It was a small accident. A napkin slipping from her lap, fluttering silently to the floor between them. Everyone else kept talking, oblivious, while she leaned forward, preparing to retrieve it. He thought nothing of it at first—until her hand found his knee.
It happened as she bent low, her arm brushing along the edge of his leg, her palm settling lightly against him for balance. The touch was brief, incidental in appearance, yet far too steady to be dismissed as clumsiness. Her fingers spread slightly, pressing just enough that he felt the deliberate weight of them.
The fabric of his trousers did little to soften the contact. Heat spread upward, immediate and undeniable, as though her hand carried more intent than the motion required. She lingered there just a second too long, long enough for his breath to hitch, long enough for awareness to spark like a match.
When she straightened, napkin in hand, she let the rise be slow. Her palm slid against his knee before lifting away, a movement so subtle it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else. But not by him. For him, the sensation was etched in sharp relief—the warmth of her hand, the trace of pressure, the deliberate pace of her withdrawal.
She smoothed the napkin back into place on her lap, smiling faintly as though nothing unusual had occurred. But her eyes flicked toward him, quick and knowing, catching the tension in his posture, the way his jaw had tightened in silence.
The entire moment had lasted no more than a handful of seconds, yet it shifted the air between them. The others laughed at some passing joke, oblivious, while he sat rooted in the awareness of what she had done.
It wasn’t the hand itself—it was the choice behind it. She could have avoided him entirely, bent differently, brushed the table instead. But she hadn’t. She had chosen him, chosen that contact, chosen to let her hand rest just long enough that he would feel it not as accident but as intention.
Long after, when she rose from her chair and moved away, he could still sense it—the echo of her touch burning faintly against his knee. A mark no one else could see, but one that left him restless, aware, and utterly unable to dismiss her from his thoughts.