Arden didn’t have to think. Muscle memory guided the pour: clean, unhurried. She slid the glass toward him.
Their fingers met. A brush. Nothing more. But it was electric. Brief. Intentional or not, it held.
His grip tightened for a second. Her skin was too warm. Soft in a way that contradicted everything else about her.
But it wasn’t the touch that floored him. It was the look in her eyes. Unmoved. Unshaken. Unimpressed. Not trying to charm. Not trying to play. Just watching him. Measuring.
The background noise of the bar thinned. Everything else slipped out of focus. The moment stretched, taut and electric.
The air before a lightning strike. Thick with voltage.
Destruction, if either of them blinked first.
“Tell me something,”he said, eyes holding hers just a second too long. Whatever passed between them wasn’t quite a smile.
“What do you do for fun around here?”
Arden arched a brow, slicing him clean with a glance.
“That’s your opener?”
Her voice coiled like smoke: cool, unimpressed.
“The guy at the tire shop has better lines.
And he once told me my chassis looked ‘well-maintained.’”
Gideon’s laugh rumbled, low and real, rough around the edges.
He liked that she didn’t soften. The way she threw his words back with precision that dared him to keep up.
“Figured honesty was safer than charm,” he said. “Subtle doesn’t seem to play well here.”
She didn’t argue.
Her gaze drifted over the tailored lines of his suit.
“Neither does that suit.”
The line hung between them, taunting and amused, sharper than it needed to be.
Then, in a sudden shift, she leaned in. Mocking. Elegant. Dangerously close.
“So, tell me… what’s a woman like you doing in a place like this?”
“Careful. You’re stealing all my best material.”
She folded her arms, chin tilting.
Not playful. Not coy. Unshaken.
“Let me guess… You think being mysterious makes you more interesting?”
It shouldn’t have landed, but it did.
He felt it. Every word from her was both a wall and a test.
Nothing about her was asking to be won over.
