She could’ve just picked it up.
The dropped scarf, lying innocently near the table leg, wasn’t important. But the way she reached for it… was. She didn’t squat. She didn’t crouch. She bent—from the waist—slowly, deliberately, as though time itself had been stretched just for her.
The curve of her back became the shape of suggestion. Her hips shifted as she leaned, one hand pressed to the table’s edge for balance. And in that pause—brief but weaponized—he forgot what they were even talking about.
She knew he was watching. That was the point.
The angle. The sway. The stillness before rising again.
When she stood, she didn’t straighten too quickly. She let the motion unfold like silk—unrushed, unbothered—and smoothed her skirt at the hip like nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
He cleared his throat. She turned to him and raised one brow, casually.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he lied.
Because if he told her what that motion had stirred in him, he might never stop.