The bathroom door swung open slowly.
Thin wisps of steam drifted out into the room, and Elena walked through them whistling quietly to herself, the specific clean satisfaction of a hot shower after an hour of being rained on settling over her like a reward for good behavior.
Then she saw that the naked man on her couch was awake.
Raphael was half-sitting up, comforter draped across his lap, one knee bent, hand resting on it, head turned toward her.
Rain droplets still clung to his face, tracking slowly down the lines of his jaw and neck, pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.
"Do I have something strange on my face?"
His voice carried the roughness of someone freshly awake, and underneath it a quality that was almost lazy, almost indifferent, magnetic, and entirely too self-assured.
"N-no. Nothing. Nothing at all."
