"Prove it," she whispered.
So, he did.
Not fast. Not frantic. Not the desperate collision of bodies she might have braced for from someone half her age.
That was what would ruin her sleep for weeks afterward—the slow, deliberate certainty of it. The way he made her wait. The way he made her feel the wait, every heartbeat stretched thin and aching.
He simply looked at her.
One long, unhurried second after another, violet eyes tracing the shape of her face like he was memorizing every micro-expression: the faint, helpless tremor in her full lower lip, the way her pupils had swallowed the blue of her irises until only a thin ring remained, the rapid, frantic flutter at the base of her throat where her pulse hammered against pale skin like a trapped bird.
Then—only then—did he lift his hand.
So slowly it felt like deliberate cruelty.
