It should have been nothing. A simple gesture, the kind of thing people do without thought. But when she lifted her hand, when her fingers brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, he noticed something he shouldn’t have.
Her fingers trembled. Just slightly, but enough to make the ordinary feel charged. The tremor betrayed something words never could: nerves, hesitation, desire, maybe all three at once. She wasn’t clumsy—far from it. Every other part of her carried the poise of someone practiced in control. Which was why that tiny shake, that slip in composure, struck him so deeply.
She sat across from him, her eyes lowered as her hand lingered near her cheek longer than it should have. She could have smoothed her hair and been done with it. Instead, her fingers stayed close, tracing the line of her jaw as though caught between finishing the gesture and allowing it to become something else entirely.
His gaze followed every movement. The way her knuckles brushed the edge of her cheekbone. The way her nails pressed lightly into her skin. And beneath it all, that trembling—so slight it might have been invisible to anyone else.
She must have felt his eyes on her, because she smiled faintly, as though to mask the shake. But the mask only deepened the effect. A woman who usually hid everything had just revealed more than she intended, and that revelation held him captive.
When she finally lowered her hand, resting it on the table, he saw the faintest curl of her fingers, as if they still carried the memory of the touch. And he couldn’t help but wonder: was the tremble from uncertainty, or from anticipation?
The question lingered, heavy, between them. And as she reached for her glass, her hand brushing close to his, he realized he didn’t care which answer it was. Both meant she was affected. Both meant she wasn’t untouchable after all.
And that was enough to unravel him.