The hesitation in Arden’s step.
The way her eyes swept the room’s edges. Always scanning. Always attuned.
Then she let go.
And the music took her.
She didn’t dance to be seen. Didn’t perform for the crowd.
It wasn’t rehearsed or polished. It was purer. A pulse from within.
Instinct.
A current all her own.
She was the flame in a sea of noise.
Light against a backdrop that never deserved her.
His Little Fire.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Studied. Memorized. Possessed in silence.
Someone moved too close.
Heat flared beneath his skin. A fracture split through him.
The man leaned in, too familiar.
Arden shifted slightly, polite and practiced.
A faint smile. A measured step back. The space reclaimed.
She kept her composure.
But the stranger had been close enough to touch her.
Close enough to remind him how easily people forgot what she was worth.
His hands curled, fists buried deep in his coat.
Not yet.
Tonight wasn’t for blood.
It was for learning.
She returned to the bar, breath short, cheeks flushed.
Penny that made her laugh, full and unguarded.
It gutted him.
That sound. That light.
She touched her hair again. Fingertips at her jaw, soft and unthinking. That tilt of her head—like she knew he was watching and wanted him to see. As if she were daring him to look.
She had no idea what she did to people.
