He pins me harder, both hands at my wrists now, holding me down like he knows I want it. Like he knows the fight in me only burns brighter when I feel trapped.
“I see you,” he murmurs against my skin. “All of you.”
And Ibelievehim.
The room spins. My hips grind up into his, and he lets out a sound that’s part growl, part groan. It vibrates against my chest, sinks into my bones. I think I scream, or maybe it’s his name, but?—
I wake up.
Gasping.
The sheets are a tangled mess beneath me. My shirt’s soaked through. My thighs are slick with sweat and something else, and my heart’s trying to punch its way out of my ribcage.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling, throat raw.
The scarf is still around my neck.
And I can’t tell if I’m terrified or turned on.
Maybe both. Waiting for my next performance becomes agonizing. I keep wondering if he’ll be back.
The air changes the second I step out—like static before a lightning strike, like breath caught in a throat just before a scream. I don’t see him yet, but Iknowhe’s here. My skin prickles with that uncanny awareness, heat pooling low in my belly before my eyes even find him. It’s not fear. Not anymore. It’s something worse. Or better. I can’t decide.
The minute my bare feet meet the stage, I feel the shift—not in the music, not in the crowd’s roar—but in me. In the blood thrumming under my skin. The curtain parts and the heat from the flame pits wraps around my ankles like a dare. I step forward into the light, and my eyes lift—drawn like a compass needle.
He’s a silhouette at first—broad-shouldered, coiled like a warship at idle. He leans just under the cracked holo-ad blinking every few seconds, bathing him in sickly neon, then shadow. Arms folded across his chest like a gate that won’t open for anyone. Except maybe me. Maybe.
His eyes catch the firelight and throw it back in twin glints of coal and hunger.
The stage feels slippery beneath my soles. Not because of the polish or the flame residue—because my lungs misfire. I catch a breath halfway through a transition, and the fire spinner nearly slips from my grip. I recover before anyone sees. Beforehesees. But inside? I’m molten.
I flow into the rhythm like I always do, but tonight it isn’t for show. The sway of my hips, the arc of fire across my arms, the slow burn of the routine—it’s not for them. It’s not for the crowd, or the pit boss, or even Ceera.
It’s for him.
Every flick of my wrist, every slide of my heel across the floor whispers the shape of him against my back. I feel his imagined breath at my nape when I arch, the phantom heat of his claws along the curve of my spine. My body pulses with a choreography I didn’t rehearse. Something deeper. Older. Primal.
My thighs brush and cling, and my breath catches in my throat again—this time on purpose. I spin. I dip. I let the scarf coil around my neck like a leash and pretend it’s his grip that keeps me tethered to the ground.
His face never changes. Still. Set. Like he’s carved from stone. But I see the tension in his stance. The slow tightening in his jaw. The way his eyes refuse to blink, like if he closes them, he might miss something important.
Gods, I want to make him break.
The final beat drops like thunder. My body lifts, spins, lands low in a crouch. The fire roars around me, curling like a serpent ready to strike, then dies in a hiss of steam and silence. I rise slow. Deliberate. Eyes still locked on his.
He doesn't move.
But something in me does. Something big. Something unspoken and inevitable.
Backstage haze clings to me as I vanish behind the curtain, the hush of cooling metal and sweat-slick skin replacing the roar of the crowd. But it’s not the applause that buzzes in my ears—it’s the way he looked at me. Like I was both predator and prey. Like he was waiting for me to decide which one I wanted to be.
I press a palm to my sternum, trying to will my heart back into rhythm. My fingers tremble, and when I reach up to unwind the scarf, I stop halfway. I don’t want to take it off. Not yet. It feels like a link—like if I let it go, I’ll lose whatever passed between us out there on the floor.
Not a word exchanged. Not a touch traded.
But I’ve never been touched more in my life.
When I exhale, it shudders. I blink at my reflection in the metal mirror, sweat slicking my temples, smoke curling in my hair.
