Chapter 24 A Night of Trivial Pursuits #2
The menu board blurred, chalk strokes swimming in Arden’s periphery. Pumpkin Patch Porter. Maple Moon Stout. Seasonal nonsense. She didn’t register a single one. Not when her senses lit up before her brain could name why.
Then, he was there.
Gideon.
She didn’t need to turn. The shift in the air gave him away. The sudden static, like a warning written in air. She felt him moving closer, heat and presence folding in until it pressed against her spine, weightless and suffocating all at once.
He saw her before she turned. And for one fractured heartbeat, he forgot how to breathe.
She’d taken off the jacket. Just lace now—black and sheer and fucking deadly. It clung to her like a dare, catching the light in all the worst places. Best places. The exact places his hands itched to be.
She was every contradiction that ever undid him.
Soft edges and sharpened steel. Her hips moved like temptation with muscle memory, her boots clicking out a rhythm that should’ve come with a warning.
That grace born of survival, not performance.
The scent of her—jasmine, vanilla, heat—moved through the air, delicate and deadly.
She turned, slow as a trigger pull, and their eyes met.
Electricity.
It was the only word for it. Not lust. Not even longing.
Power. Charged and volatile. A current neither of them could break.
“Running away?” he asked, his voice low—velvet over a blade.
She smiled. Slow. Dangerous. “Just thirsty.”
The lie passed easily off her tongue. But her pulse told a different story. Wild and erratic beneath her skin.
Her voice cut through the buzz of the bar, low and knowing.
“What’s your excuse?”
It wasn’t just a question; it was a dare, cloaked in casual ease.
He stepped in, too close, not close enough. Lifted a hand, called the bartender like it cost him nothing, though his pulse thundered in his throat.
“Two Autumn Ales,” he said. The authority in it made her want to bite his lip.
She arched a brow. “Ordering for me now?”
“You looked undecided.”
“And you looked cocky.”
A smirk. Almost imperceptible. Almost.
The bartender slid the glasses forward. Gideon handed her one, fingers brushing hers—brief, blistering. A touch so subtle, so fleeting, it should’ve meant nothing.
It meant everything.
The brush of his fingers lit a fuse beneath her skin. Heat knotted low in her belly, rising with every shallow breath. She took a sip—anything to anchor herself, anything to stop from leaning in.
Crisp. Spiced. Easy to love.
Unlike him.
“Bold move,” she murmured.
His eyes caught hers over the rim of his glass, and she swore the air tilted.
“Says the woman questioning my taste.”
“Maybe I’m testing it.”
“Maybe I like that.”
They hovered in the narrow space between maybe and more, the distance fragile, fleeting.
“You’re awfully confident tonight,” she said, her voice quieter than before—like naming it too loudly might break the spell. No longer teasing.
“I just know what I want.”
There it was. The quiet truth, dropped like a match in a room full of gasoline.
The words settled low and hot.
He wasn’t bluffing. This wasn’t banter anymore. He meant it.
And God help her, she felt it too.
She tilted her head, just slightly, testing the air between them.
“Do you?”
He didn’t blink.
“You tell me.”
He moved closer, each step an unspoken confession. Still no contact, but his restraint was a thread pulled tight, one breath from snapping.
She froze—not in fear, but in knowing. Because he wasn’t playing. Not this time.
The crowd surged behind her. She swayed a bit, and his hand was there. On her waist. Firm. Spanning the curve like he’d been there before, and never forgot.
Not exactly possessive.
Protective.
Heat crawled up her throat.
And his hand stayed.
And still, neither moved.
They stood locked in that too-small space, chests almost touching, lips inches apart. The bass from the speakers vibrated between them. She felt his breath on her cheek. Watched the tight control in his jaw. The war in his eyes.
Her breath ghosted over his throat; his pulse stuttered against her lips. His hand flexed at her side, grounding her and shattering her in the same motion.
She wanted to lean in.
Just a little.
Just enough.
Just a taste.
She didn’t.
She held her ground, refusing to retreat.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he murmured, voice scraped raw.
The slow drag of his thumb at her hip left her skin tingling, the lace unbearable, too aware of him.
Her shirt burned against her skin where his thumb traced small, steady circles. Her eyes flicked to his mouth, and when he swallowed—hard, she felt it everywhere.
“I don’t play games.”
Her whisper curled between them, a blade sheathed in silk.
“And I don’t back down.”
His mouth was too close. His restraint was thinning by the second.
