TANNER
Afucking massage. What was I thinking? I shut my bedroom door behind me and look down at the raging boner pushing against my sweatpants.
Fuck.
I should have stopped it the minute I told her I wanted to make her feel good, but I didn’t. She was hurting, and despite telling myself for weeks that she deserves better than me and trying my best to maintain physical distance between us since I fucked my palm to the thought of her pleasuring herself, I just couldn’t stop myself from trying to make her pain go away.
She’s moaned before, but that moan? That moan changed something in my DNA, and now that I’ve heard it, I’ll never be the same.
I strip my clothes, and my dick springs free. Checking the temperature of the water, I step into the shower. For a split second, I consider using my hand again to put me out of my misery, but when I close my eyes, my brain is flooded with visions of Wren, and I know I shouldn’t. Not again. Not now. She probably already thinks I’m a freak for running away like I did. I don’t need her accidentally overhearing me jacking offafter I was just massaging her. No, that would be terrible. I slam the handle to cold and turn the water to ice.
Quickly, I get dressed again and dry my hair with a towel. When I walk out, she’s laying on the couch watching the movie.
“Did you shower?” she asks, confused.
“Oh…yeah.” Shit, I didn’t think that through at all. “I, uh, I remembered I forgot to take one this morning after the gym, so I took a quick one. Felt like I stunk.”
Felt like I stunk? Smooth.
“You’re so weird,” she laughs. “You want me to rewind the movie?”
“Sure.” I join her back on the couch, and she grabs the remote. “Hey, I’m sorry if the massage was too much earlier. I didn’t mean to bail like that when you, um…”
“Moaned,” she laughs, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. “You have no reason to be sorry. The massage was really nice. My moan was weird.”
Your moan was hot.
We both laugh nervously, and she lays down on the other side of the couch, beginning to rewind the movie.
“So, we’re good?” I ask, trying to relax into the cushions.
“Yeah, we’re good.”
The movie begins again, and I do my best to focus on the TV, but my mind keeps wandering to places it shouldn’t. We are friends. She is my temporary roommate. I shouldn’t be staring at her, and I shouldn’t have touched her, but damn I liked it.
For the next hour and a half, we watch the movie, and the only sound that fills the apartment is the sound of our laughter.
“I think I might go jump in the shower, see if it makes me feel better,” she says once the credits roll.
“That’s fine. I’ll be out here. You getting hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Then we’ll eat when you're done.” I check my phone, and it looks like the grocery delivery I ordered is five minutes away. While I wait, I move Wren’s sheets into the dryer, and then once the groceries have been delivered, I collect the bags from the front step and begin working on our dinner.
I’m blending all of the ingredients together with an immersion blender when I hear her bathroom door open.
“Whatcha cookin’?” she asks, appearing in the entrance to the kitchen a minute later.
“Carrot and ginger soup. I read online that ginger can help cramps, so I figured it might help you feel better.”
Her mouth parts in surprise. “You’re making me ginger soup to help with my cramps?”
“Well, I don’t actually know if it will, but I thought it was worth a shot. Are you feeling any better?”
“Kinda. The shower helped, but I’m still a little crampy.” She rubs her hand along her midriff.
Her eyes find the pile of grocery bags on the kitchen table. “What’s all this?” she asks, gesturing to them.
