"'I love her,'" he said.
Flat. The flat, quiet, present, at-her-ear delivery of a sentence said at the specific, low, for-her-first register — and then he pinched, the flat, deliberate, full-finger, specific-location pinch of someone who had the location and was applying the specific pressure that produced the specific response.
"'—AAAHN~!!!—'" The immediate, high, not-managed, not-at-the-volume-she-intended sound of it leaving her at the full, honest, body-reporting-before-management-could-catch-it volume.
Her hands went to his forearms.
The flat, both-hands, fingers-finding-his-forearms, present grip of someone who needed something to hold.
The daughter was looking.
The flat, brown-eyed, wide, completely-occupied, everything-else-gone looking of a girl who had been watching this unfold and was watching it at the specific, present, I-am-processing-multiple-things-simultaneously quality of someone receiving several categories of new information at once.
The mother's face.
