She stepped out of the tree line.
The wet sand under her bare feet was cold. She walked toward the waterline. Toward him. Her footsteps were quiet — the specific, soft impact of bare feet on packed sand, not quite soundless but not carrying over the sound of the ocean.
She was close enough to see clearly.
He was naked.
She stopped.
Not the dramatic stop of someone who had not expected this. She had expected this — he'd said he needed to wash, and she had known, walking here, that naked was the logical state for washing. She had known. She had walked here anyway.
She had just — she needed to see it. The specific, unreasonable need of a body that had been accumulating evidence all day and into the night and needed to collect the final piece.
He turned.
The moonlight caught the front of him.
Preet clasped her hand over her mouth.
Her eyes went wide.
