A sound.
From the house.
Not from the garden entrance. From the upper terrace — the one with the French doors that opened above the pool area. The doors swung open with a casual disregard for how doors usually work.
And then there was a man.
He walked out from the terrace doors and onto the balcony rail — and didn't stop. Just stepped off it. Twelve feet of drop. He landed on the poolside marble without bending his knees in any of the ways a human body would need to, his bare feet touching the tile with a sound like nothing at all, and straightened.
Barefoot. Wearing nothing but low-slung trousers that he appeared to have located with minimal effort. Dark hair. The kind of face that landed wrong in the world — too sharp, too deliberate, the features of something that had been assembled with intent rather than born.
And his cock.
