Dinner was almost too ordinary to notice. Plates clinked, low conversations hummed, silverware tapped against porcelain. Yet in the middle of it all, there was her—and the way she turned a mundane moment into something charged. The salt was on his side of the table, close enough for her to reach, though she could have easily asked him to pass it. Instead, she leaned forward, stretching her arm across him.
The movement wasn’t hurried. Her body tilted toward him, the curve of her shoulder brushing against his sleeve, then her chest grazing his arm in a way that was unmistakable. It lingered, soft pressure that made his pulse quicken before she even touched the shaker. She could have pulled back instantly, could have retrieved what she needed and retreated. But she didn’t. She lingered in that reach, her breath brushing his cheek, the faint warmth of her body radiating against his side.
The air shifted. The sound of laughter from the other end of the table blurred into background noise, leaving him caught in the space she had closed. Her perfume—something subtle, floral with a sharper note beneath—wrapped around him, pulling him deeper into her presence. She pretended focus, eyes fixed on the salt, as though nothing unusual was happening, but the deliberate slowness of her gesture betrayed her.
Finally, her fingers curled around the shaker. She paused a beat longer than necessary before drawing back, her chest brushing him again, slower this time, as though sealing the contact rather than excusing it. Her lips tilted into a faint smile as she set the shaker down beside her plate, her eyes not quite meeting his. It was casual on the surface, a simple action, but beneath it all was a deliberate message: she didn’t need to touch him openly to make him feel her.
He tried to steady his breath, tried to focus on his food, but the memory of that soft graze burned against his arm. It wasn’t the salt she had reached for—it was him, and she had taken what she wanted without ever asking aloud.