Sabrina felt her heart thudding against her ribs, a heavy, rhythmic pulse. The joke, the bragging, the sheer, unashamed confidence of him—it was working. It was stripping away her defenses, not by force, but by making her want to let them fall.
The steam in the bathroom seemed to thicken, turning the air into a heavy, humid veil that made every movement feel sluggish and dreamlike. Sabrina felt a sudden, sharp spike of vertigo, not from the scotch but from the realization that Mike wasn't just telling a story about a stranger.
When he spoke of the professor at Valcrest, the one who teased the intellect with a sliver of skin, the one who left a trail of frustrated, dreaming men in her wake, Sabrina felt a hot prickle of recognition crawl up her spine.
'He knows,' she thought, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. 'He's not just talking about a professor; he's talking about me.'
