Impulse
Dr. Sawyer Culver woke up lacking three things Sunday morning: any solid recollection of the past ten hours, every last shred of his dignity, and his boxer briefs.
This realization came to him before he could even open his eyes.
He lay there without stirring — afraid to move, truth be told.
His head throbbed with a sharp, ice-pick pain at the temples and base of his skull.
His mouth was so dry his teeth stuck to his lips, and his tongue felt like a dirty sock wedged inside of it.
Every inch of his body ached as if he’d run a marathon yesterday.
As soon as he could summon the courage, he cracked one eye open in hopes of figuring out where he was, groaning against the bright beam of sunlight that nailed him directly from a skylight above.
An unfamiliar low-slung white shelving unit loomed a couple feet away from him, away from the bed he, naked as the day he’d been born, was apparently lying on.
The top shelf was cluttered with so much random crap it made his head hurt more — a sloppy stack of library books, various pieces of clothing (some of them distractingly lacy), a white teddy bear wearing ballet slippers and holding a pink heart that said my girl. ..
A woman’s bedroom.
He closed his eye to the scene and waited for relief. None came, of course.
Sawyer racked his pounding, dehydrated brain for a glimmer of anything concerning last night and an explanation for why he could suddenly relate to what a dying fish that’d washed up onshore must feel like.
His little sister’s wedding had been yesterday afternoon.
Rachel had swept Cale, her firefighter groom, away on a surprise honeymoon midafternoon.
Sawyer had been fine at that point. Maybe a little buzzed off the wine and champagne that had flowed freely, but he’d been fully cognizant of the goofy grins stuck on the bride’s and groom’s faces.
Matter of fact, it was that palpable happiness he’d enthusiastically drunk his first shot to with a fair number of San Amaro Island’s bravest.
Those fucking firefighters could drink.
Tequila. The good stuff. None of that cheap crap that made a man grimace as it went down. Smooooth. Too damn smooth.
He lay there unmoving, slowly cataloguing snippets from the evening in an attempt to piece it all together. To figure out the last thing he could remember.
Mariah.
Mariah Jackson, the groom’s sexy, salsa-dancing sister. Her face came to mind at the same time he felt movement beside him.
Ah, shit.