Sawyer could get to me. Since he was standing between me and the door, the odds were not in my favor. “Why now? Why after months of being a ‘patient’ boyfriend are you doing this now?”

“Because I can,” he answered, his hands working over his belt. “And because I want to. That’s all the justification I need.”

I had to try. I had to make a run for it, because either way, Sawyer wasn’t going to stop.

“So your brilliant plan is to rape the girl you just had a fight with in front of witnesses, with two hundred people around?” I was trying to appeal to his intelligence, what little he had in his drunken, crazed state.

“No, my brilliant plan is having consensual sex with my girlfriend who’s going away in the fall and wants to have one last romantic night before we part ways,” he said, pulling his belt free and tossing it over with the shirt.

Shit. He’d thought this through. And I knew in a court of law, his story would be the one that would stick. Now was the time to run.

Scrambling across the bed, I dashed for the door and made it three strides before I took a clothesline to the neck. I fell to the floor, coughing, feeling like I was choking on my own throat.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying that again,” Sawyer said, standing over me, his hair leaking drops of lake water on my face.

Turning my head away, I tried to get my breath back. “One day, Sawyer Diamond,” I said between clipped breaths, “someone is going to stand over you the way you are me and kick your ass. And I’m going to have a front row seat.”

He dropped down on me, pinning me with his weight. Shoving my legs apart with his knees, he ran his tongue up my neck to the tip of my ear. “Maybe tomorrow,” he breathed into my ear, “but not tonight. No one’s coming to your rescue tonight.”

Wiggling my legs, trying to free them from his grasp, I lifted my head. “No, Sawyer,” I said, just outside his ear, “no one’s coming to your rescue.” And then that self-defense class my parents forced me to take when I was thirteen paid out its weight in gold. Sinking my teeth into his ear, I wiggled one leg free and planted my foot once, twice, and a third time into his crotch.