Chapter 3: Massage Lessons
The image seemed burned onto the back of her eyelids. That thick, soft weight. The casual swing of it. She managed to wrench her gaze upward, over the damp trail of hair, the flat plane of his stomach, back to his face. Her own cheeks were on fire.
“No, I’m sorry,” she blurted, her voice too high. “I should have knocked.”
Matt just chuckled, a warm, easy sound in the steamy room. He finally lifted the towel from his neck, giving his hair one more vigorous rub before draping it over his shoulder. It did nothing to obscure him. “Seriously, no bigs. Your house, your rules. I’m just the moocher.” He leaned a hip against the sink, the movement fluid and unselfconscious. “Dorm life kinda kills the whole privacy thing anyway. You get used to it.”
Get used to it. The phrase echoed in her head, absurd and impossible. She would never get used to this. Her heart was a frantic bird against her ribs. She stared resolutely at the space between his eyebrows, a neutral zone. The scent of him—clean skin, male heat, that sharp soap—was overwhelming.
“Right,” she said, the word brittle. “College.”
“Yeah, communal showers build character, or that’s what they tell you.” He grinned, running a hand through his now-tousled hair. “Mostly they just build a serious lack of modesty. Hope I didn’t totally scar you.”
He was teasing. He was genuinely, kindly teasing her, standing there fully nude, water still evaporating from his shoulders. The normality of his tone clashed violently with the reality of the scene. Debbie’s mouth was dry. She forced a laugh that came out as a nervous cough. “I’ll survive.”