The strike of lightning would have been less shocking to his senses than how his body instantly reacted to the image on the screen.
It was as though his spine had suddenly been connected to an electric current that jumbled up all the signals in his body. Something shifted low and unhurried in Santiago's chest and moved further south before he had time to catalogue or refuse it, and he went still in the way of a man who has been caught off guard by his own body and has not yet decided how he feels about that.
He knew, on reflection, that he shouldn't be surprised. He had eyes after all and had assessed her objectively from the first moment he set his eyes on her, although not in the way Derrick had accused. He had simply observed. But there was a difference between observation and this.
