The words were almost irrelevant. They dissolved the moment they left her lips, fading into the air between them. What remained, what clung to him long after, was the sensation of her breath against his ear.
She had leaned in slowly, deliberately, closing the distance until her cheek hovered close to his. Her voice dropped into a whisper, soft and controlled, the kind that forces the listener to lean closer, to surrender attention completely. But it wasn’t the sound that undid him. It was the warmth. Her breath brushed his skin, a fleeting caress more intimate than touch itself.
He struggled to register the meaning of what she said. The syllables slipped past him, drowned by the nearness of her presence. He could smell her—something faint, familiar, and unsettlingly personal. Her hair grazed his temple as she leaned closer still, her lips so near he felt them shape the words more than he heard them.
His pulse spiked, traitorous, and he prayed she didn’t notice. But of course she did. The old woman’s smile when she leaned back was small, measured, and far too certain. She had known what effect she would have before she even leaned in. Her whisper had not been about communication—it had been about power.
The heat of her breath lingered. It clung to his ear, to his neck, spreading down into his chest until he found himself restless, unmoored. He could still feel the ghost of it long after she had settled back into her seat, her expression composed, as though nothing had passed between them.
He tried to recall the words, to anchor himself in their meaning, but they were gone. All that remained was sensation—the warmth, the closeness, the quiet reminder that she could lean into him, break into his composure, and leave him undone with something as simple as an exhale.
It wasn’t what she said. It was how she said it. And he knew she understood that perfectly. She had left him with nothing but silence, yet the silence itself was louder than anything spoken aloud.