“Careful, Rivers,” he said, voice rougher now, a crack forming beneath the surface. “You might not like what happens when I stop holding back.”
Her pulse spiked.
She looked up, eyes locked on his.
Saw the wreckage in them.
Felt her own breaking open in response.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, the words barely a breath.
The crowd jostled behind her, and her body pressed to his for one exquisite second.
Chest to chest. Hip to hip.
She felt the restraint shudder through him, the war he waged to keep his mouth off hers.
Her voice slipped out on a breath.
“Are you sure about that?”
He leaned in.
The world dimmed.
Their lips—so close, it would’ve taken nothing. Less than nothing. A breath. A misstep.
She didn’t kiss him.
But she didn’t move away.
And he didn’t dare blink.
Because this moment—this knife-edge of maybe—was the closest thing to surrender either of them had ever allowed.
Then the bartender dropped a beer stein, and the thud of stoneware sliced through the moment—a sharp reminder they weren’t alone.
She stepped back.
He let her.
Barely.
Her hand grazed his again, on purpose this time. A flicker of promise.
Then she turned, vanishing into the crowd with quiet finality.
He stood motionless, watching her disappear. The space she left behind carried her heat, but it felt colder than before.
His chest ached in places he thought long since dead.
For the first time, he didn’t wonder if he could survive wanting her.
He wondered if he could survive losing her.
The bar roared back to life, but none of it landed. His world shrank to the echo of her touch: the scent she left behind, the magnetic pull refusing to fade. On his skin, in his blood. That lace top? He’d never hated a fabric so much. Or wanted to tear it off more.
And she was walking away.
Every step she took felt like it tugged something vital from him, a connection stretching thin—taunting, daring him to chase. He didn’t. Not yet. But God, he wanted to. Wanted to close the distance, to say the thing that had been burning in his chest for weeks.
You’re it.
You’re the one I can’t look away from. The one I can’t stop wanting.
She moved through the crowd like she hadn’t just unraveled him. Like she wasn’t leaving him breathing in the ghost of her laugh, wondering if he imagined the way she’d leaned in. If that kiss had lived only in the space between them.
And Arden?
She felt him behind her like momentum in reverse, pulling her back with every step: an ache at her spine, her ribs, her pulse.
Each step cost her. Her body still burned from the press of his, her skin tingling where his fingers had gripped her waist like he meant it. Not a flirtation. Not a game.
A claim.
And it terrified her.
Because it would be so easy to turn around. To close that final inch and lose herself completely. To let him see what was hiding under all that sharpness and sass, how badly she wanted to be wanted by him.
But want was dangerous.
She’d wanted before.
And it had nearly broken her.
So, she kept walking.
She reached the edge of the crowd, chest tight, pulse hammering in her ears. Her fingers gripped the glass as if the weight of it might quiet everything else.
It couldn’t.
Behind her, Gideon hadn’t moved. He stood in the space they’d made, that fleeting pocket of charged silence—and stared.
He couldn’t go after her.
Not yet.
Because if he touched her again, he wouldn’t stop. Not this time.
And he wasn’t sure he could survive what came when she walked away.
But she turned, just slightly, glancing over her shoulder—her eyes finding his through the haze.
That look?
It undid him.
Because she wasn’t running.
She was waiting.
Next time she looked at him like that—open, daring, his—he wouldn’t hold back.
He wouldn’t let her walk away.
The bonus round hit like a drumroll, the entire room crackling with anticipation. Laughter echoed, pint glasses clinked, but at their table, the air tightened with focus. Arden and Gideon were tied with Penny and Dan—bantering, yes, but beneath it, each pair was playing to win.
“What jazz standard is often called the greatest love song ever written?” the host boomed, drawing a low collective hum from the crowd.
Arden’s pen hovered, her fingers still. She glanced at Gideon.
His eyes were steady on hers, unreadable but open, like he knew she had the answer. That silent confidence wrapped around her like a hand on her back—steadying, steadying, always steadying.
“Body and Soul,” she said, her voice quiet but certain, a thread of tension tightening around her ribs.
When the host confirmed the answer, a rare smile curved across Gideon’s face—not the one meant to shield, but the devastating one: raw, pure, unguarded. And it struck her breathless. Arden looked away, but her smile felt far too triumphant for trivia.
“You carried us after all,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only she could hear.
Feigning ease, she tilted her head, but her pulse betrayed her. The heat behind his gaze made her feel like she’d just stepped into sunlight.
“Told you I could.”