Page 60 of The Season
I should push free of his grasp, should wake him up, but laying this close to him, with his eyes closed—I feel like I’m looking at him for the first time.
And maybe I am.
We’ve spent nearly every waking minute training together for the past two weeks, but I haven’t really looked at him. I’ve laughed with him and sat with him on the chairlift or in my car. I’ve cast him smiling glances as we raced through tree runs or made fresh tracks in powder. But I haven’t really looked at him. Not like this.
He’s beautiful, if a giant of a man can be called that. Golden hair tucked around his ears, curling at the nape of his neck, resting across his forehead. There’s the hint of pale stubble along his jaw and cheeks, not a beard, barely even a day’s worth of growth, but enough that it has me wondering what it would feel like between my thighs.
Which is… completely inappropriate.
His eyes fly open, and my breath gusts out of me. Blue eyes meet my own, blinking with warmth and hunger and the dazed but happy confusion of someone who has just been given a gift they weren’t expecting—and I remember why I haven’t spent much time looking at him.
This close to him, with his eyes locked on mine and his expression so open, it’s like I can see into his soul, and it’s terrifying. He’s good—like spun sugar or fresh snow or gold sunlight. He’s exactly what my parents probably hoped I would be—pure and sweet and gentle, innocent without being naïve. Kind.
I swallow, and wonder briefly if he can see all the darkness in my own soul, like I can see his light.
I kissed Eddie.
“Good morning,” he murmurs, and there’s a flash of dimples before his smile falls, uncertainty taking its place. “We… uh… we decided to have you sleep in here. Sorry. Tom had a girl in your room and…” Matty trails off, his cheeks flaring pink, letting me know exactly what Tom was doing in my room.
Gross.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
Despite Tom bringing different women home with him almost every night, he still manages to leer at me every chance he gets, only to laugh it off when I confront him. I’m starting to consider sleeping on the couch, but it feels too much like defeat. Like waving the white flag in the silent battle of wills Tom and I are locked in.
Matty’s eyes drop to my lips, his pupils dilating before flicking back up to meet my own. His throat bobs, and the blush staining his cheeks deepens. He untangles his fingers from my hair and tucks his hand under his chin, his jaw clenching as a look of determination crosses his features.
“There… there’s something I need to tell you.” His eyes squeeze shut, and he gives a shuddering breath. “I probably should have told you a while ago…”
My heart hammers in my chest, painfully beating against my ribs, making my throat tighten. I know where this is going.
“I… um… I really like you. A lot.” The blush staining his cheeks stretches up to his forehead, dipping down to the collar of his worn T-shirt. “I’ve never felt this way about a girl before,” he continues, his voice going deep, raspy. “It’s like… I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
His eyes widen, searching my own for an answer that I can’t give him. I flinch as the familiar feeling of guilt settles in the pit of my stomach.I’ve hurt him. I’m going to hurt him. Just like with all my friends back home.
For some reason, the thought of having hurt him—this incredible, precious human—it cuts deeper than anything I’ve done before.
“But I kissed Eddie,” I say, reminding him of why I’m not good. Why he shouldn’t have these feelings for me.
He gives a one-shouldered shrug, the hint of a resigned smile curving his lips. “I know.”
I gape at him, trying to make sense of that response.
“Do you like him?” he asks, his brow dipping, smile falling. “Last night you said you regretted it…”
I bite the inside of my cheek, contemplating.
Do I regret kissing Eddie? That’s… complicated. I know I shouldn’t have kissed him. He’s my roommate, and I’d just told him how much I’d wanted to be his friend before throwing myself at him.
But that kiss… even in the midst of my slightly drunken haze, that kiss had been incredible, driving a surging heat through my entire body that couldn’t entirely be attributed to the whiskey. I’dwantedin a way I haven’t wanted in months, maybe longer. It was different than the general neediness I sometimes get—the kind that requires little more than a few moments in the shower to satisfy.
I’d wantedhim.
“I don’t know,” I admit weakly.
Matty’s heat presses against me through the blankets, and an almost dizzying sense of need courses through me, a desire that goes beyond the need for a physical outlet. It echoes what I felt with Eddie last night—a pull in my very bones, a hunger, an ache.
I swallow, feeling slightly sick.
