It was in the quiet pause of the evening that his gaze lingered on her a little longer than it should have. She noticed immediately—the way men do when they’re silently measuring, silently admiring, or silently desiring. And though she was an old woman, long past the years when society considered her gaze-worthy, she felt the familiar heat rise beneath her skin.
She lowered her eyes, of course. It was instinct, a reflex learned through decades of modesty and restraint. But what she did not do was equally telling—she did not turn away. She allowed the space between them to hum, allowed the silence to carry the weight of his eyes still resting upon her.
His attention unsettled her, and yet it steadied her in the strangest way. There was something delicious about being caught in his look, as though he had discovered a secret in her face that even she had forgotten. Her hands tightened around the porcelain cup in front of her, not because she feared it might slip, but because she needed something to ground herself from the sudden current in the air.
When she finally looked up again, briefly, his gaze had not moved. She felt a tremor pass through her chest, a whisper of something she thought she had buried with her younger self. Her lips parted, but no words came. She wanted to tell him to stop, to laugh it off, to break the spell—but instead, she let the silence deepen, as though daring him to keep staring.
There was danger in it, she knew. Not the kind of danger that shatters reputations, but the kind that awakens desires you thought you had locked away. His look made her remember her body—not as something aged and worn, but as something still capable of stirring attention, of being wanted. She lowered her eyes again, this time slower, as though acknowledging the power in the game.
She should have turned away. She should have broken the moment. But the truth was, she didn’t want to. For the first time in years, the old woman allowed herself to feel seen—fully, dangerously, intimately seen. And she let him look.