It started as nothing more than a shift. The table was narrow, their chairs tucked close, and in the small space between, her hand moved casually. At first, he thought she was reaching for her glass, adjusting her napkin, anything ordinary. But then her fingers slipped sideways, brushing lightly against the fabric stretched over his thigh. The contact was subtle, feather-light, but it carried the unmistakable charge of intent. His breath caught before he could stop it, a reaction so immediate that it betrayed him. Her hand didn’t linger in a way that would draw suspicion—no, she let it drift just long enough for him to feel it, then pulled it back with a precision that felt far too careful to be innocent.
She pretended not to notice. Her gaze stayed on her plate, her expression unchanged, her voice steady as she spoke about something entirely mundane. Yet beneath that calm exterior, he could sense the deliberate orchestration of it. The brush of her fingers replayed in his mind, looping, amplifying, growing heavier with each repetition in memory. His leg burned where she had touched, his body taut with anticipation, waiting—hoping—for her hand to wander again. She was in control because she didn’t acknowledge it. By pretending it hadn’t happened, she turned it into something forbidden, something secret, a moment owned only by the two of them in a room full of others.
When it happened again—so slight, so fleeting—he knew it was no accident. Her fingers traced the same line along his thigh, a whisper of contact that lingered in sensation long after she had withdrawn. She carried on her conversation with perfect composure, but he felt his restraint unraveling thread by thread. She was playing with silence, with denial, with the unbearable tension of pretending. Her touch wasn’t a request; it was a command masked in carelessness. By the time her hand finally stilled in her lap, he wasn’t listening to words anymore. He was caught in the memory of her skin against his, caught in the knowledge that she could undo him completely without anyone else even noticing. It was just her fingers, just a graze—but it was enough to make the air between them charged, dangerous, alive.