It started as a touch so casual he almost missed it. Her palm, flat against his chest, resting over the slow thump of his heartbeat. She didn’t lean in closer. She didn’t even smile. But she held it there long enough for him to register the warmth, the way her fingers splayed slightly as if testing the shape of him beneath the fabric.
Then—without a single change in expression—her hand began to move. Not down in one obvious motion, but in a slow, wandering drift, her fingertips tracing the edge of his ribcage before sliding over the soft fabric of his shirt. The air between them felt charged, every centimeter of that movement heavier than a spoken word.
He tried to keep his breathing steady. Her eyes stayed locked on his, as though she was measuring how much he’d let her get away with. When her hand reached the midpoint between his chest and stomach, she paused—not because she was uncertain, but because she wanted him to feel the pause. The anticipation was its own kind of pressure.
And then her fingers continued, brushing lower, just enough to make him tense. Her nails grazed through the thin cotton, a barely-there scrape that sent a pulse of heat up his spine. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. In that silence, every inch her hand traveled said more than a dozen whispered sentences could.