Every word landed like a tap to a bruise I tried not to think about. My jaw clenched.
“What exactly are you proposing?” I asked, even though some desperate, half-starved part of me already knew.
Her lips parted, tongue darting out to wet the bottom one. That tiny movement punched straight through my stomach.
“I’m proposing,” she said slowly, like she was picking her way across thin ice, “that you need ... a safe space to figure out how your body works now. What feels good. What doesn’t. Where the limits are and where they aren’t.”
A hollow laugh scraped my throat. “Kind of hard to book lab time for that.”
Her chin lifted a fraction. “You don’t need a lab.” She swallowed as her hands opened. “You have me.”
The room tilted, just a hair.
I frowned. “What?”
She took another step closer, until the toe of her foot bumped the edge of the rug. Her scent wrapped around me, skin washed clean with cold air, the softer scent underneath that was just her.
“I mean,” she rushed on, words tumbling faster now, “I’m here. I’m not a stranger. You trust me. Mostly.” Her mouth hitched. “We’re already ... doing this weird roommate emotional PT thing. It wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to ... expand the syllabus.”
“Syllabus,” I repeated, because my brain had temporarily forgotten what language was.
“It’s like PT,” she said, eyes bright, hands flying as she talked. “Except way more fun. We figure out what positions work with your leg, which ones don’t, how you like to move now, what feels good, what you need. No pressure. No audience. No expectations you have to live up to except your own.”
My cock hardened so fast it hurt.
Images slammed into me, sharp and visceral—Clara straddling my lap on this couch, fingers in my hair, my hands gripping her thighs while she rode me. Another of her knees bracketing my hips in that damn bed upstairs I’d barely started sleeping in again. Clara bent over the kitchen counter, cheek pressed to the cool surface, my hand fisted in her hair as I sank into her from behind, testing how deep I could go.
I shifted, praying she couldn’t see how obvious my physical reaction was.
“Clara,” I said, voice rough, but she was already barreling ahead, nerves sharpening her words.
“You’d get to practice,” she said, cheeks flushing deeper now. “Without worrying you’re going to disappoint somebody or freak them out or have to explain every single thing in your head. You don’t have to fake confidence for me. You don’t have to pretend you’re fine with angles or speed or whatever else your brain is screaming about. We just ... figure it out together.”
Her throat worked on a swallow. For a second the bravado slipped and I could see the nerves trembling under it.
“It’s like friends,” she finished quietly, mouth curving into a grin. “Friends with some really good benefits.”
Silence stretched between us, thick as steam.
Her eyes stayed on my face, searching, and she braced. Like she fully expected me to laugh or tell her she’d lost her mind, like she was already rehearsing how to pretend it didn’t matter when I did.
My body had its own opinion.
Heat poured through me, low and heavy, pooling where I could do exactly nothing about it except breathe and try not to shift too much. Every place I’d touched her earlier in the snow felt vivid again—the curve of her ass under my hands, the soft drag of her tongue against mine, the way she’d moaned into my mouth when I’d pulled her down harder.
She was offering me all of that on purpose this time. No accident. No adrenaline excuse. Nowe tripped and fell into a kiss.
“Fuck,” I breathed, the word leaving me before I could stop it.
Her fingers laced. “Is that a ... goodfuckor a badfuck?”
My laugh came out broken. “Complicated.”
My best friend’s words dug in under my ribs like barbs. He trusted me. Hell, he looked at me like I was still the guy he’d grown up with, not the half-built version limping around my own life.
“You want me to use you as ... practice?” I slowly dragged my gaze back to her, because looking away felt dangerous for different reasons. “To test-drive my fucked-up sex life on you?”
Her nose scrunched. “That is truly the worst phrasing I have ever heard.”
