I watched it happen in real-time. Her breath caught—audible even from across the room. Her wine glass froze halfway to her lips. Her entire body went rigid, every muscle tensing like she'd been struck by lightning.
Her pupils dilated immediately. The wine glass in her hand trembled. A visible shiver ran through her—starting at her shoulders and cascading down her spine. Her lips parted, breath coming faster, shallower.
Dissolving the walls she'd built. Surfacing desires she'd buried under seventeen years of being Antonio Torres's wife. Making her feel things that should've been impossible.
She was forty-three. I was sixteen. Her daughter's fiancé. Every logical part of her brain was screaming that this was wrong, inappropriate, impossible.
But her body didn't care about logic.
The aura whispered to something primal in her. Something that recognized strength, power, virility.
