She listened carefully, her eyes fixed on his mouth as he spoke. His words weren’t anything extraordinary—ordinary conversation, polite enough—but the cadence of his voice, the firmness of his tone, had a way of drawing her in. And then it happened. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, biting down softly, almost unconsciously. At least, that’s how it would appear. In truth, the bite was no accident. It was a signal, quiet but potent. She wanted him to notice, to see the flicker of tension in her mouth, to imagine what it might mean that she couldn’t keep her lips still while he spoke.
Her lip softened beneath the pressure of her teeth, released only to be caught again, glistening faintly under the light. Every time he shifted his words, she shifted her mouth in response, as though her body was answering him without permission. He saw it, and the rhythm of his speech faltered for just an instant. That was enough. She had reached him. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes never breaking from his, her teeth grazing her lip again, slower this time, deliberate. She wasn’t only hearing his words anymore. She was imagining them differently—imagining his voice lower, closer, meant for her alone. Her lip was the only part of her body bold enough to confess it.
When he finally paused, the silence grew thick, charged by the weight of everything unsaid. She let go of her lip then, the skin reddened, tender, as though marked by the secret she had been keeping. A faint smile curved across her mouth, the kind that revealed nothing but promised everything. She didn’t need to speak—her lip had already betrayed her. She had bitten it because she was picturing him, because her thoughts were no longer polite, because she wanted him to imagine what else she might do if he ever closed the distance between them. And he did imagine it, vividly, helplessly, unable to look away from the mouth that had given him a glimpse of her desire.