She's been aware of him for fifteen minutes now.
It started when she came in and saw that the table by the window was free. She’d almost turned around when she saw the queue, but it was Saturday, and she had nowhere else to be, so she’d ordered her latte and claimed the seat anyway. 

She noticed him then, vaguely, as just another body in a chair, laptop open, headphones around his neck, the sort of good-looking you clock and forget.
Not staring. Just aware. The way you're aware of something warm in a cold room, a presence you keep not looking at because you know the moment you do look, it's going to be a problem.

She keeps her eyes on the window. Her latte is cooling in her hands. The street outside is doing the ordinary Saturday morning thing: people with bags and pushchairs and nowhere particular to be, and she can feel him looking at her from across the room with the kind of focus that prickles the back of your neck. She pretends it’s her imagination. She tells herself he’s probably looking past her, at the window, at the world.

She looks back.
Just once. Just to check.

He's already watching. Dark eyes, steady, not smiling yet, chin resting on his hand like he's got all the time in the world, like he's been doing this for a while and doesn't mind being caught.
She looks away.

She picks up her latte, takes a sip, and watches a woman outside wrestle a pushchair over a kerb. She tells herself she's not going to look back. Then she thinks about the work emails she’s avoiding, the laundry waiting in the machine at home, and the fact she’s wearing her old, faded leggings and no mascara, and that she should not be entertaining this.
She looks back toward him.

He's still watching. This time, the corner of his mouth lifts, slow and certain, like he already knows something she doesn't, and she feels it between her legs before she's even processed it properly.
She doesn't look away.
Neither does he.

They stay like that for a moment, just looking, the coffee shop doing its Saturday thing around them, and something in her chest does a stupid, hopeful thing that she ignores completely. Then he puts down his cup and stands up, and she sees him crossing the room toward her, unhurried, hands in his pockets, and she doesn't pretend to look at her phone or suddenly find something fascinating outside the window; she just watches him come.

He stops at her table.
Looks down at her.
He says nothing for a second, just looks, and she can feel her pulse fluttering.
Then, quietly, he leans toward her, whispering, ‘Follow me.’

She registers it. Sits with it for exactly one second, the weight of what she's about to do landing briefly and clearly. In that second, she thinks about how she’ll explain this to herself later, whether she’ll tell it as a story or file it under mistakes.
She shouldn't. She knows she shouldn't.
She stands up anyway.

Past the counter, past the little display of overpriced flapjacks, down the short corridor past the staff door, to the single toilet at the end. He holds the door. She goes in. He follows. The lock clicks behind them.

The space is small. One sink, one toilet, one bare bulb. It smells of bleach and someone's floral hand soap. It's grubby and bright, and she loves it anyway.
He turns to her, and she's already reaching for him, and then his mouth is on her neck, and his hands are at her waistband, and he shoves her leggings halfway down her thighs, not all the way, no time, just enough, and his fingers push her knickers aside and find her and…

'Christ,' he says against her neck.
'I know,' she says.
She turns around without being asked, hands flat on the cold tiles, and she hears his zip, and then he's pushing inside her from behind, no easing into it, just one long hard stroke that makes her gasp and press her forehead against the wall.
And then he fucks her.

Properly fucks her, hands gripping her hips through her bunched-up leggings, driving into her hard and fast, the slap of skin loud in the tiny tiled room, the muffled roar of the coffee machine through the wall, the thin strip of light under the door; everyone outside is completely unaware.

‘Harder,' she moans, her voice muffled against the tiles.
And he gives it to her harder, deeper, faster, one hand sliding round to find her clit, and oh god, him from behind, his fingers from the front, it's too much, way too much.

She cums hard, clenching around him, biting her lip to muffle the sound, legs shaking, knees nearly going, his body the only thing keeping her upright as she shakes through it.
He doesn't stop. He keeps driving into her through every last wave of it, his breath ragged in her ear, his grip tightening.

Then he buries himself and comes, groaning low into her hair, filling her up, his whole body shuddering against her back.
They stay like that for a moment.
Just breathing.
His forehead against the back of her head, both of them still, the coffee machine still going through the wall.

Then he tucks himself away. She straightens her knickers, pulls up her leggings. They don't exchange numbers. They don't even look at each other. She unlocks the door, and he holds it open, and she goes first, back down the corridor, back past the flapjacks, back to her table.

Her latte is stone cold.
She drinks it anyway.
When she looks up, his table is empty. Coat gone, cup gone, like he was never there.

She sits with that for a moment, and thinks about the laundry again, about the emails, and notices how flat they seem compared to an hour ago. She wonders, briefly, if he’ll become a regular that she watches from afar or just a one‑off that stays sharp precisely because it never has to be anything else.

Then she smiles at the window, drains the last of her coffee, gathers her bag,
and leaves.