Page 154 of Unloved

Matt Fredderic is the hottest man I’ve ever seen—he was when I was a freshman, freshly eighteen and could count on one hand the number of boys I’d been that close to. Now, he’s breathtaking, stretched out across his messy bed, though the floor is clear.

“Did you clean in here?” I ask after my shower.

He huffs and scratches the back of his neck self-consciously. “Yeah. I wasn’t assuming we’d come here, but I… I wanted it to look nicer for you.”

“Do you have a shirt I could wear?”

My face heats up as soon as I ask. I wait for him to call me on it—he just spent fifteen minutes in an idling car waiting for me to stuff my things into a bag, and now I’m asking him for clothes that I definitely have.

“Yeah.” He nods like a bobblehead, stalling for a second before jumping into action.

Rifling through one of his drawers, he grabs an old volunteershirt from some Christmas event. It’s soft and well worn, and most important, it smells like him.

After thanking him, I turn to face away from him and drop my towel brazenly, slipping the shirt up and over my head before pulling my messy bun down, letting my curls cascade down my back over the green material.

Everything feels lighter now, instead of the weight of some unknown responsibility that being Tyler’s girlfriend always came with. There are no games, no constant second-guessing or fear that I’m going to misstep or do something wrong. I don’t feel anxiety over the future, just a thrilling excitement for what’s next.

Matt is by the bed now, eyes blinking like an owl, unable to tear his gaze from the length of my legs. It makes my stride that much more confident before I’m crawling onto the end of the bed and relaxing into the sheets with a soft, calculated groan.

Matt audibly swallows, watching me intently.

“Ro?”

“Matt?”

“I, um… You’re really pretty.”

I smirk happily up at him. “Are you gonna just stand there or come cuddle me?”

“I’d like to do more than cuddle you,” he blurts, flicking the lights off and his bedside lamp on before coming to the foot of the bed to face me where I’m sitting.

“How do your feet feel?” he asks, his voice calm and sweet. But I can’t focus on anything except him kneeling in front of me, knowing I’m wearing nothing but his shirt. Knowingheknows I’m wearing nothing but his shirt.

“Swollen,” I say. Matt is all athlete, where I’m tall with the athletic abilities of a toddler learning to walk. Bambi on ice, Sadie would call it. So the nonexistent muscles in my core and legs are aching, and my feet have a heartbeat.

He lifts my foot and massages the sole, a moan crawling from my throat.

“Does that feel good?”

My imagination is going to get me arrested for public indecency at this rate. There’s not an ounce of heat in his voice, but I might as well have heard him say, “Do you want me to get naked for you, princess?”

“Uh-huh.”

Matt looks at me like he knows exactly how low my thoughts have gone, which only makes the heated blush on my cheeks feel so warm I’m convinced I’ve been lit on fire.

He works on each foot slowly, pulling obscene noises from my mouth as his hands rub leisurely up my calves to the underside of my knees. I shiver. His touch grows softer, more teasing than anything.

As he works his hands up, up, up my thighs, my entire body feels shaky, hands trembling as I struggle to hold myself up. He’s standing now, to lean over me.

“We should have sex.”

The sentence spills out of me, syllables rushing together until they’re one long word.

“Should we?” Matt asks teasingly, not letting up where his thumb works the inside of my thigh. I nod like a cartoon character in my eagerness, head bobbing outlandishly.

“Yes, but…”

The fire goes out, my body feeling cooler as Tyler’s voice lurks at the edges of my mind.

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