[Ava's POV]
The silence after the electric touch was not empty; it was a plenum, a vessel filled to bursting with unspent energy. The air in Lucien's sterile, sunlit kitchen seemed to thicken, charged like the moment before a lightning strike. Ava’s hand, pressed against the frantic drum of her own heart, still vibrated with the phantom echo of the spark.
It was a brand, a secret sigil written in pure sensation. Across the cold expanse of marble, Lucien stood motionless at the sink, his back a tense mural of discipline barely containing chaos. He wasn’t cleaning the plate. He was holding it under a stream of water as if the coolness could somehow quench the fire that had just leapt between them.
The bond, once a subtle shift in atmosphere, a new layer of scent, now announced itself as
