She felt the weight of the pause between them. His silence wasn’t awkward—it was charged. Every second he didn’t speak was another second her body leaned, her breath caught, her chest brushing just close enough for him to notice. She wanted him to know that sometimes quiet can say everything a man is too careful to admit.
When she leaned closer, the world around them blurred. It wasn’t conversation that pulled her in, it was the unspoken invitation in his stillness. He didn’t need to charm her with clever lines or practiced gestures; his restraint was the very thing that made her daring. Each inch she closed was her testing how far silence could take them.
By the time her shoulder nearly grazed his, she realized he hadn’t moved away. That was all the answer she needed. Silence became complicity, and in that wordless space, she felt the danger that drew her back again and again. The risk was never in what he said—it was in what he refused to say.